Howard University’s legacy of exceptional students, alumni, and faculty is very much alive today, considered a “home for excellence in truth and service” by those part of its community. Morris Thomas, PhD, MBA, PMP, helps set the standard across Howard’s vibrant academic landscape by bringing a unique blend of expertise, innovation, and vision to his leadership roles on campus. As an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies within the School of Education, he instills dynamic leadership principles in future educators. Simultaneously, his role as a Faculty Lecturer in the School of Business enables him to bridge the worlds of education and business.
At the institutional level, Dr. Thomas directs the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CETLA), fostering interdisciplinary collaboration across Howard’s 14 schools and colleges to advance teaching quality and professional learning. Notably, as the inaugural Assistant Provost for the Office of Digital and Online Learning, he pioneers initiatives to expand Howard’s reach through accessible, high-quality online programs, underscoring his commitment to making education equitable and transformative. In a recent conversation, Dr. Thomas shared insights on his approach to digital transformation and interdisciplinary collaboration. Here are edited excerpts from our discussion.
One thing that I’m focused on is the Office of Digital and Online Learning’s motto of advancing opportunities and expanding our reach. That means creating rich online programs to provide Howard’s traditional quality of teaching excellence in a more accessible modality for those who cannot to relocate to Washington, D.C., making education more ubiquitous.
It’s quite a dynamic role as far as what I’m charged to do since the DOL is charged with several all-encompassing objectives, including:
Among many responsibilities under my purview in the DOL is a unit called Learning Design and Quality Assurance, whose primary job is to work with faculty transitioning traditional course content into a digital modality.
When you have training in the Performing Arts, you’re trained in much more than just your instrument. My principal instrument was voice, but you have to understand diction. You have to understand history. You have to understand blocking. You have to understand commanding a room, commanding a stage, projecting, etc. So many aspects go in to understanding the delivery of an engaging performance, whether it be an entire opera or just one aria. Also in the performing arts, one has to be in tune with their role as well as the ensemble cast, and this skillset/awareness has benefitted me in my current positions.
These same things, while the context is different, exist when it comes to leading Howard’s Office of Digital and Online Learning. You have to understand where to come in. You need to understand the meter or timing. What is the cadence that needs to happen for this particular act/project to be successful? I believe my Performing Arts background has made me a much more prepared educator and administrator because I understand not only how to see the bigger picture, but it has also given me the ability to really pay attention to details.
EchoVideo allows us to create, manage, and integrate video into the learning experience, and it really allows for more of a transformative learning environment. And so, in thinking about being creative and making learning more engaging, EchoVideo allows the digital learning experience to really tap into the traditional three levels of engagement in a new way.
The first is engaging learners with one another. Whether you’re allowing the learners to create their own videos using EchoVideo to communicate with one another. Second is engaging learners with the content, whether that is interactive components that I’m infusing with EchoVideo content or repeatable, asynchronous content that I am creating for my learners to engage with on their own time.
Third is them being able to engage with me, their professor, as well as allow me to provide content and communicate directly with the learners. So, it really allows for all the traditional levels of engagement in a more dynamic way. I always call EchoVideo a learning engagement solution; it is not just a lecture capture tool because it really facilitates the creation of an engaging and transformative learning environment.
Education and business have more in common than one might think. In the business sector, we understand that there are the elements of return on investment or value proposition that influence decisions on resource allocation. In education, sometimes people almost portray the education sector like we are exempt from thinking about business models, practices, value propositions, quality assurance, regulations, and compliance. The business side of the education industry relies on many of the same models, practices, and infrastructures as in other businesses, of which information systems are a critical shared component.
Information systems are, one, costly, and two, always changing. You must be prepared. One thing I suggest in an article I wrote titled, “Stronger Together: Course Content and Learning Technology,” is that all education today involves learning technology and information systems. It’s almost impossible to teach in any modality without technology, whether that be in-person, hybrid, Hy-flex, or exclusively online. All of these learning modalities, employed in higher education and business contexts , depend on similar or even the same technologies and information systems.
We don’t just follow rankings, but I think that in this instance they’re reflections of the work and the research that faculty are doing. Being a faculty member in both of those schools and serving as the director of Howard’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CETLA), I’ve been able to engage both bodies of faculty deeply. One thing I find synergistic across both schools is how open-minded the faculty are to new theories, disruptive technologies, information, and industry trends. I think that all Howard faculty consider themselves lifelong learners that consequently can evolve with the rapidly changing landscape of higher education.
One thing I can say that the School of Business and School of Education do have in common is that they both have online programs. The School of Education launched its first online program this year and is launching another one in the fall, while the School of Business has some of our oldest online programs, with four currently active. Both schools work closely with my team at the Office of Digital and Online Learning around online learning design, quality assurance, and using our teaching solutions like EchoVideo to distribute exclusively online courses.
The purpose of our CETLA, as roughly one third of U.S. universities have them, is to foster an environment that promotes continuous improvement and excellence in teaching, learning, and assessment by exploring various changes or adaptations to those university functions, including how digital learning solutions help create these very dynamic learning environments and experiences. CETLA does that across the 14 colleges and schools by appointing faculty members to serve as fellows.
Appointees from various disciplines provide training and workshops for anyone who teaches at Howard University, so part-time lecturers, master instructors, assistant professors, clinical professors, everyone is welcome to attend these events. CETLA typically has at least 15 offerings per semester, with many synchronous events and a number of asynchronous activities.
We also have an AI Faculty Scholar Community that’s really focused on Generative AI, not only in the landscape of higher education but also beyond, looking at societal impacts. So my team at CETLA create a number of opportunities, both in-person and online, where faculty can come together from across the different colleges and schools to learn from one another.
The only thing I would share is that within any of the aspects or components of using technology or teaching and learning, is that we have to remember the human element or “The WHOLE Experience.” I actually have created a model called “The WHOLE Experience Framework” (WEF) to help center the human factors involved in various contexts because sometimes we get more concerned and focused on the particular technology, or this practice or that practice, or even our content area. But we have to remember the whole experience — the whole of ourselves.
If we’re the professor or instructor, we have to make sure that we are also focused on what we’re bringing into that context. We have to understand that we are impacting the lives of students who are pursuing careers and oftentimes have competing life priorities. I created the WEF because there was a need for a lens to facilitate environments that acknowledge the human experience. I wanted to make sure we didn’t become detached or inhumane in our thinking and teaching practices.
Remember yourself. Remember your learners. Remember that this is a WHOLE Experience, and that there will constantly be new technologies, evolution, and change. We have been the constant, and we have to remember that.
