ASU dean Carole Basile brings business approach to revolutionize education system
Story Highlights
- Carole Basile applies business approach to transform education system
- Basile introduces Next Education Workforce model with teacher teams
- ASU dean aims to change narrative about Arizona’s schools
As dean of the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning at Arizona State University, Carole Basile is taking a business approach to changing the educational system.
“I want to be remembered as someone who tackled the systems of education, not just created a lot of programs, projects and activities,” said Basile, who is starting her 10th year as dean at ASU, ranked No. 1 for innovation by U.S. News & World Report for the past 11 years.
While the majority of university deans started out as classroom teachers, Basile took a different route.
She started out in the corporate world, working for various companies, including Amoco Oil Co. in Houston, where she focused on training and organizational development for employees.
That’s when she began thinking younger students would benefit from the team-building, stress management and communication skills she was teaching employees.
She enrolled in a doctorate program at University of Houston, graduating 2.5 years later.
“I spent 15 years working in sales and management and organizational design before I decided to get a doctorate that would allow me to think like an organizational designer about our education system,” she said. “I had been working with kids really as an avocation. At work, I was teaching adults things like creative thinking skills and leadership and creative problem-solving. And I realized we needed to be doing those things with kids at a much younger age. How we design learning environments for those kinds of skills matters. It doesn’t just happen — not for kids or adults.”
After 15 years in the business world, she finally found her calling.
“What you bring from business is this idea that we cannot be about programs and projects and activities,” Basile said. “In education, we have to start thinking about the entire system. It’s all about what are the levers we can begin to push that can change the education system.”
For example, Basile is leading an initiative to change the structure of the classroom learning environment.
Traditionally, schools are set up with one teacher per classroom.
Instead, she’s introducing the Next Education Workforce model, restructuring the classroom where a team of teachers share a roster of students.