Blog

Academic Operations

Growing Online Learning at Scale
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com September 22, 2025August 4, 2026

Growth is often confused with expansion. Expansion adds volume. Growth builds the capacity to sustain that volume. During my time supporting online learning initiatives at Sam Houston State University, online enrollment grew from approximately 4% to more than 23% of institutional FTE. That growth was not driven by a single technology platform or marketing initiative. It was the result of building systems, governance structures, support networks, and operational capacity capable of scaling alongside demand.

Read More Growing Online Learning at Scale
Academic Operations | Consulting & Leadership

Hurricane Harvey and the 10-Week Semester
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com August 3, 2025August 4, 2026

When Hurricane Harvey disrupted normal academic operations across Texas, simply moving courses online was not enough. By creating a delayed-start, compressed 10-week semester, we helped students continue making academic progress while recognizing that many were dealing with displacement, property loss, and significant personal disruption.

Read More Hurricane Harvey and the 10-Week Semester
Academic Operations

What We Learned During COVID: Speed, Clarity, and Continuity
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com April 7, 2025August 4, 2026

When campuses abruptly shifted operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the objective was not to create exemplary online courses. The objective was continuity. Drawing on lessons learned during Hurricane Harvey, existing online-learning infrastructure, and established system partnerships, our team was able to rapidly develop and scale instructional continuity strategies that helped support not only our own institution, but partner institutions and hundreds of organizations looking for practical guidance during an unprecedented disruption.

Read More What We Learned During COVID: Speed, Clarity, and Continuity
Academic Operations | Consulting & Leadership

The Reporting System That Didn’t Need Me Anymore
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com February 16, 2025August 27, 2026

One of the most valuable projects of my career wasn’t a major platform launch or a large technology initiative. It was a reporting system designed to eliminate a bottleneck and make itself unnecessary. Fifteen years after I left the organization, the system was still operating successfully, reinforcing a lesson that has shaped my approach to technology, process improvement, and leadership ever since: sustainable solutions create independence.

Read More The Reporting System That Didn’t Need Me Anymore
Curriculum Development

Building a Medical School: Architecture Before Execution
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com April 29, 2024August 4, 2026

Launching a new medical school is not simply an academic exercise. Before the first student enrolls, an institution must demonstrate that it possesses the people, processes, systems, and infrastructure necessary to sustain the program for years to come. My role in the early development of the Sam Houston State University College of Osteopathic Medicine reinforced a lesson I’ve encountered repeatedly throughout my career: successful organizations build the architecture first and scale the operations second.

Read More Building a Medical School: Architecture Before Execution
Consulting & Leadership | Field Notes

The Problem Behind the Problem
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com April 3, 2024August 3, 2026

A faculty member approached me looking for a student staffing solution to manually transcribe a large portion of a 242-page nineteenth-century maritime diary. What they actually needed was a digital publishing workflow. By leveraging AI-assisted handwriting recognition, we bypassed hundreds of hours of manual transcription and transformed a historical artifact into a searchable research resource in a matter of weeks.

Read More The Problem Behind the Problem