Breaking Down Silos: What It Really Takes to Build a Connected College

Author Elliot Felix joins Higher Voltage to discuss how colleges and universities can operate more efficiently and effectively.

36 minutes
By: Higher Voltage

Most institutions don’t suffer from a lack of mission — they suffer from a lack of alignment. That’s the case that Elliot Felix makes in his book “The Connected College,” and on the latest Higher Voltage, Felix joins host Kevin Tyler to unpack a deceptively simple question: What would it look like if colleges were actually connected?

Felix argues that Silos form innocently: A new office pops up to solve a problem. A support service gets rebranded but not integrated. Before long, students are navigating a maze of writing labs, advising offices, career centers, and portals that don’t speak to one another.

A connected college, Felix explains, intentionally builds five key connections: belonging, support, course-to-career pathways, internal collaboration, and external partnerships. It’s less about org charts and more about experience.

The starting point? Strategy. Not a glossy PDF filed away for accreditation, but a focused, usable framework that answers two hard questions: where to play and how to win. Without that clarity, institutions default to “do more with less,” spreading teams thin and diluting impact. With it, they can prioritize — and say no.

Felix also makes the case that designing for adult and online learners improves the experience for everyone. When institutions streamline tech stacks, coordinate advising, and integrate career development into coursework (instead of treating it as an extracurricular), traditional students benefit too. If only 24% of undergraduates take a for-credit course exploring career paths, there’s a massive opportunity hiding in plain sight.

Underpinning it all is design thinking: understand people, make connections, co-create solutions, and prototype before scaling. Test. Learn. Adapt.

The takeaway? Becoming a connected college isn’t about tearing everything down. It’s about turning toward one another — across departments, across functions, and most importantly, toward students — and building systems that make success the default, not the exception.

Higher Voltage

Higher Voltage

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Higher Voltage explores what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change in higher education. Higher Voltage isn’t just for anyone who works in higher education—it’s for anyone who is interested in or cares about higher education.

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