Leading Change at Scale Without Losing the Learner
Mar 11, 2026Large-scale change in higher education often comes with a familiar fear: What gets lost when we scale?
Efficiency increases, costs decrease, systems improve—but somewhere along the way, the learner experience can become abstract.
In this episode of the Engaged By Design Podcast, my conversation with Andrea Dunn offers a powerful counterexample.
Andrea spent years leading enterprise-level course materials and Open Educational Resource (OER) initiatives that impacted tens of thousands of students. What made her work different wasn’t just the size of the effort—it was the mindset behind it.
At its core, course materials are not an operational problem. They are a learning problem.
When materials arrive late, are inaccessible, or are outdated, students feel it immediately. Andrea describes how digital-first course materials and OER removed barriers that students often don’t have the time or energy to navigate—shipping delays, cost uncertainty, access issues for military and international learners. By embedding materials directly into the learning environment, the experience became simpler, more equitable, and more consistent.
But scale doesn’t happen without complexity.
What stood out in this conversation was how much listening happened behind the scenes. Faculty concerns about quality. Librarian expertise around licensing and accessibility. Student support teams fielding questions in real time. Rather than pushing change onto people, Andrea worked with these voices early—using pilots, iteration, and clear governance to build trust.
The result wasn’t just lower costs. It was better alignment between learning outcomes and learning resources.
The payoff for leaders is clear: when you treat infrastructure decisions as learning decisions, scale becomes an advantage rather than a threat. Systems can actually amplify care when they are designed intentionally.
If you’re leading change—especially from the middle—this episode is a reminder that learner-centered leadership isn’t about resisting scale. It’s about shaping it.
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