Our Work
We’re called to the places where things don’t quite line up.
Where policy says one thing and practice reveals another. Where the data tells part of the story, but not all of it. Where a strategy exists, but hasn’t yet taken hold.
We go looking for what the formal story leaves out: what people know from where they sit, what gets lost between intention and reality, and what becomes visible when those pieces are brought into the same conversation.
Sometimes that means seeing where policy loses meaning in implementation, where practice reveals what policy missed, or where student experience tells us something the system hasn’t yet learned to see.
Learners, Pathways & Mobility
We work with learners and the institutions that serve them to understand how higher education is experienced, where pathways break down, and what students know that systems need to learn.
Selected Collaborations
Berklee College of Music
Student experience + institutional design
The question
How might Berklee better align the institution around the rhythms and needs of students across their full experience?
What we did
Worked across departments and perspectives to understand how students actually moved through the institution, where that experience diverged from the way internal structures were organized, and what a more coherent student lifecycle might require.
What emerged
A shared lifecycle model that helped teams see the student experience as a connected whole rather than a series of separate departmental touchpoints.
Georgia State University Perimeter College
Student participation + strategic planning
The question
How might students play a meaningful role in helping Perimeter move from strategic goals to implementation?
What we did
Designed a participatory process that brought students into the work of interpreting the existing strategic plan through their own experience of the college. We created space for them to identify what the goals meant in practice, where the institution might be missing something, and what specific actions could help bring those goals to life.
What emerged
Concrete, student-informed ideas for how Perimeter could advance its strategic goals, along with a stronger model for involving students not just as sources of feedback, but as contributors to implementation.
Houston GPS
Student participation + institutional change
The question
How might students move from being asked for input to having a meaningful role in shaping institutional change across a network of colleges and universities?
What we did
Worked across 13 Houston-area institutions to create a more participatory model for student involvement. Students were invited not only to share what they were experiencing, but to help interpret what those experiences meant, surface patterns across institutions, and contribute ideas for how colleges could respond.
What emerged
Institutions gained a richer understanding of the student experience and more grounded ideas for change. Students gained something too: greater agency, stronger ownership of their knowledge, and a clearer sense that their experience could influence decisions beyond their own individual circumstances.
