Academic Operations

Covering Higher Education, Crisis Management, Student Success, Online Learning, Continuity Planning, Instructional Design, Resilient Systems, Academic Operations

Academic Operations

The Correspondence Courses We Couldn’t Retire
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com August 17, 2026August 21, 2026

Most conversations about educational technology focus on launching new systems. Much less attention is paid to retiring old ones. Early in my time at SHSU Online, our team inherited management of a correspondence-course division that appeared to be a relic from another era. What we eventually discovered was that the courses were not surviving because of institutional inertia. They were surviving because they solved a problem nobody had fully addressed yet.

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Academic Operations

Five Institutions, One LMS
Byraymond.scheel@gmail.com May 4, 2026August 4, 2026

Most people assume an LMS migration is a technology project. My experience leading the Texas State University System Online Shared Services…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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