Learning, Setback and Growth, A Conversation with Kymberly Lavigne-Hinkley, Director, Learning & Employment Records, WGU

Debra Coleman [00:00:09]:
Well, hello. Hello. And welcome back to another episode of Have A Seat, Conversations with Women in the Workplace podcast. I am your host, Deb Coleman. Okay. Here we sit in April, pretty much in the thick of Administrative Professionals Month, and I thought it would be a really neat and fun idea to interview one of the directors that I work with, miss Kimberly Levine Hinkley. Kim and I work together at Western Governors University, and we came I came on in 2021, and Kim came on, gosh, I wanna say, like, a year right after that maybe. So we both sort of started, like, in the same neighborhood together.

Debra Coleman [00:00:52]:
She came on to report directly to the VPI support, which is mister Darren Hobbs. And it but I knew of Kim prior to her coming on to Western Governors because she and Darren worked so closely on this initiative called the achievement wallet, and it is a learning and employment record. And it is amazing, and it is wonderful. It is an incredible resource out there. But I don't wanna do it any misjustice. I will let miss Kim tell you all about it, but I thought it would be a really neat treat to have her on and to get to know her a little bit better to introduce her to you. And, just to celebrate, you know, those that I support in my role currently at Western Governors University. There are so I wish I had, like, the the time and space to interview the incredible women I have met at WGU.

Debra Coleman [00:01:43]:
And we actually have an ERG, an employee resource group that is just specifically for the women at WGU, the women staff and faculty and employees at WGU. And it by itself is just phenomenal. I what I wish I could just hit record on one of our sessions because it is just amazing the amount of support and empowerment and, leadership principles. It's just it's a great group. And believe me when I say Kim exact, she exactly is what this group exemplifies. She is all of that and more. And I couldn't wait to sit down and have this conversation with her. I have front row seats into how busy she is.

Debra Coleman [00:02:23]:
I help make her calendar get as busy as it gets. So I know that finding 30 minutes to sit down was quite a golden nugget of an opportunity. So, but I'm so excited that we finally did it. So without further ado, here is my fantastic conversation with miss Kimberly Levine Hinkley, director learning and employment records at Western Governors University. Well, thank you, miss Kimberly Levine Hinkley, for sitting down with me for a few minutes this week. Miss Kim is a director at Western Governors University where I work, director of learning and employment records ecosystem. And so I'm just gonna, like, get her in the hot seat for a few minutes and ask her a few questions related to her work at WGU and her thoughts on, women in the workplace. So thank you, miss Kim, for joining me.

kymberly [00:03:17]:
Thank you, Deb. I'm so excited to be here. I'm honored that you asked me to come join your podcast. Excited to talk a little bit about the work, maybe explain a little bit what learning and employment record ecosystem movement is, and really focus on, women in the workplace. So I really appreciate you asking me to join.

Debra Coleman [00:03:36]:
Good stuff. Love it. I love that we get to share the mic. So often I see you and Darren share the mic, so this is kind of a treat.

kymberly [00:03:44]:
Well, no. I love presenting with Darren. So I was gonna say it's a treat to be here presenting on my own, but I I love presenting with Darren so much. We're, we're the WGUER team, but it is also nice to just be here and speak a little bit to the work myself.

Debra Coleman [00:04:03]:
Absolutely. I totally agree. Well, we will just get right into it then. This is a busy week as I know. I have front row seats to to how busy you and Darren are this week. So, but to start us off, so, Kim, you have had an incredibly successful career in nonprofit sector your until you came to WGU. So we're we're still nonprofit, but just more of a pivot into higher education. What brought you over, as Darren would say, to the dark side, to join the great work we do at WGU?

kymberly [00:04:42]:
That's an excellent question and really happy to dive into it a little bit. I have focused on workforce development related work for the last, goodness, probably too many years to count, but let's just say around 15 ish years and have really loved focusing on workforce development, especially working for nonprofit organizations that really center their efforts on individuals, on learners, on students, on individuals, trying to create a path, within their career and really, trying to help, learners advance their career. And I've had the pleasure to work from many different perspectives. I have worked as a teacher, for 17 to 24 year olds who are out of work and out of school. I have worked in, grants management and, development for nonprofit organizations focusing on workforce development. I have focused, on, providing grants as a funder both in a from a government perspective, working with the New York City Department of Small Business Services, within their customized training and incumbent worker training portfolios, which are, grants provided to employers helping to, that are interested, sorry, in, training their, employees. They're training their workforce. And, and then right, before coming to WGU, I worked with the Markle Foundation in a couple of different areas.

kymberly [00:06:24]:
I worked with, states that were interested in encouraging a skills based labor market. And I worked on, the Merkle Foundation's, Skillful and then Rework America Alliance National Career Coaching Initiatives, which really helped, with coaches career coaches, specifically those career coaches who are focused on, providing coaching as a public service, enhance their skill set around, human centered, equity based, and and skills based career coaching. I ended up coming over to WGU because while I was at the Markle Foundation, in addition to working on their national career coaching initiatives, I had the opportunity to, to dive in to credential transparency, data transparency, and ultimately, what became the learning and employment record initiative with, Western Governors University, specifically with Darren Hobbs, and Casey Thorne. And, we did this, initially with the state of Indiana, which was one of the Markle Foundation's primary states working on adoption of skills based practices. We were lucky enough to work very closely with the state of Indiana, initially with IBM, with National Student Clearing House, with, IQ 4 as a technology vendor, and with Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana, and, also with, the support of the Lilly Endowment and, with Walmart to help, Indiana as a state move towards adopting, digital wallets and, learning and employment records in an effort to help individuals own their own records and apply them to their next opportunity. So while I was at the Markle Foundation, I was able to, work closely with Darren on this initiative, work closely with all of these other partners on this initiative, also including, the primary partner in Indiana, which is the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. And, I felt very strongly about this effort, around individuals' ownership of their educational and employment records, being able to have those in a digital format, being able to store those in a digital wallet and apply them to their next opportunity. I thought that it was really the next, area within workforce development and higher education that was going to have lasting impact for individuals and connecting to their career.

kymberly [00:09:21]:
And I know that you have some questions, on this, to dive a little bit deeper into it. So I'll I'll end there, and then, turn it back over to you.

Debra Coleman [00:09:31]:
Oh, well, I was thinking this is beautiful. We're gonna segue right into the achievement wallet. But first of all, I thank you for bringing us on your journey into how you became one of the night owls.

kymberly [00:09:46]:
WGU has just been so innovative in the higher education space and really bridging the divide between workforce development and higher education. Really, there shouldn't be a divide because, workforce development and higher education are all aimed to help an individual prepare for their career journey, to take that first step or to advance along their career journey. And, I'm just very excited to be at WGU working on these, innovative initiatives and being able to contribute to, individuals being able just sorry. Being able to contribute, to, all of this work moving forward.

Debra Coleman [00:10:31]:
And it is incredible work that you and Darren and just the entire team. I don't wanna exclude anyone. I feel like the Oscars. Did I thank everybody?

kymberly [00:10:42]:
Oh my gosh. That's exactly how I felt when I started to list out the Indiana partners. I was just because they have they have evolved over time. And so our some of our partners now are new partners, and, we had different partners in the early phases of this work while I was still at Markel and I was so worried that I'm that I was gonna leave someone out. So if I have left someone out, I apologize in advance. It's mostly just because, in the moment, I was just trying to think about, everyone and everything and, of course, like, brains just stop functioning.

Debra Coleman [00:11:18]:
But since you did mention the achievement wallet, for those who are not in our inner circle, or have heard about it yet, I actually love the correlation you made to it, during one of our previous conversations about, almost envisioning it like the health records. So I will let you describe what we mean when we talk about learning and employment records or an achievement wallet.

kymberly [00:11:46]:
Great. Okay. There I think first, I'll say there are about 18 different definitions of learning and employment records. So it kinda depends on who you talk to. I think it's a running joke among organizations that are working in this space. And so, I'm just gonna give you mine Perfect. Since I'm the one speaking. Learning and employment records are sort of what it says when as what it's called.

kymberly [00:12:11]:
They are records of an individual's learning or employment experiences. They are digital records, and those can come in a variety of formats. Those can come in the format of a, a badge, a credential, a degree. Those can be it's just, verified. That means another, 3rd party entity or the entity in which you, or who issued, the credential has verified that, you earned that credential. They could be self asserted, and that means that you are saying that you earned that credential. And I'll make a little joke here that, nearly all of my learning records are unfortunately self asserted. I don't have a digital representation of them because, sadly, I am too old.

kymberly [00:13:02]:
And that's not a bad thing. It just means that they occurred so many years ago. And at that time, digital versions of those records were not available to me. And they may end up being available to me in the future just that they are not right now. And so, what's really important about learning and employment records is that we, as individuals, don't have access to them as easily as we could. We do not own them. Typically, they are, owned by the entity that issued them. The way that WGU is leveraging learning and employment records is through, primarily, an initiative that we're calling the WGU Achievement Wallet.

kymberly [00:13:58]:
And our WGU Achievement Wallet is our way of taking action on skills based digital credentials and bringing value and application of these digital credentials, these learning and employment records directly to WGU students. And we're doing this through merging career exploration and discovery capabilities of the WGU achievement wallet with an initiative that WGU, has called rich skills descriptors, which are essentially machine readable skills descriptors associated with a skill category. So they are describing the skills that an individual has gained through participation in a number of courses or a learning experience results in a digital credential of some kind. And our goal here with all of this work is to create an empowering and transformative environment that equips students with the skills and knowledge to advance in their chosen occupation or career. And so this is really important because in my previous work, with Markle's National Career Coaching Initiatives, there was not a lot of tools and resources available for individuals to go on a journey in exploring the variety of careers that are available to them. And, there are not a lot of of resources for individuals to understand and identify their own skill sets and to see how those skill sets align with a variety of occupations. Occupations. And then also to dive into those occupations themselves to understand, like, is this really an area of interest? Is this something I feel like I want to pursue? Is this something that would afford me the lifestyle that I am looking to have in the given area? Is this occupation, even something, that I could pursue in my given area? And and that is something that the achievement wallet is really trying to create visibility into for individuals.

kymberly [00:16:20]:
So it is it is leveraging. It is taking all of the information that individuals are able to, gain through having access, to their learning and employment records, and it is uncovering the skills associated with that information and letting them go on a career journey.

Debra Coleman [00:16:42]:
Well, we've talked a lot about career progression and we've heard about your amazing journey. But as women in the workplace, we know that more often than not, we are met with what we perceive as setbacks in our career. What are your feelings on how we should navigate those feelings or when we feel we've encountered a setback along our career journey? What advice would you give?

kymberly [00:17:11]:
This is a great question. If I have to think about it, I would probably say nothing is a setback. And it may temporarily feel like a setback, but it is because of that experience or each of our experiences that we're able to be doing the things we are now. So, if I think about it, I'll I'll, give my own example. I, a number of years ago, worked for a nonprofit organization, and I was sort of in early early stages of my career. I was, working in, again, in workforce development, and I had started working for this nonprofit organization and, had worked under someone who, was a bit of a micromanager, and sort of, stood behind me as I, wrote proposals and and and didn't really ever leave, my side. It really felt like there was not a lot of trust there. And, I took it pretty hard, that that it didn't feel like there was a lot of trust, and then I began to really not trust myself.

kymberly [00:18:39]:
And, I went to this individual, and I let them know a little bit about how I was feeling and my experience. And I think that they had sort of felt similarly. They, maybe, I don't wanna speak for this person, but felt like the match wasn't the right one. And I also felt that way. And we sort of negotiated, an exit plan, that I would take a certain amount of time to look for something new. They would also start to look for somebody new, and, and then I would, I would leave and find, you know, and find a new opportunity. I could definitely have perceived that as a setback. And, really, at the time, I felt really terrible about myself and, and felt like I, you know, wasn't, as skilled as I thought I was and, and lost a lot of trust in myself.

kymberly [00:19:38]:
It felt, shame for the experience. And and then I ended up with a really awesome position, after that. And then, honestly, it has you know, if I think about it, it has really only helped me grow. And, and then I took that position and grew into another position and grew into another one and really advanced in my career journey based on that. And and if, for instance, I had chosen to stay or chosen to try to endure without having a conversation with, the person who had supervised me, I really can't imagine what the outcome would have been. And instead, I have had this beautiful career journey, and I have learned so much and gained so much from my, experiences after that experience that I honestly could not have wished it any other way. So that's it wasn't a setback at all. And when I think about it, like, it's all about creating a narrative.

kymberly [00:20:48]:
It is all about really highlighting how you grow and change from different experiences that you face and that no one is creating the narrative for us. We create our own narrative, and that's really powerful. And so when you know, if you're ever asked about, a setback or if you're ever asked about, weakness, or maybe what someone could be or what someone could perceive as a failure. You control that narrative. And I think that there really aren't failures. There are growth opportunities. There are, their experiences. They're all just experiences that, we take and, we choose to take next steps on.

kymberly [00:21:43]:
I think it's you know, what's important is that we have the ability to shape and shift our own narrative.

Debra Coleman [00:21:50]:
Absolutely. We do. So beautifully put, Kim. Really. And in your experience, I can absolutely see where that is was not a setback at all. If anything, what came to my mind was the exact opposite. It was almost like a launching off point.

kymberly [00:22:06]:
Yes. Yes. You know, if I look back on it, that's exactly how it how it is. But in the moment, it felt awful. People should remember that it's not always gonna continue to feel the way that it does in the moment. And that, you know, we take that current feeling. We take it in. We sit with it, and then we move on.

Debra Coleman [00:22:40]:
That's such important message, especially for women. I think we are queens of internalizing and sitting with something for much longer than maybe we should. So if we can then somehow reframe what we perceive as a setback or maybe just a step backwards or a a trip or a hiccup into something more positive, I mean, just look what can happen. Doors can open. Just your mindset shift. So nice reminder. Excellent. I'm so glad that happened for you because, selfishly, now your that your journey has brought you to WGU, and we are so lucky to be a part of it.

kymberly [00:23:22]:
You know, if, all of these you know, if that had never happened, I may not have have had the opportunity to join WGU and get to work on all these, incredible initiatives that we're currently working on. And so I'm honestly, I'm grateful for the opportunities.

Debra Coleman [00:23:40]:
Do you have time for the one last question?

kymberly [00:23:43]:
Oh, of course.

Debra Coleman [00:23:44]:
Okay. This is just a silly bonus question. Just a way for us to get to know you better. When life does get a little on the crazy side and schedules get a little tight, what do you do to find a reset or a rebalance to sort of bring it back to center for you?

kymberly [00:24:05]:
I can already hear the groaning when I say this. I have to admit, the thing that helps me the most is exercise. Yeah. I, I feel like it helps me have a clear head and, it provides me with a lot of mental health benefits. I have a much more positive outlook. I have so much more energy. I'm more enthusiastic. I can focus more if I exercise, you know, on a, very frequent basis.

kymberly [00:24:51]:
So maybe, like, 4 to 5 days out of the week. It is my time, and I will say that, the motivation that is required or that is, yeah, required for me to to start exercising every day is just tremendous. I don't wanna do it at all. I wanna just, like, sit down and have a cup of coffee and, and get my daughter ready for school, and just take her and, and not have to exercise. But I know that if I if I don't, my entire day will go differently. And if I do, I will have a much more positive day. So I know, that's such an annoying answer. No.

kymberly [00:25:43]:
That, what do I do to reset? Exercise. But it just it provides me with just incredible mental health benefits. And so I it's more I do it for the mental health benefits than I do it for anything else. And but okay. So maybe some less annoying answers.

Debra Coleman [00:26:05]:
No. That wasn't annoying at all at all. And I love that you tied it into, like, a whole health. You know, it's it's mind, body, and spirit for you.

kymberly [00:26:14]:
You. It is. If I have to have, what might be a difficult conversation, I know if I exercise right before, like, it will go, well. I love audiobooks, especially, I have to say, audiobooks, they, make chores okay. Like like, doing dishes or doing laundry or folding laundry. I feel like I can find some enjoyment out of it if I'm listening to an audio book or a podcast.

Debra Coleman [00:26:48]:
I love it. Oh, well, this has just been such a delight, Kim. I have adored this. Thank you. And that wraps up my conversation with incredible Kimberly Levine Hinkley. Friends, when I say she took time out of her busy schedule, if I could have an associated graphic go along with this episode outside of the promo graphic, it would be a picture of her calendar, and you would see when I say 30 minutes. We were so lucky to find it. I meant it.

Debra Coleman [00:27:18]:
And so miss Kim, thank you so much, honestly, for making time to sit down with me and have a seat for this conversation And thank you listeners for listening in. Hey, if any of what Kim said, especially in regards to it to the achievement wallet that we discussed or anything that along her career journey, anything landed or resonated with you, I really encourage you to check out the show notes where there will be a link to, connect with Kim, but also a link to Western Governors University where you can learn more about the achievement wallet, and the work that they are doing there. But I just once again wanna say thank you listeners for tuning in this week. As I said, this episode sits right in the middle of April, which is Administrative Support Professionals Week. And I thought it would be a really neat spin to bring forth an episode, to have a conversation with one of the leaders that I directly support, which is Kimberly Levine Hinckley. So thank you once again for tuning in. This was really fun. It was such a delight to sit down and and just share this way, especially not only with somebody that I directly support, but with a female lead in higher education.

Debra Coleman [00:28:29]:
It was such you know, when does that happen? It's so rare that we make time to talk with each other in this way. And so I was so pleased to do that. Thank you once again, miss Kim, for sharing your career journey, how you reset and rebalance, and giving us a glimpse to your work on the achievement wallet. And thank you listeners for tuning in this week. Well, as always, you know I like to end the show this way. So as always, have a wonderful week. Be safe. Be well.

Debra Coleman [00:28:57]:
And remember, keep having those conversations.