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SALT LAKE CITY — Tracy Gorham will never forget the academic adviser who changed her life.
She grew up in foster homes and was emancipated at age 15. At 19, without a high school diploma and while surviving on the streets, a friend recommended she go to Salt Lake Community College for help.
She was embarrassed about not having a high school diploma, Gorham said, and so it took some courage for her to walk through the doors.
But when she did, she met an academic adviser who didn't merely pick out a few classes for her. Rather, she walked Gorham to the financial aid office, sat with her during a conversation about Pell Grants and otherwise helped Gorham explore her options and next steps.
Gorham became emotional recounting how this adviser helped her get funding that allowed her to attend school.
"It's crucial to have more access to support services, (to) people who really care about the students and their success," she said. "You can't automate (people like my academic adviser). But what we can do is give more (people-centric) moments to the students that need them the most."
In the years following her experience with SLCC, Gorham attended Westminster College. She worked in telecommunications and began her first technology startup at age 24.
And in 2011, she and her husband, Michael Gorman, began ConexED: a software and video conferencing service that streamlines college services — financial aid, academic advising, tutoring and more — so that students, especially underprivileged ones, can get the support they need in one place and with the personal connection that Gorham so values.
On Monday, over 10 years since the company began, ConexED held a grand opening party for a showroom featuring its newest venture: Campus Anywhere booths that can be installed on school grounds, in high schools, in community centers or anywhere else colleges are trying to reach students.
A knock-on-door button
Here's how ConexED works: A computer interface connects students with a school representative through a privacy-protected video chat. The representative then addresses the student's needs or transfers them to someone who can.
For instance, if a student connects with an academic adviser but needs to discuss financial aid, the adviser can immediately transfer them to a financial aid representative. There's no time spent finding another office; for rural students, there are no long travel times to campus; and for night or other nontraditional students, there's no missing daytime-only office hours.
Representatives can also upload digital documents for signing, saving students the hassle of finding a printer and a scanner. And students can access ConexED from any phone or computer, even ones they don't personally own, because they're not required to download an app.
Gorham said she had the idea for ConexED while she was a nontraditional student at Westminster College. She was in a project-based degree program with 30 other older adults, she said, with many of them working or running businesses during the day.
Out of 30 people, 26 failed in the first semester, including her, she said.
A large part of the problem was that their program coach was only available for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, when she and most of her classmates were working.
"It wasn't that we failed, it was the system that failed," Gorham said. "There's no way we (could) get to campus to understand the next assignment or the process or whatever we needed."
While sharing her frustration, Gorham said a fellow student who lived in Delta told her he wished he could knock on the door from anywhere to get connected to student support services.
It was a eureka moment for Gorham.
"I took my telecommunications background, I took my UI/UX background and I built a knock-on-door button," she said.
From there, Tracy and Michael Gorham began selling subscriptions to their service. On one day early on, they sold to Brigham Young University-Hawaii in the morning and then got married that night on a Oahu beach.
"(ConexED) was our first baby," Gorham quipped, adding that she and her husband are now the parents of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old.
Since then, they've partnered with 100 community colleges and with 1,100 Mathnasium centers across 12 countries, she said. She's particularly passionate about working with community college students, calling them "the fabric of our community."
"Eliminating roadblocks is what we do," Gorham said.
She also said the company isn't backed by any venture money because they believe in understanding community needs and building a product that will really "move the needle on student success."
Additionally, ConexED can save schools significant amounts of money, since they're often paying for multiple scheduling services before using ConexED, Gorham said.
"We have a huge list of like 100 different features and functions of our technology," she said. "So you can eliminate redundant technology, but also eliminate an array of cobbled together systems. ... Streamline the process. Have one place to go to for staff and students, and find the right person at the right time for the right reasons."
The Campus Anywhere booths are taking ConexED a step further by expanding accessibility. Students without access to computers can step into a booth for a private space to have their questions answered and their concerns addressed. One model is also compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, big enough to accommodate wheelchair users. Another is big enough for several people to use at once, allowing families to talk with school officials or even mental health counselors. About 300,000 counseling sessions were done via ConexED last year, Gorham said.
A ConexED subscription is $130,000, while a booth itself is about $10,000. But schools are often paying much more than that for a variety of scheduling services, she said.
For instance, Pima Community College in Arizona spends $650,000 a year on scheduling services, she said. If it paid for the subscription and then got community partners to sponsor the booth purchases, the college would have a large cost savings.
With the extra money, Pima Community College could fund another building, hire more staff or give more scholarships, Gorham said.
"I don't want you guys to pay a dime for this technology," she told visiting college leaders at Monday's grand opening. "I want our community partners to pay for it, and you guys put (the saved money) back into student success. That's my vision."
Overcoming barriers
Sheree Utash, president of Wichita Area Technical College in Kansas, attended Monday's grand opening and said her school has ordered five Campus Anywhere booths. Teams are training right now with ConexED, she said, and she hopes the booths will be fully up and running within the next 30 days.
She anticipates the booths making a difference to the college's night students, who are often cut off from campus resources when employees leave at 6 p.m. Now, several employees will work remote evening shifts to man the booths, she said.
Utash also said a booth will go in a local underrepresented high school, another will go in an area with a large Hispanic population, and another will go in an area with a large Black population.
The booths are an integration of technology and human connection, Utash said.
"When (people) walk in there, the minute they touch that button, they're going to have a human connection," she said. "We're hoping to be able to overcome some (barriers)... and to create access, affordability and equity."
