Leveraging AI & Data with Laura Ipsen

Send us Fan MailEloy Ortiz Oakley hosts The Rant podcast and welcomes back Laura Ipsen, CEO of Ellucian, to discuss how higher education is navigating intensified pressures around accountability, affordability, enrollment, staffing constraints, and workforce alignment. Ipsen explains that better data transparency is essential to building trust and improving outcomes, and describes Ellucian’s work helping institutions modernize from on-prem to SaaS, clean and connect siloed data, and adopt AI and agentic capabilities to streamline workflows and support decision-making while keeping humans central. She highlights rising AI adoption across higher education, new governance efforts, and Ellucian’s platform direction, including Ellucian Student, skills-to-jobs tools, and a partnership bringing Ariana Huffington’s Thrive wellbeing resources into the student experience. They also preview priorities for the upcoming Ellucian Live event and Ipsen’s vision for broader modernization over the next 3–5 [email protected]