Plan with the people closest to the program.
The IU School of Nursing wanted a more student-centered experience for its online Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, one that would attract and keep students.
CXD facilitated strategic planning and design thinking working sessions with faculty, staff and students, starting with a seven-hour session with DNP program leaders. Together they defined the student experience across four areas: social, academic, advising and professional leadership.
Turn it into a plan the program can run.
A two-day boot camp with faculty and staff turned that shared picture into a plan: a new curriculum and strategy for the program, a brand guide, and a redesigned student experience.
The engagement also produced a two-year student journey map for the DNP program.
Ask the community what welcoming means.
At IUPUI, the Indianapolis campus that has since become IU Indianapolis and Purdue Indianapolis, a Welcoming Campus task force wanted the campus to feel open to the wider community. CXD facilitated a session where community members, local organizations and university deans defined what “welcoming” should mean.
CXD then developed a curriculum, built from what participants said, to guide the work that followed.
What the work became.
As of 2022, the DNP program was still using the student journey map as a focal point for its strategic planning.
At IUPUI, the findings helped shape policy changes, ways of finding improvements, and large-scale construction projects.
Sources: CXD project records, published 2022 and 2023.
“Their ability to facilitate these sessions across a diverse set of audiences from students, to faculty, and finally to very high level healthcare executives is impressive.”
What this work illustrates
The people in a programknow what it needs.
Both projects started with the people closest to the experience. CXD’s job was to draw out what they knew, then build it into a plan the program could run.
