Program Architecture & Teaching

5 Most Critical Challenges Facing Higher Education Today.

Prioritizing Career-Ready Student Outcomes
Creating New Revenue Sources
Shifting Workforce Demands
Maintaining Competitive Edge
Better Serving Our Communities

How do universities we stay relevant, competitive and educate the workforce for the future? How do we bridge the gap with the skills, knowledge, and experience students leave universities with and what helps them succeed in their career? Why do universities continue to rely on old models, despite the most competitive labor market and demand for career-relevant experience ever.

Joel helps universities address those challenges.

A bold shift is needed to address our talent needs of the future.

Turn your strategic imperatives into growth opportunities.

Joel helps institutions to design, accelerate, and lead academic programs that strengthen student experience, career readiness, and workforce impact. His work spans undergraduate and graduate degrees, professional certificates, continuing education, and curricular innovation across multiple modalities.

He has led the developed and scaled some of the nation’s most recognized academic programs. At the University of Colorado, he founded the Masters of the Environment (MENV)graduate professional program, the university’s flagship sustainability program. While Joel was Director, MENV enrollment grew 6.5x in five years, 3000% 5-year ROI, 98% student retention, and became the Mountain West’s largest largest professional development and leadership training program in sustainability. He was also the founding director of the Outdoor Recreation Economy graduate professional program, the nation’s only comprehensive program to serve the $862b industry. Built on a novel stacked-certificate design at 1/3 the cost of residential programming, and grew 4x in the 1st 2 years.

Joel has worked across disciplines and institutional types—from public research universities to small, private institutions and business. He has also served as an advisor to numerous other university and professional programs. Joel also teaches >30,000 students annually at the University of Colorado, through Coursera and through corporate partners.

Program Development Highlights:

Founding Director of University of Colorado’s Master’s of the Environment graduate professional program.
Founding Director of University of Colorado’s Outdoor Recreation Economy Program
University of Colorado’s School of the Environment
Outdoor Industry Association’s Outdoor Industry Business Certificate
National Geographic’s first On-Campus program
University of New Hampshire’s Community Development Policy & Practice professional master’s program
University of New Hampshire’s Earth School
University of New Hampshire Department of Geography’s internship program
University of Michigan’s International Programs in Engineering

Practice Areas & Solutions

Strategy, program architecture, scaling, innovation

Student experience

Residential, remote, multi-modal offerings

Partnerships & industry relations

Career-integrated learning

Leadership, management, operations, personnel

FOR

Academic Programming: Degrees, Certificates, Micro-credentials

Continuing Ed: Executive Ed, Bootcamps, & Master Classes

Career-Connected & Experiential Learning

Industry Partnerships & Student Connection

Services

Assessments & Planning

Program Strategy & Architecture

Implementation

Strategic Partnerships

Branding & Communications

Examples of Past Work

Program Design

Explore a collection of past work where institutions and organizations have dared to be bold, bridging capability and human capital to lead the future.

Founding Director
Masters of the Environment

University of Colorado