Hi there Reader,

This Week’s Guest: Dave Sherwood, Co-Founder & CEO of BibliU

What if your course content was as intelligent as your CRM?

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Dave Sherwood, the Oxford-trained Rhodes Scholar turned edtech CEO behind BibliU — a platform rethinking textbook access, affordability, and alignment with student outcomes.

• Affordability = Access + Integration. BibliU eliminates publisher markups and embeds course materials directly into LMS platforms — cutting both cost and friction.
• Why the U.S. Market is Decades Behind. While UK/European institutions already subsidize digital content, U.S. colleges remain trapped in outdated pricing models and licensing agreements. BibliU is changing that.
• Data-Driven Usage Insights. BibliU tracks how students engage with materials — helping faculty and administrators understand what’s actually driving outcomes.
• Global Scale, Local Impact. Now in multiple countries, BibliU’s model shows how student-centric design and local partnerships can coexist — even at enterprise scale.

📥 Forward this to your CIO, Provost, or Student Success lead if they’re rethinking content strategy.

Watch the episode → Full YouTube Episode​
📺 Quick clip → LinkedIn Clip​

🧠 Bonus: Want to see the financial benchmarking tool I mentioned to Dave?
→ Try a live dashboard demo here: https://lasell.perspectivedatascience.com​
(Username: pds | Password: lasell)
Or reply to this email to book a walkthrough.

Article Summaries & Insights

1. Profiles in Tech: Meet Sohrab Rahimi (McKinsey & Company)

Summary: Sohrab Rahimi, a McKinsey partner, transitioned from petroleum engineering to consulting, focusing on generative AI’s potential to transform higher education. He emphasizes AI’s ability to personalize learning, streamline administrative processes, and enhance institutional decision-making. Rahimi advocates for ethical AI adoption, citing risks like bias and data privacy, and stresses the need for upskilling faculty to leverage these tools effectively.

Second-Order Takeaways:

• Personalization at Scale: AI can tailor curricula to individual student needs, improving retention and outcomes, but requires robust data infrastructure.
• Administrative Efficiency: Automating tasks like admissions or budgeting frees up resources for strategic priorities, yet demands C-suite oversight to align with institutional goals.

Third-Order Insights:

• Cultural Shift Required: Institutions must foster a culture of continuous learning to adopt AI, as resistance from faculty or legacy systems could hinder progress.
• Competitive Advantage: Early adopters of ethical AI frameworks may attract top talent and funding, positioning themselves as innovation leaders in a crowded market.

​Read the full article​

2. Tracking Trump’s Higher Education Agenda (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Summary: The Trump administration’s 2025 policies target higher education with sweeping changes:

• Accreditation Overhaul: An executive order (April 23, 2025) restricts accreditors from enforcing DEI standards and eases switching accreditors, aiming to reduce federal oversight.
• Funding Cuts: The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) slashed education research budgets, including 169 contracts with the Institute of Education Sciences, and proposed 70-80% staff cuts at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• Student Loan Shifts: Loan collections resumed for five million borrowers (April 21, 2025), and the administration plans to move loan management to the Small Business Administration.
• Research Restrictions: NIH and NSF capped indirect research costs at 15%, banned grants to institutions with DEI programs or Israel boycotts, and terminated grants on topics like climate change and COVID-19.
• Civil Rights: Harvard faces $8.7 billion in frozen grants over alleged antisemitism, with threats to its tax-exempt status.

Second-Order Takeaways:

• Financial Strain: Reduced federal funding and capped indirect costs force institutions to seek alternative revenue (e.g., private grants, tuition hikes), risking accessibility.
• Policy Uncertainty: Rapid executive actions create compliance challenges, requiring agile legal and strategic responses from leadership.

Third-Order Insights:

• Erosion of Autonomy: Increased scrutiny of foreign gifts and ideological bans on research topics may stifle academic freedom, pushing talent to international institutions.
• Polarization Risk: Policies targeting DEI and specific research areas could deepen campus divides, complicating efforts to maintain cohesive institutional cultures.

Questions on any of this? Let me know how I can...

-Mike O’Connor

O'Connor & Associates

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