From Industry to Academia: John Leever on inspiring Change at National Louis University

In our monthly series, we shine the spotlight on the remarkable achievements and contributions of individuals who are making a difference in higher education.

We recently spoke with John Leever, Executive Director for Enterprise Applications at National Louis University. He shared how he inspires others and advances the field through his work.

What inspired you to pursue a career in higher education?

I worked for a company that was doing manufacturing, and I did IT work similar to what I do now. After a while I decided to leave there and look for a new position. The problem was that I signed an agreement that I could not work in a manufacturing company for one year. I looked for different industries and ended up in higher ed back in 1999.

Is there a specific moment you consider a milestone in your higher education career?

Switching from a corporate environment and moving into higher education was a bit of a culture shock. In the corporate world, we didn't share information with any outside competition. I was working at the Illinois Institute of Technology then; I got a request from one of our vendors to send some code I wrote. So I asked my boss about this weird question. He said it was fine, so I sent him my code.

This was in the early 2000s, and I attended the Systems-Centered Training conference that year. The people from the university found me and gave me a T-shirt from their school. They appreciated getting the code; it was an easy fix with just a few changes. I made an impact not just where I was, working with what I was doing, but also at another university.

Could you point to a time when you made a significant impact in the lives of students you served?

We were installing Degree Works and could see a degree audit and know what it's doing. I wondered what a student would think of this. We had a student worker in the registrar's office look at it. And he said, 'Look at this. All I need is this course and this course, and I graduate.' Right then and there, he could see it within seconds of using the product, make information, and take it to where he needed to be.

Is there something about your work that you would change and what would that be?

What we do every day is try to make everybody else's life easier. If I can write a program to do it because I don't want to keep doing this every time, I carry that forward to the people I work with.

Sometimes, in a meeting or conversation, someone says, 'Hey, you know we're doing all this work…' I think one of the things I'd like to change is to get people to realize a little more to come to us first. Quit taking the 'I'll do everything myself' attitude. Bring it to IT and say, 'Hey, can you do some stuff here?' Mostly, we can.

What are the values that you hold dear in terms of approaching student success?

First of all, I value honor. What do I have to do to be honorable? (In a previous corporate role), we made heating elements that you might see in electric stoves … I never felt connected to what we were doing. One day, while running a report, I noticed that one of our customers was Fisher-Price. It clicked. Fisher-Price makes plastic toys for kids, and I'm in the toy manufacturing business, so I felt a little happier about what I was doing.

When I started working in higher ed, it was totally different. I didn't have to search for some reason; this company made me feel good. I already felt good. I was amazed because they found problems, and that's what I wanted. But it was a student worker, and seeing them apply those skills to the real world was so exciting. Knowing that my job is making an impact, what I'm doing is furthering not only someone's life but the life of all mankind, is how I see it.

We are helping students learn. Who knows what that student will do in the future and what impact they'll make? I'm a step in that process for them, so that's the value that keeps me doing what I do.

Can you talk about the current institution you work at and your feelings about it in terms of values and alignment with your personal goals?

National Louis University has been around for more than 100 years. When I came to National Louis seven years ago, it was a shock because they had a program that they had implemented a year before. The President went to her reports and said, 'We need to figure out a way to get students in here that they can afford.' So they did that.

We have programs for incoming freshmen, the Federal Pell Grant and the Illinois State Map grant, that cover tuition. There's no out-of-pocket for them. This university keeps it in conjunction with those Pell Grant map grants so that it doesn't impact the students for that. It shocked me because I was used to seeing a tuition raise of three percent, five percent every year. They looked at it and said, 'No, we're not raising these things. We're figuring out how to make it affordable.' That is huge.

You hear about making things sustainable. This is making it affordable and changes people's lives. Now, people who probably never thought they were going to go to college (can go). It's a very humbling thing for me to see that happen. In the corporate world, it was always about making more money or how do we get more bang for our buck. Here, we're not trying to get bang for the buck. We're trying to give a bang.

Higher education institutions are known for a lot of things. One of them is traditions. Do you have a tradition that's one of your favorites from the university you attended or your current university?

Illinois Institute of Technology is into engineering and science and all kinds of programs of that nature. Right before Halloween, they had the students build devices to throw pumpkins … trebuchets. They did this year after year. During business hours, we'd all go to the field to watch them throw the pumpkins and see how far they could get them.

Once, the team set up their device, and we were watching and waiting for things to happen. Suddenly, we saw the team turn the device around. They had it set incorrectly and aimed at one of the buildings. It was well within range, so it was humorous.

It was fun to see the students exploring something different than just going to school or the library. They got to experiment, play around, and have fun while challenging each other.

What advice would you have for others who are aspiring to make a positive impact in higher education?

Higher education is changing in itself. AI creates a different work environment that we're just starting to explore. We have another team working on some stuff to make it easier for people to see that data. Students are still students. They're still coming to school and need to learn everything they can do. If they're looking for a job, a career, or at least an organization that you can feel good about working at where they want to see an impact. Higher ed is the place to be and is the final step for most students.

What role do you think institutions have in ensuring that students, staff, faculty, and the whole institution are competent and knowledgeable about AI?

At a recent Ellucian Live conference, I was in one of the sessions, and somebody asked how many people have yet to use AI. That was two months ago, and I was the only one who raised my hand. They said, 'OK, you have to do that today.' So, I asked some silly questions and got some silly answers.

We returned to campus, and I also encouraged my team to use AI. One day, I had a question. I didn't know the syntax of a specific Unix command, so I asked ChatGPT. It gave me the exact answer. If I had done that with Google and data search, I would have gotten hundreds of possible answers but not the answer. That's what I realized is the difference between a search engine and AI. I encourage people to learn to ask questions.

AI has saved us several times within the last two months. One of the teams is working on an AI way to present student data to advisors. If you work on an ERP system or any organizational system, you'll see that data is stored everywhere. If you want to look up students' GPAs, you go to one page, and if you want to see what courses they took, you go somewhere else. Our team is developing this so you can go to one place and get it all together.

At the Ellucian conference, Maurice Conti said, 'In the next 20 years, we'll see as much advancement as we've had in the last 2000 years. It's time to embrace AI.'

There are some challenges around our students using AI for homework. One day, I was playing a game with my grandchildren. They gave me a piece of paper and asked, 'What is 2 + 2?' I said four, and he said, 'No, it's not.' They ran into the other room and said to Alexa, 'What's 2 + 2?' and got the answer. I prompted them not only to know the answer but also to learn how to get it from Alexa. It was certainly the quickest way to get the answer right. Getting an answer is not a bad thing. A lot of times, people search the Internet for answers. In school, I searched our world book encyclopedias for answers. Now, we're just using easier ways to get answers.

Things are changing and developing in AI, but it can also be challenging. How do you stay motivated in your work and drive yourself to keep achieving goals and serving students?

I've been struggling a little bit with some of the things I've been doing daily. I'm working with different teams and departments. I find myself repeatedly typing the same SQL commands to look something up for somebody or to check some data. You can save it, but I have to get it. It's easier to type, so it's getting a little old.

The chance to work with AI is changing that. While the other team is developing a front end, they'll approach us for the back end because Banner, our ERP system, has all the data. The motivation for me is to keep it fresh and different. It's always nice to be able to solve somebody's problem. You feel good about it afterward. It's like any puzzle game when you figure something out and get instant gratification. When you're working on something you haven't done before, and nobody in your area has done it, it is that excitement about that challenge.