Higher Ed DisruptED - Notes from Collegis and Google's Leadership Conference

Oct 22, 2025

Guest

Phil Hill

Phil Hill, higher ed analyst and blogger, offers market and AI perspectives. Casey Evans, leader at ASU EdPlus, talks scaling learner-centered access. Charles Elliott, Google AI leader, explores AI for translation and curricular change. Kim Fahey, Collegis CEO, frames tech and data modernization for institutions. They discuss AI tools, data readiness, scaling innovation, and retention research in higher education.

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INSIGHT

Collegis As A Tech-First Partner

Collegis positions itself as a technology-and-data-first managed services partner for colleges.
Kim Fahey says schools cannot keep pace alone and need partners to leverage AI and modern tech.

INSIGHT

AI Reframes Textbooks And Translation

Google sees AI as accelerating new learning formats and making translation and personalization far more accessible.
Charles Elliott highlights textbooks' relevance being questioned as AI re-visualizes and translates material.

ADVICE

Show Up And Lead Through AI Change

Keep showing up and confront AI-driven change instead of hiding from it.
Charles Elliott urges leaders to address complexity and own change management now.

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In this special episode of Trending in Ed, host Mike Palmer is LIVE! at Google's Headquarters in Chicago for Collegis Education's DisruptED event, providing highlights from six in-depth interviews with nine leaders in higher ed, technology, data, market analysis, and research.

We begin by hearing from Kim Fahey, the CEO of Collegis, who provides some framing about the role her team plays providing managed services to schools trying to leverage technology, data and innovation in new and relevant ways. Kim kicks things off and helps frame the context and the conversations that follow.

Then Mike interviews Charles Elliott from Google and Matt Lachey from Collegis about how Google's AI capabilities can transform higher ed delivery, rethinking textbooks, providing real-time translation, and reimagining what AI-powered learning might look like.

From there, we catch up with Casey Evans and Amanda Gulley from EdPlus at ASU about the genuinely disruptive work Michael Crow and team are continuing to do at scale and what can be learned from their example.

Phil Hill is a Higher Ed Blogger, Speaker, and Market Analyst, who joins Mike to share his unique takes on the current state of the higher ed market, the unique opportunities of this turbulent moment, and the profound impact and potential of AI on the space. Don't miss it!

Dan Antonson heads up data engineering for Collegis and shares his insights and takes on how to get higher ed caught up and ready from a systems abd data perspective so that higher ed leaders can truly leverage the transformative capabilities that are emerging with AI and more.

And then we conclude by exploring new research on Retention with Jim Fong and Tracy Chapman as we wrap up an incredible "lightning round" on the future of education from an intense and productive Fall day in Chicago.

Thanks to Alyssa Miller, Wes Catlett-Miller and the teams at Collegis and Google for helping make this episode a reality. Be on the lookout for the full interviews in upcoming episodes of Trending in Ed and as we light up the new Trending in Higher Ed feed in coming months.

Subscribe to Trending in Ed wherever you get your podcast. Rate and review us and spread the word so we can continue to dive into what's new and emerging from the world of education.

00:00 Mike's Introduction

01:37 Kim Fahey

05:03 Charles Elliott and Matt Lachey

09:36 Casey Evans and Amanda Gulley

14:04 Phil Hill

18:54 Dan Antonson

23:04 Tracy Chapman and Jim Fong