{"id":53293,"date":"2026-08-19T10:11:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T15:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=53293"},"modified":"2026-08-19T10:11:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T15:11:56","slug":"acc-chancellor-challenges-higher-education-to-put-students-before-bureaucracy-in-new-national-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2026\/08\/19\/acc-chancellor-challenges-higher-education-to-put-students-before-bureaucracy-in-new-national-podcast\/","title":{"rendered":"ACC Chancellor Challenges Higher Education to Put Students Before Bureaucracy in New National Podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Austin Community College District (ACC) Chancellor Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart is featured on TRANSFORM<strong>ED<\/strong>, a national podcast from Higher Digital focused on the people, strategies, and technologies shaping the future of higher education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a conversation with Higher Digital CEO and Co-Founder Wayne Bovier, Dr. Lowery-Hart explores why meaningful transformation requires more than new technology. He discusses how colleges can rethink the systems and bureaucracy that can stand in the way of student success and create institutions that are more responsive to the people they serve.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Breaking the Silos: Why Higher Ed Needs to Stop \u201cHigher-Ed-ing\u201d Itself Recap<\/h4>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Designing around students:<\/strong> How ACC is rethinking institutional systems so students don&#8217;t have to navigate unnecessary complexity to get the support they need.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Moving beyond \u201chigher-ed-ing\u201d: <\/strong>Lowery-Hart discusses higher education&#8217;s tendency to respond to challenges by adding more processes, policies, and layers\u2014and what it takes to break that cycle.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Empowering people closest to students:<\/strong> Why giving faculty and staff the ability to identify problems and create solutions is essential to meaningful change.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Listening before leading:<\/strong> How listening directly to students has helped ACC better understand the barriers that affect their success, both inside and outside the classroom.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Using AI to strengthen human connection:<\/strong> How emerging technology can streamline administrative work and reduce friction, giving faculty and staff more time to focus on students.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The conversation offers a national look at ACC&#8217;s approach to institutional transformation and its efforts to build a more responsive, student-centered college for the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/higher.digital\/breaking-the-silos-why-higher-ed-needs-to-stop-higher-ed-ing-itself-russell-lowery-hart\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Listen to the full conversation on TRANSFORM<strong>ED<\/strong>, a Higher Digital podcast.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Austin Community College District (ACC) Chancellor Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart is featured on TRANSFORMED, a national podcast from Higher Digital focused on the people, strategies, and technologies shaping the future of higher education. In a conversation &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2026\/08\/19\/acc-chancellor-challenges-higher-education-to-put-students-before-bureaucracy-in-new-national-podcast\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3930,"featured_media":53296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[2340,2414,4439],"class_list":["post-53293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-announcements","category-updates","tag-acc-chancellor","tag-russell-lowery-hart","tag-transformed"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3930"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53294,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53293\/revisions\/53294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}