The landscape of higher education is changing right before our eyes, and students are not waiting for institutions to chart their own path; they are charting it themselves. In professional networks, startup communities or social platforms, learners are finding ways to develop skills, gain visibility and have a voice, sometimes even outside formal academic structures.
This transformation challenges colleges to evolve from credentialing what students know to empowering who they can become. That requires moving beyond systems designed for compliance toward ecosystems built for creativity, belonging and courage.
Empowerment is not a program but a mindset. Furthermore, if higher education is to remain relevant, it must cultivate institutional cultures that invite risk, reward innovation and value the learner’s whole journey—both inside and beyond the classroom. Empowerment is the new equity: it is not about access to education but access to agency.
Leadership Through Risk
The most significant barrier to innovation in higher education is not funding but fear. Too many institutions have built their identity around what has worked, not what might work next. Real change demands leaders who are willing to pilot ideas before perfecting them.
When I began my tenure at SUNY Rockland Community College, I was fortunate to work under the leadership of Dr. Sue Deer, who exemplified the spirit of courageous experimentation. During the first week on the job, she handed me a small pin shaped like a pair of wings, the kind flight crews used to give to children after a plane ride. She smiled and said, “We can’t commit to everything, but we can pilot them to see what works.”
That tiny act had monumental importance. Authentic leadership is not about being correct but being liberating. Under Sue’s leadership, I learned that piloting is an act of faith—in your people, in your learners and also in the very act of discovery.
The wings functioned as a sign and as an experiment. Over several months, my team led the college’s first microcredential initiative. The original idea for a small pilot project to assess validity and flexibility quickly turned into a movement that transformed how the institution linked the learning it offered to identified workforce needs. The message was quite simple: When you create a culture and a space where it is safe to try things out and experiment, innovation does not simply happen; it literally flies. Empowerment thrives in cultures that value courage over certainty.
Ecosystem Thinking in Action
Empowerment cannot exist within the walls of a single classroom or even a single institution. It flourishes when higher education positions itself as the center of an ecosystem rather than the top of a hierarchy. Throughout my career, I have seen what happens when colleges open their doors not just to students but also to partners, employers, community organizations and local leaders who share in the responsibility of developing talent and expanding opportunity.
At both Kansas City Kansas Community College and SUNY Rockland Community College, ecosystem thinking transformed how we designed programs and recognized learning. We embedded experiential learning directly into the curriculum so that theory and practice moved hand in hand. We built partnerships with employers who co-designed credentials around real-world skills, and we expanded credit for prior learning to honor knowledge gained through work and life experience.
Recent research on the entrepreneurial mindset reflects this change. Scholars like Degefu (2024) and Shabbir (2025) have pointed out that entrepreneurship is not just about starting a business but a mindset that cultivates qualities such as curiosity, flexibility and resilience in all settings. When higher education intentionally embeds these traits through experiential learning and interdisciplinary collaboration, it prepares students not just for jobs but for journeys. Empowerment happens when institutions stop guarding learning and start growing it.
Measuring What Matters
Higher education has long defined success in terms of inputs and outputs—enrollment, credit hours and graduation rates. While these measures are valid data points, they do not tell the deeper story of what is being transformed: the growth of agency, confidence and purpose in the learners themselves. Educational psychologist Edmund W. Gordon reminds us that assessment should serve learning, not ranking, and that how we measure reflects what we value.
In this mindset, empowerment-focused institutions are reconceptualizing assessment as a process for affirmation and agency-credit for prior learning, recognition of workplace skills and validation of entrepreneurial problem solving. These practices shift the nature of assessment from compliance to capacity building, aligning with Gordon’s concept of evaluation in the name of human development. The most powerful outcomes are not measured in degrees earned but in possibilities realized.
The Courage to Reimagine
The future of higher education depends on courage—courage to let go of legacy systems that no longer serve today’s learners and courage to design new ones that reflect the realities of the modern world.
When institutions measure growth the way Edmund Gordon envisioned and nurture the kind of entrepreneurial curiosity Degefu and Shabbir describe, they shift from managing learners to mobilizing them. When higher education embraces its role not as a gatekeeper of opportunity but as a catalyst for empowerment, it does more than prepare students for work. It prepares them for life. Because when we lead with courage and empower others to soar, education fulfills its highest purpose.
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