Why does a bachelor’s degree need to take four years and 120 credits? More importantly, what would happen if colleges started with the learning outcomes students actually need and designed backward from there?

In Part 1 of our conversation with Dr. Lori Carrell, Chancellor of the University of Minnesota Rochester and co-founder of the College-in-3 Exchange, we explore the origins of a national movement to rethink the structure of the bachelor’s degree.

Lori traces her own path from a curious child growing up in a rural community to professor, higher education reformer, and what she calls an “accidental chancellor.” She explains how her work with Robert Zemsky eventually led to College-in-3 and a growing network of institutions exploring intentionally designed three-year bachelor’s degrees.

But this is not simply about cutting 30 credits from an existing degree.

Lori argues that the real opportunity is to use research about how people learn, design around meaningful student outcomes, improve completion and career preparation, and make higher education more affordable at the same time.

In This Episode

• Lori’s journey from rural childhood to university chancellor
• Why curiosity and even boredom can be powerful forces for learning
• How Lori met Robert Zemsky
• The conversations that led to Communicate for a Change
• Where the original three-year degree idea came from
• How the pandemic helped reopen possibilities for higher education redesign
• UMR’s faculty design sprint and the prototype for an accelerated degree
• Why a three-year degree cannot simply be a four-year degree with courses removed
• How faculty teams across disciplines became early College-in-3 explorers
• The role of accreditors and policymakers in making experimentation possible
• Why seat time and learning are not the same thing
• Lori’s critique that higher education values learning research but often fails to implement it at scale
• Designing simultaneously for quality, completion, affordability, and career launch
• What institutions considering three-year degrees should think about first

About Lori Carrell

Lori J. Carrell, Ph.D., is Chancellor of the University of Minnesota Rochester and co-founder of the College-in-3 Exchange.

Her academic background is in human communication, and her scholarship and leadership have focused on learning innovation, communication, institutional change, student success, and wellbeing.

Before becoming UMR’s second chancellor in 2018, she served the campus as vice chancellor for academic and student affairs and interim chancellor. Earlier, she was a professor of communication and led teaching, learning, and general education reform at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

She is co-author with Robert Zemsky of Communicate for a Change: Revitalizing Conversations for Higher Education.

Resources Mentioned

College-in-3 Exchange
Learn more about the national effort to redesign undergraduate education around increased student success and lower student costs.
College-in-3 Exchange

College-in-3 Overview
Background on how the movement began and its goals for three-year bachelor’s degree innovation.
College-in-3 in a Nutshell

Communicate for a Change: Revitalizing Conversations for Higher Education
Lori Carrell and Robert Zemsky, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021.
View the book at Johns Hopkins University Press

University of Minnesota Rochester
University of Minnesota Rochester

Lori Carrell — UMR
UMR senior leadership

Forthcoming Book

Lori discusses a new book project telling the story of College-in-3, being developed with Robert Zemsky and Kimberly Sluis of Strada Education Foundation.

Public University of Minnesota materials have previously identified the project as:

College-in-3: An Overdue Conversation about Reducing Cost and Improving Quality

The project has been associated publicly with Johns Hopkins University Press, although final publication details have not yet been announced.

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