Interview with Author William Ihlenfeldt

Interview on 'Visionary Leadership,' a compelling book on the need for visionary leadership, written by Dr. William Ihlenfeldt. Bill Ihlenfeldt spent 42 years in higher education leadership working to change the face of the nations’ community colleges. During his tenure he challenged higher education to operate utilizing a data rich model designed to increase productivity and innovation and at the same time reduce costs. Utilizing those concepts in his leadership role, that has been referred to as visionary, lead to many new and innovative changes at the college including the incorporation of simulation into healthcare education to increase the number and quality of graduates, an working on-campus health education center in partnership with a medical and a dental college, one of the nation’s first nanotechnology programs and a nanotechnology innovation center to stimulate private sector economic development. Ihlenfeldt modeled concepts like speed to market, risk, measurement based outcomes, and algorithm based modeling have been a way of life during his career as these techniques more common in the business world were integrated into higher education resulting in a college that has received local, state and national recognition as a visionary college that has propelled the surrounding region and higher education into the 21st century.