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New Year, New President: Higher Ed in the Age of Trump
23 Plays1 year ago
2025 is hardly underway, and it’s already clear that the new year and new administration will spell changes for how the federal government regulates higher education. Joining us to discuss the demise of the Chevron doctrine, the nominee for Secretary of the Department of Education and the role we can play in promoting the value of higher education is Jonathan Fansmith, the American Council on Education’s Senior Vice President of Government Relations and National Engagement.
Episode Resources:
- ACE’s dotEDU Live Podcast: Higher Education’s Path Forward in Trump’s Second Term
- “The Only Certainty Is Uncertainty” by Jon Fansmith in Inside Higher Education
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Legal Challenges to Trump's Policies
00:00:00
Speaker
that advocates who are opposed to Trump's policies will bring forth suits just like we saw under the Biden administration.
00:00:07
Speaker
The reason I use the term chaos is chaos is a direct result of uncertainty.
00:00:12
Speaker
There is so much uncertainty right now.
00:00:14
Speaker
You cannot look at anything that is being done and say with absolute clarity and conviction, the Trump administration will be able to execute this.
00:00:24
Speaker
They will be able to maintain it through the courts.
Inconsistencies in Title IX Regulations
00:00:27
Speaker
We just, as of last week, got back to every one of the 50 states operating under the same set of Title IX regulations because they had been enjoined in 26 states, the Biden rules, enjoined in 26 states, allowed in 24 states.
00:00:43
Speaker
Some of those campuses in the 24 states were enjoined from doing them because they had certain groups on their campus.
00:00:49
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that had membership because of a different court ruling.
00:00:52
Speaker
It really is, if you look at this from the perspective of campus and say, what are my obligations now?
00:00:57
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What will they be?
00:00:59
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I mean, if you feel confident in that, I think you're probably not paying enough attention.
00:01:03
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There's just no way to know.
00:01:05
Speaker
And that's only going to be magnified as we enter a period of a lot of transition.
Shift Away from Regulatory Expertise
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Again, all those new regulations, all the old ones being struck down, new executive orders, there will be legal review on all those by people opposed to them.
00:01:17
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And I think chaos is a pretty fair point.
00:01:20
Speaker
So thesis defended there.
00:01:22
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Okay.
00:01:23
Speaker
I grant you your degree.
00:01:25
Speaker
Hooray.
00:01:27
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I do want to ask you your thoughts.
00:01:28
Speaker
I mean, one of the things about letting go of Chevron deference, I don't know how you feel.
00:01:33
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To me, it feels part and parcel with the sort of lack of reliance on expertise generally that we're seeing in all different areas, right?
00:01:42
Speaker
Which is that we're no longer going to be relying on the people who are working in the regulatory agencies, including the Department of Education.
00:01:49
Speaker
Instead, the decisions will be made by judges who might be very smart, but certainly are not experts on
00:01:54
Speaker
labor or education or transportation.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, I found the and I don't always read all the opinions in Supreme Court rulings, but on the Chevron one I
Supreme Court and Agency Expertise Tension
00:02:05
Speaker
did.
00:02:05
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And it really was fascinating because I do think I'm not dismissing your point.
00:02:10
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I do think there is a growing skepticism towards the role of expertise and
00:02:15
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But we're also talking about Supreme Court justices and clerks, some of the most highly educated, the elites of the elites within an elite profession.
00:02:25
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And when you start looking at both Robert's majority opinion and then Kagan's dissenting opinion,
00:02:31
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I think what becomes abundantly clear, whether Roberts kind of like throws it right out in front, he doesn't, but he talks about the fact that administrative agencies aren't experts in interpreting laws.
00:02:41
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Courts are, because that's the role of the courts is to interpret a law.
00:02:44
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He's saying that is the essential function of what is being here, and agencies might have technical expertise in
00:02:51
Speaker
you know, what the EPA regulations or EPA statutes are or what student lending laws are.
00:02:58
Speaker
But when it comes to interpreting law, that's the courts.
00:03:01
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Kagan's take on that is basically, no, they do have the expertise.
00:03:05
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These are people most closely to it.
00:03:07
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Instead, what we've done is it's a power grab.
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It's essentially just asserting that the ultimate arbiter of our government are the courts.
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and that any level of deference below them to other types of expertise doesn't exist, doesn't surbound that level of sort of judicial authority.
00:03:22
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So I don't know it's necessarily a referendum on expertise itself as much as it really is just a active, strong judiciary further asserting their will over a pretty weakened, especially legislature, but in particular administration.
Feasibility of Dismantling the Department of Education
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Speaker
I appreciate that.
00:03:40
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This is why it's so fun to have a conversation with you because we get to, you know, really talk through the issues and everybody gets to listen to us doing that.
00:03:47
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While we're on regulatory agencies, I do have to ask you about this campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education.
00:03:56
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I've read about how it seems like it would be very unlikely, but I want to ask you, you know, is this just, you know, some red meat for the base or is this something that is really going to be considered and possibly executed?
00:04:09
Speaker
So I'll start by saying that it's not going to happen.
00:04:11
Speaker
They're not going to dismantle the Department of Education.
00:04:15
Speaker
So to a certain extent, you can say this is red meat for the base.
00:04:17
Speaker
This is an idea that's been around since Reagan's first campaign as for president.
00:04:22
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It's not a new idea.
00:04:25
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It tends to resonate a lot and sort of echo what we've seen really at the K-12 level a lot, this idea of get the government out of education, which
00:04:34
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especially in the higher ed space, ignores just the enormous number of interweaving between the federal government and higher education at every level of what we do.
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We know for a fact that people who are coming in to run the next Department of Education are serious, sober-minded people who have thoughts about how to govern effectively, who want to use the authority of the administration in ways to advance policy goals they believe in.
00:04:57
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That's a reasonable amount of governing.
00:05:00
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Getting rid of the Department of Education doesn't help them do that.
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There's lots of other procedural issues.
00:05:05
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You have to pass laws to abolish the Department of Education.
00:05:08
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Even if you've abolished the Department of Education, that doesn't mean you've abolished
00:05:13
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all of the other programs and responsibilities, you still have to investigate civil rights complaints at colleges and universities.
00:05:19
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You still have to administer student loans.
00:05:21
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You still have to provide Pell Grants, unless you write laws eliminating all of those things as well, which in a very tightly divided Congress with very narrow margins for Republican parole just aren't feasible.
00:05:33
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Lots of Republicans wouldn't want to do any of those things.
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I'm not even sure the majority of Republicans would want to do many of those things.
00:05:41
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So it's not going to happen.
00:05:43
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I do want to say though, and one of the things that concerns me about this rhetoric, it's really easy for me to sit in DC and talk to other DC people about procedural issues and it's complicated.
00:05:53
Speaker
Where are you going to invest your political capital?
00:05:56
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I've gotten calls from, I don't know, I mean, five or six different reporters, mostly at regional papers across the country who want to talk about this because the genesis for their story is
00:06:07
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They've heard from students who see the rhetoric about abolishing the Department of Education and don't have the time to parse all those things I went into and are asking, does this mean my loans go away?
00:06:17
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Does this mean I can't get a Pell Grant?
00:06:19
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Does this mean if I'm thinking about higher education for next year, a Trump administration won't provide financial aid?
00:06:26
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for me to do, I can't go without it.
00:06:28
Speaker
So do I defer the decision to enroll?
00:06:31
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That has real implications.
00:06:32
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And we talked a little bit about uncertainty for administrative planning and Chevron deference.
00:06:37
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If you think right at the very sort of the spark of what college is all about, a student deciding to enroll to pursue their studies,
00:06:44
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This kind of talk, it's not just about governing and everything else.
00:06:49
Speaker
It really does filter down to the cell of people who think maybe what we're saying is as a government, we don't want to invest in people like me, or we don't see the opportunity for me to go to school as important enough
Linda McMahon's Role and Influence on Education Policy
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to support.
00:07:00
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And that is problematic.
00:07:01
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That has real harm.
00:07:02
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That's real consequences.
00:07:03
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We know people, students who don't apply often don't come back around the next time if this situation looks different.
00:07:09
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They consider that opportunity what works and then they get into a job, they get into other obligations.
00:07:14
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and it becomes harder and harder to come back.
00:07:15
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So there are consequences even to talk that kind of get shunned at a side when we have these conversations about this.
00:07:23
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I really appreciate your contextualizing that.
00:07:25
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And I think it kind of fits with the theme of this podcast, which is speech matters, right?
00:07:30
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Which is that it has impacts.
00:07:31
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And I appreciate your sharing those.
00:07:33
Speaker
And it was a kind of a perfect segue to talk about sort of one of the newer players on the higher ed scene, which is Linda McMahon, the president-elect Trump's pick to lead the Department of Education.
00:07:45
Speaker
Is there anything you want to highlight about what...
00:07:48
Speaker
she has talked about or said about her agenda or priorities as it pertains to higher ed?
00:07:56
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Of course.
00:07:56
Speaker
No, she's an interesting person to think about in this role.
00:08:00
Speaker
And I mean that truly, not in the sort of ambiguous way people use interesting.
00:08:06
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I think when she was initially announced, you saw some criticism, especially from more progressive education groups that said, you know, this is not an education leader.
00:08:14
Speaker
This is not a person who's deeply versed in education policy.
00:08:19
Speaker
And that's certainly true.
00:08:21
Speaker
She served on the state board of education for a term for a year.
00:08:26
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I'm not sure that was a full term.
00:08:28
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She's been on the board of a small, or not a small, actually a good size religious college in Connecticut.
00:08:33
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She's been actively involved in public institution, Eastern Carolina University in North Carolina.
00:08:39
Speaker
And so, you know, there is some experience, but slight compared to what we've seen with previous nominees.
00:08:44
Speaker
That said, she has experience running a federal agency.
00:08:48
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She was the head of the Small Business Administration in the first Trump term for two years.
00:08:53
Speaker
When you talk to people who worked at that agency under her leadership, it was a healthy agency.
00:08:58
Speaker
There was a lot of attrition of federal employees in the first Trump term.
00:09:01
Speaker
Department of Education is a great example.
00:09:02
Speaker
A large number of employees took early retirement or found other employment.
00:09:06
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SBA wasn't that.
00:09:08
Speaker
She was seen as a thoughtful, capable leader, supportive of her people looking to accomplish their goals.
00:09:15
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Since she's come onto the scene, most of her public comments somewhat limited.
00:09:18
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She's going through confirmation process, going back, looking at the things she said in the past.
00:09:23
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They have tended to be pretty focused on areas where we think there's good policy to be made.
00:09:27
Speaker
She's talked a lot about workforce Pell and pathways to professions short of a degree, but that still requires some level of post-secondary training.
00:09:37
Speaker
Those are things that there's a lot of bipartisan discussion about in Congress.
00:09:40
Speaker
It's things that, frankly, as a membership association, we know our members are doing a lot of, but we think there's a lot more that can be done.
00:09:47
Speaker
And federal policy could really help to do more in that space.
00:09:49
Speaker
So it's not all, you know, I think there was a suspicion of somebody who's not deeply familiar with the education world, somebody who hasn't evinced a great level of
00:10:00
Speaker
interest in that area coming in.
00:10:02
Speaker
But I will say, and we've certainly seen other nominees who are far more problematic, having somebody who's seen as a smart and capable administrator, not especially ideological, not tied necessarily to very partisan or very confrontational positions, who has an interest area in some areas where there's good bipartisan policy made,
00:10:24
Speaker
it's not a bad nominee relative to what we could have.
00:10:27
Speaker
And I say that not just in terms of an incoming Republican administration, but often, you know, as the Democratic administration, you worry a little bit about people too tied to one view or another who won't be open to input feedback, working with the broader community, get all the views at the table.
00:10:40
Speaker
So I am cautiously hopeful about what we will see in the leadership of the Department of Education.
00:10:46
Speaker
That's really nice to have some heartening perspective.
00:10:50
Speaker
One of the things I anticipate is that McMahon will need to address some expression-related matters on campus during her tenure.
00:10:58
Speaker
As you and our listeners know, university campuses attracted the attention of federal lawmakers and the public.
00:11:04
Speaker
When students across the country began protesting against the war in Gaza in October 2023, notably college presidents lost and resigned from jobs following congressional hearings.
00:11:16
Speaker
Speaker of the House even visited Columbia's campus to give a press conference.
00:11:21
Speaker
Given the influence that lawmakers can exert on universities through threats of withholding federal funding, is the speech of higher education leaders inhibited by pressure from federal lawmakers?
00:11:31
Speaker
And just do you have any general thoughts on what is a very large issue or certainly has been in the past year?
Political Pressures and Free Speech on Campuses
00:11:40
Speaker
It's a huge issue.
00:11:41
Speaker
And the level of influence political pressure plays on individual campuses is
00:11:47
Speaker
It's certainly hard to gauge campus to campus, but that said, I think anyone who tells you they're not at least more aware of how campus decisions could be construed within this lens is probably not being fully honest with you, right?
00:12:02
Speaker
It is very hard to have gone through the last year and a half and seen, as you pointed out, targeted efforts to have college presidents removed from their positions because of political disagreements in a way that we haven't really seen historically.
00:12:16
Speaker
I mean, going back to McCarthyism and other things where you saw these efforts sort of at the academia to unseat people because of viewpoints.
00:12:24
Speaker
I do think something that's been very interesting is that we've had a little bit of a transition in this debate.
00:12:29
Speaker
Certainly following October 7th through the first into the spring semester when protests were at their height, when the conflict was at its highest.
00:12:36
Speaker
It's safe to say it's fair to say that colleges and university leaders struggled to find their footing.
00:12:42
Speaker
Things that we had understood to be
00:12:45
Speaker
the primary function of an academic environment, which is fostering debate, fostering engagement, erring on the side of more speech as a corrective to bad speech, led them to these kinds of attacks, led to highlighting discrepancies in enforcement of policies and procedures.
00:13:04
Speaker
And the summer really served as a reset.
00:13:06
Speaker
I think there's a reasonable debate as well as to whether in many cases, college university administrators overcorrected and stifled speech in some ways, or put provisions in place that suppressed speech that otherwise might be healthy if allowed.
00:13:21
Speaker
That said, we have not seen repeats of
00:13:24
Speaker
Certainly the things that rise to the top of your attention, acts of violence, significant incidents of hatred and discrimination on college campuses to anywhere near the degree that we were seeing.
00:13:34
Speaker
And so to a certain extent, I think some of this political pressure, the interest in showing up on campuses is negated when you don't have those trigger incidents to rise to the public's attention, to galvanize public
State Laws vs DEI Initiatives in Universities
00:13:46
Speaker
support.
00:13:46
Speaker
I think it was an interesting thing, the Education Workforce Committee, the House Committee, where those hearings, where college presidents were brought forward, where it took place, they issued their big report, I forget, late November, early December, post-election at the end of the year.
00:14:03
Speaker
And I think a year ago, this would have been a news leading item and 350 something pages, detailed excerpts from emails and other things they'd subpoenaed from institutions.
00:14:17
Speaker
And I think you can say it landed with a whimper, not a bang.
00:14:22
Speaker
where it was covered.
00:14:24
Speaker
It was section D, eighth page, not front page, top of the headline sort of thing.
00:14:30
Speaker
And part of that is the public's moved on in some ways without these flashpoints.
00:14:35
Speaker
It's less...
00:14:36
Speaker
media-friendly in terms of coverage.
00:14:38
Speaker
Some of it is, I think, that there's a growing sense that colleges and universities have recalibrated in a way that alleviates some of the concerns.
00:14:46
Speaker
We will still see reference to this.
00:14:49
Speaker
We will certainly see this because especially elite, highly selective institutions, where the majority of these protests were taking place, where the majority of the attention was focused, are still big targets for
00:15:00
Speaker
A lot of Republicans and some Democrats as well.
00:15:03
Speaker
So where there are flare ups, where there are things to highlight, they'll still get attention.
00:15:08
Speaker
But the public seems to have moved on in a way that I think, frankly, once the public moves on, policymakers have less interest in paying attention as well because they're not galvanizing their constituents.
00:15:18
Speaker
They're not engaging with them.
00:15:19
Speaker
They're not demonstrating a responsiveness to their concerns if this isn't something they're concerned about.
00:15:25
Speaker
Okay, thank you.
00:15:26
Speaker
I mean, it seems that the energy, some of it has been shifted or increased to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
00:15:33
Speaker
And that's one of the things I want to ask you about.
00:15:35
Speaker
Obviously, you'd already made reference to the fact that over the last couple of years, what we've seen is state laws that are being passed to regulate the content of university instruction, limit the services that universities can provide to their communities, such as banning DEI offices and closing multicultural centers.
00:15:53
Speaker
Right.
00:15:53
Speaker
And now politicians who push this legislation are signaling plans to use university accreditation systems to continue amassing power and influence or exerting power over university activities and curriculum.
00:16:07
Speaker
And I'm wondering if you can just talk about if these efforts continue to be utilized and successful, what effects they'll have on universities' abilities to carry out their missions.
00:16:19
Speaker
And Michelle, this is the part of our conversation where I move from hopeful to less hopeful.
00:16:24
Speaker
This is a, I'll be very honest.
00:16:27
Speaker
This is a very concerning area for me.
00:16:30
Speaker
You start with the fact that, as you pointed out, we have seen these efforts across the states.
00:16:35
Speaker
Those efforts are not slowing down.
00:16:37
Speaker
They are expanding in terms of the scope.
00:16:39
Speaker
It used to be a sort of a
Accreditation Debates and Diversity Requirements
00:16:41
Speaker
blanket.
00:16:41
Speaker
You can't talk about DEI or you can't have DEI centers.
00:16:45
Speaker
And now we're hearing from institutions that are talking about either efforts through lawsuits or through state investigations or policy proposals to look at things more broadly like
00:16:57
Speaker
Do you have scholarships that are specific to women?
00:17:00
Speaker
Do you have scholarships that are specific to students of color?
00:17:02
Speaker
Are those permissible practices?
00:17:04
Speaker
Really any consideration at the institutional level of race or gender or ethnicity in terms of what you can and cannot do.
00:17:14
Speaker
And it's not just accreditation.
00:17:15
Speaker
Accreditation is the one where I think we've seen the debate most as a flashpoint and
00:17:21
Speaker
We don't want to go too deep into this, but quick summary would be that all colleges and universities that receive federal financial aid are accredited by generally what are considered historically regional accreditors, some cases national accreditors.
00:17:36
Speaker
Those accreditors are required by federal law to look into a whole range of things on college campuses, mostly related to their ability just to operate.
00:17:45
Speaker
Are they financially stable?
00:17:47
Speaker
Do they have the appropriate safeguards in place, the appropriate structures, things like that?
00:17:51
Speaker
Things that sort of like an auditor would look like writ large, operational concerns.
00:17:57
Speaker
Those are delineated in law.
00:17:58
Speaker
The accreditors have to look at those things.
00:18:01
Speaker
The accreditors, though, see their job as not just ensuring that these are
00:18:05
Speaker
viable entities, but also in working with institutions to see that they're continuously improving, right?
00:18:12
Speaker
That advocates who are opposed to Trump's policies will bring forth suits just like we saw under the Biden administration.
00:18:19
Speaker
The reason I use the term chaos is chaos is a direct result of uncertainty.
00:18:24
Speaker
There is so much uncertainty right now.
00:18:27
Speaker
You cannot look at anything that is being done and say with absolute clarity and conviction,
00:18:34
Speaker
The Trump administration will be able to execute this.
00:18:36
Speaker
They will be able to maintain it through the courts.
00:18:39
Speaker
We just, as of last week, got back to every one of the 50 states operating under the same set of Title IX regulations because they had been enjoined in 26 states, the Biden rules enjoined in 26 states, allowed in 24 states.
00:18:55
Speaker
Some of those campuses in the 24 states were enjoined from doing them because they had certain groups on their campus.
00:19:01
Speaker
that had membership because of a different court ruling.
00:19:04
Speaker
It really is, if you look at this from the perspective of campus and say, what are my obligations now?
00:19:09
Speaker
What will they be?
00:19:11
Speaker
I mean, if you feel confident in that, I think you're probably not paying enough attention.
00:19:16
Speaker
There's just no way to know.
00:19:17
Speaker
And that's only going to be magnified as we enter a period of a lot of transition.
00:19:22
Speaker
Again, all those new regulations, all the old ones being struck down, new executive orders, there will be legal review on all those by people opposed to them.
00:19:29
Speaker
And I think chaos is a pretty fair point.
00:19:32
Speaker
So thesis defended there.
00:19:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:35
Speaker
I grant you your degree.
00:19:38
Speaker
Hooray.
00:19:39
Speaker
I do want to ask you your thoughts.
00:19:40
Speaker
I mean, one of the things about letting go of Chevron deference, I don't know how you feel.
00:19:45
Speaker
To me, it feels part and parcel with the sort of lack of reliance on expertise generally that we're seeing in all different areas, right?
00:19:54
Speaker
Which is that we're no longer going to be relying on the people who are working in the regulatory agencies, including the Department of Education.
00:20:01
Speaker
Instead, the decisions will be made by judges who might be very smart, but certainly are not experts on
00:20:07
Speaker
labor or education or transportation.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, I found the, and I don't always read all the opinions in Supreme Court rulings, but on the Chevron one I did.
00:20:18
Speaker
And it really was fascinating because I do think, I'm not dismissing your point.
00:20:22
Speaker
I do think there is a growing skepticism towards the role of expertise and
00:20:28
Speaker
But we're also talking about Supreme Court justices and clerks, some of the most highly educated, the elites of the elites within an elite profession.
00:20:37
Speaker
And when you start looking at both Robert's majority opinion and then Kagan's dissenting opinion,
00:20:43
Speaker
I think what becomes abundantly clear, whether Roberts kind of like throws it right out in front, he doesn't, but he talks about the fact that administrative agencies aren't experts in interpreting laws.
00:20:53
Speaker
Courts are, because that's the role of the courts is to interpret a law.
00:20:57
Speaker
He's saying that is the essential function of what is being here, and agencies might have technical expertise in
00:21:03
Speaker
you know, what the EPA regulations or EPA statutes are or what student lending
Potential Executive Orders Against DEI
00:21:09
Speaker
laws are.
00:21:10
Speaker
But when it comes to interpreting law, that's the courts.
00:21:13
Speaker
Kagan's take on that is basically, no, they do have the expertise.
00:21:17
Speaker
These are people most closely to it.
00:21:19
Speaker
Instead, what we've done is it's a power grab.
00:21:21
Speaker
It's essentially just asserting that the ultimate arbiter of our government are the courts.
00:21:26
Speaker
And that any level of deference below them to other types of expertise doesn't exist, doesn't serve that level of sort of judicial authority.
00:21:35
Speaker
So I don't know it's necessarily a referendum on expertise itself as much as it really is just a active, strong judiciary further asserting their will over a pretty weakened, especially legislature, but in particular administration.
00:21:51
Speaker
I appreciate that.
00:21:52
Speaker
This is why it's so fun to have a conversation with you because we get to, you know, really talk through the issues and everybody gets to listen to us doing that.
00:21:59
Speaker
While we're on regulatory agencies, I do have to ask you about this campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education.
00:22:08
Speaker
I've read about how it seems like it would be very unlikely, but I want to ask you, you know, is this just, you know, some red meat for the base or is this something that is really going to be considered and possibly executed?
00:22:21
Speaker
So I'll start by saying that it's not going to happen.
00:22:24
Speaker
They're not going to dismantle the Department of Education.
00:22:27
Speaker
So to a certain extent, you can say this is red meat for the base.
00:22:29
Speaker
This is an idea that's been around since Reagan's first campaign as for president.
00:22:35
Speaker
It's not a new idea.
00:22:37
Speaker
It tends to resonate a lot and sort of echo what we've seen really at the K-12 level a lot, this idea of get the government out of education, which
00:22:46
Speaker
especially in the higher ed space, ignores just the enormous number of interweaving between the federal government and higher education at every level of what we do.
00:22:56
Speaker
We know for a fact that people who are coming in to run the next Department of Education are serious, sober-minded people who have thoughts about how to govern effectively, who want to use the authority of the administration in ways to advance policy goals they believe in.
00:23:09
Speaker
That's a reasonable amount of governing.
00:23:12
Speaker
Getting rid of the Department of Education doesn't help them do that.
00:23:15
Speaker
There's lots of other procedural issues.
00:23:17
Speaker
You have to pass laws to abolish the Department of Education.
00:23:21
Speaker
Even if you debolish the Department of Education, that doesn't mean you've abolished
00:23:25
Speaker
all of the other programs and responsibilities, you still have to investigate civil rights complaints at colleges and universities.
00:23:31
Speaker
You still have to administer student loans.
00:23:33
Speaker
You still have to provide Pell Grants, unless you write laws eliminating all of those things as well, which in a very tightly divided Congress with very narrow margins for Republican control just aren't feasible.
00:23:45
Speaker
Lots of Republicans wouldn't want to do any of those things.
00:23:49
Speaker
I'm not even sure the majority of Republicans would want to do many of those things.
00:23:53
Speaker
So it's not gonna happen.
00:23:55
Speaker
I do wanna say though, and one of the things that concerns me about this rhetoric, it's really easy for me to sit in DC and talk to other DC people about procedural issues and it's complicated.
00:24:05
Speaker
Where are you gonna invest your political capital?
00:24:08
Speaker
I've gotten calls from, I don't know, I mean, five or six different reporters, mostly at regional papers across the country, who want to talk about this because the genesis for their story is they've heard from students who see the rhetoric about abolishing the Department of Education and don't have the time to parse all those things I went into and are asking, does this mean my loans go away?
00:24:29
Speaker
Does this mean I can't get a Pell Grant?
00:24:32
Speaker
Does this mean if I'm thinking about higher education for next year, a Trump administration won't provide financial aid for me to do?
00:24:39
Speaker
I can't go without it.
00:24:40
Speaker
So do I defer the decision to enroll?
00:24:43
Speaker
That has real implications.
00:24:44
Speaker
We talked a little bit about uncertainty for administrative planning and Chevron deference.
00:24:49
Speaker
If you think right at the very sort of the spark of what college is all about, a student deciding to enroll to pursue their studies,
00:24:57
Speaker
This kind of talk, it's not just about governing and everything else.
00:25:01
Speaker
It really does filter down to the soul of people who think maybe what we're saying is as a government, we don't want to invest in people like me, or we don't see the opportunity for me to go to school as important enough to support.
00:25:12
Speaker
And that is problematic.
00:25:14
Speaker
That has real harm.
00:25:15
Speaker
That has real consequences.
00:25:16
Speaker
We know people, students who don't apply often don't come back around the next time if this situation looks different.
00:25:21
Speaker
They consider that opportunity what works, and then they get into a job, they get into other obligations.
00:25:26
Speaker
and it becomes harder and harder to come back.
00:25:27
Speaker
So there are consequences even to talk that kind of get shung that aside when we have these conversations about this.
00:25:35
Speaker
I really appreciate your contextualizing that.
00:25:37
Speaker
And I think it kind of fits with the theme of this podcast, which is speech matters, right?
00:25:42
Speaker
Which is that it has impacts.
00:25:44
Speaker
And I appreciate your sharing those.
00:25:45
Speaker
And it was a kind of a perfect segue to talk about sort of one of the newer players on the higher ed scene, which is Linda McMahon, the president-elect Trump's pick to lead the Department of Education.
00:25:57
Speaker
Is there anything you want to highlight about what...
00:26:00
Speaker
she has talked about or said about her agenda or priorities as it pertains to higher ed?
00:26:08
Speaker
Of course, no.
00:26:09
Speaker
She's an interesting person to think about in this role.
00:26:12
Speaker
And I mean that truly, not in the sort of ambiguous way people use interesting.
00:26:18
Speaker
I think when she was initially announced, you saw some criticism, especially from more progressive education groups that said, you know, this is not an education leader.
00:26:27
Speaker
This is not a person who's deeply versed in education policy.
00:26:31
Speaker
And that's certainly true.
00:26:33
Speaker
She served on the state board of education for a term for a year.
00:26:38
Speaker
I'm not sure that was a full term.
00:26:40
Speaker
She's been on the board of a small, or not a small, actually a good-sized religious college in Connecticut.
00:26:46
Speaker
She's been actively involved in a public institution, Eastern Carolina University in North Carolina.
00:26:51
Speaker
And so, you know, there is some experience, but slight compared to what we've seen with previous nominees.
00:26:57
Speaker
That said, she has experience running a federal agency.
00:27:00
Speaker
She was the head of the Small Business Administration in the first Trump term for two years.
00:27:05
Speaker
When you talk to people who worked at that agency under her leadership, it was a healthy agency.
00:27:10
Speaker
There was a lot of attrition of federal employees in the first Trump term.
00:27:13
Speaker
Department of Education is a great example.
00:27:15
Speaker
A large number of employees took early retirement or found other employment.
00:27:19
Speaker
SBA wasn't that.
00:27:20
Speaker
She was seen as a thoughtful, capable leader, supportive of her people looking to accomplish their goals.
00:27:28
Speaker
Since she's come onto the scene, most of her public comments somewhat limited.
00:27:30
Speaker
She's going through confirmation process, going back, looking at the things she said in the past.
00:27:35
Speaker
They have tended to be pretty focused on areas where we think there's good policy to be made.
00:27:40
Speaker
She's talked a lot about workforce Pell and pathways to professions short of a degree, but that still requires some level of post-secondary training.
00:27:49
Speaker
Those are things that there's a lot of bipartisan discussion about in Congress.
00:27:52
Speaker
It's things that, frankly, as a membership association, we know our members are doing a lot of, but we think there's a lot more that can be done.
00:27:59
Speaker
And federal policy could really help to do more in that space.
00:28:02
Speaker
So it's not all, you know, I think there was a suspicion of somebody who's not deeply familiar with the education world, somebody who hasn't evinced a great level of
00:28:12
Speaker
interest in that area coming in.
00:28:14
Speaker
But I will say, and we've certainly seen other nominees who are far more problematic, having somebody who's seen as a smart and capable administrator, not especially ideological, not tied necessarily to very partisan or very confrontational positions, who has an interest area in some areas where there's good bipartisan policy made,
00:28:36
Speaker
it's not a bad nominee relative to what we could have worried.
00:28:39
Speaker
And I say that not just in terms of an incoming Republican administration, but often, you know, as a Democratic administration, you worry a little bit about people too tied to one view or another who won't be open to input feedback, working with the broader community, get all the views at the table.
00:28:52
Speaker
So I am cautiously hopeful about what we will see in the leadership of the Department of Education.
00:28:58
Speaker
That's really nice to have some heartening perspective.
00:29:02
Speaker
One of the things I anticipate is that McMahon will need to address some expression-related matters on campus during her tenure.
00:29:10
Speaker
As you and our listeners know, university campuses attracted the attention of federal lawmakers and the public.
00:29:16
Speaker
When students across the country began protesting against the war in Gaza in October 2023, notably college presidents lost and resigned from jobs following congressional hearings.
00:29:28
Speaker
Speaker of the House even visited Columbia's campus to give a press conference.
00:29:33
Speaker
Given the influence that lawmakers can exert on universities through threats of withholding federal funding, is the speech of higher education leaders inhibited by pressure from federal lawmakers?
00:29:44
Speaker
And just do you have any general thoughts on what is a very large issue or certainly has been in the past year?
00:29:52
Speaker
It's a huge issue.
00:29:53
Speaker
And the level of influence political pressure plays on individual campuses is
00:29:59
Speaker
It's certainly hard to gauge campus to campus, but that said, I think anyone who tells you they're not at least more aware of how campus decisions could be construed within this lens is probably not being fully honest with you, right?
00:30:15
Speaker
It is very hard to have gone through the last year and a half and seen, as you pointed out, targeted efforts to have college presidents removed from their positions because of political disagreements in a way that we haven't really seen historically.
00:30:28
Speaker
I mean, going back to McCarthyism and other things where you saw these efforts sort of at the academia to unseat people because of viewpoints.
00:30:36
Speaker
I do think something that's been very interesting is that we've had a little bit of a transition in this debate, certainly following October 7th through the first into the spring semester when protests were at their height, when the conflict was at its highest.
00:30:49
Speaker
It's safe to say it's fair to say that colleges and university leaders struggled to find their footing.
00:30:54
Speaker
Things that we had understood to be
00:30:57
Speaker
the primary function of an academic environment, which is fostering debate, fostering engagement, erring on the side of more speech as a corrective to bad speech, led them to these kinds of attacks, led to highlighting discrepancies in enforcement of policies and procedures.
00:31:16
Speaker
And the summer really served as a reset.
00:31:18
Speaker
I think there's a reasonable debate as well as to whether in many cases, college university administrators overcorrected and stifled speech in some ways, or put provisions in place that suppressed speech that otherwise might be healthy if allowed.
00:31:33
Speaker
That said, we have not seen repeats of
00:31:36
Speaker
Certainly the things that rise to the top of your attention, acts of violence, significant incidents of hatred and discrimination on college campuses to anywhere near the degree that we were seeing.
00:31:47
Speaker
And so to a certain extent, I think some of this political pressure, the interest in showing up on campuses is negated when you don't have those trigger incidents to rise to the public's attention, to galvanize public support.
00:31:58
Speaker
I think it was an interesting thing, the Education Workforce Committee, the House Committee, where those hearings, where college presidents were brought forward, where it took place, they issued their big report, I forget, late November, early December, post-election at the end of the year.
00:32:15
Speaker
And I think a year ago, this would have been a news leading item and 350 something pages, detailed excerpts from emails and other things they'd subpoenaed from institutions.
00:32:29
Speaker
And I think you can say it landed with a whimper, not a bang.
00:32:35
Speaker
where it was covered.
00:32:36
Speaker
It was section D, eighth page, not front page, top of the headline sort of thing.
00:32:43
Speaker
And part of that is the public's moved on in some ways without these flashpoints.
00:32:47
Speaker
It's less...
00:32:48
Speaker
media friendly in terms of coverage.
Higher Education's Role in Democracy
00:32:50
Speaker
Some of it is I think that there's a growing sense that colleges and universities have recalibrated in a way that alleviates some of the concerns.
00:32:58
Speaker
We will still see reference to this.
00:33:01
Speaker
We will certainly see this because especially elite, highly selective institutions where the majority of these protests were taking place, wherever the majority of the attention was focused, are still big targets for
00:33:12
Speaker
A lot of Republicans and some Democrats as well.
00:33:15
Speaker
So where there are flare ups, where there are things to highlight, they'll still get attention.
00:33:21
Speaker
But the public seems to have moved on in a way that I think, frankly, once the public moves on, policymakers have less interest in paying attention as well because they're not galvanizing their constituents.
00:33:30
Speaker
They're not engaging with them.
00:33:31
Speaker
They're not demonstrating a responsiveness to their concerns if this isn't something they're concerned about.
00:33:37
Speaker
Okay, thank you.
00:33:38
Speaker
I mean, it seems that the energy, some of it has been shifted or increased to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
00:33:45
Speaker
And that's one of the things I want to ask you about.
00:33:48
Speaker
Obviously, you'd already made reference to the fact that over the last couple of years, what we've seen is state laws that are being passed to regulate the content of university instruction.
00:33:58
Speaker
limit the services that universities can provide to their communities, such as banning DEI offices and closing multicultural centers, right?
00:34:06
Speaker
And now politicians who push this legislation are signaling plans to use university accreditation systems to continue amassing power and influence or exerting power over university activities and curriculum.
00:34:19
Speaker
And I'm wondering if you can just talk about if these efforts continue to be utilized and successful, what effects they'll have on universities' abilities to carry out their missions.
00:34:32
Speaker
And Michelle, this is the part of our conversation where I move from hopeful to less hopeful.
00:34:36
Speaker
This is a, I'll be very honest, this is a very concerning area for me.
00:34:43
Speaker
You start with the fact that, as you pointed out, we have seen these efforts across the states.
00:34:47
Speaker
Those efforts are not slowing down.
00:34:49
Speaker
They are expanding in terms of the scope.
00:34:51
Speaker
It used to be a sort of a blanket.
00:34:53
Speaker
You can't talk about DEI or you can't have DEI centers.
00:34:58
Speaker
And now we're hearing from institutions that are talking about either efforts through lawsuits or through state investigations or policy proposals to look at things more broadly like
00:35:09
Speaker
Do you have scholarships that are specific to women?
00:35:12
Speaker
Do you have scholarships that are specific to students of color?
00:35:15
Speaker
Are those permissible practices?
00:35:16
Speaker
Really any consideration at the institutional level of race or gender or ethnicity in terms of what you can and cannot do.
00:35:26
Speaker
And it's not just accreditation.
00:35:27
Speaker
Accreditation is the one where I think we've seen the debate most as a flashpoint and
00:35:34
Speaker
don't want to go too deep into this, but quick summary would be that all colleges and universities that receive federal financial aid are accredited by generally what are considered historically regional accreditors, some cases national accreditors.
00:35:49
Speaker
Those accreditors are required by federal law to look into a whole range of things on college campuses, mostly related to their ability just to operate.
00:35:57
Speaker
Are they financially stable,
00:35:59
Speaker
Do they have the appropriate safeguards in place, the appropriate structures, things like that?
00:36:04
Speaker
Things that sort of like an auditor would look like writ large, operational concerns.
00:36:09
Speaker
Those are delineated in law.
00:36:11
Speaker
The accreditors have to look at those things.
00:36:13
Speaker
The accreditors, though, see their job as not just ensuring that these are
00:36:18
Speaker
viable entities, but also in working with institutions to see that they're continuously improving, right?
00:36:24
Speaker
That they are not just meeting the minimums and moving on, but that they're doing the best that they can.
00:36:28
Speaker
They're working to be better.
00:36:30
Speaker
And so a lot of the accreditors put in place
00:36:32
Speaker
additional requirements that they look for when review committees go to campuses.
00:36:37
Speaker
And many of these historically regional creditors have asked institutions as part of the accreditation review to talk about diversity.
00:36:45
Speaker
Do they work to have diverse student bodies?
00:36:48
Speaker
What does that look like?
00:36:49
Speaker
Do they work to have representative workforces that reflect their communities and their student populations?
00:36:55
Speaker
How do they treat their staff and their students when they're on the campus?
00:36:58
Speaker
Do they respect diversity of viewpoints and diversity of experiences?
00:37:01
Speaker
Do they provide supports and facilities that ensure that every student, regardless of their background, has an equal opportunity to succeed at that campus?
00:37:11
Speaker
The touchpoint here, though, is if you believe, as the incoming administration does, that those kind of practices are, in fact, not helpful, but discriminatory against certain types of students,
00:37:21
Speaker
then you look at that and you say the fact that accreditors want you to prove to them as part of your accreditation process that you do these things is actually encouraging discrimination on college campuses.
00:37:32
Speaker
Because that is not a requirement that's enshrined in federal law, when the Department of Education reviews the accreditors themselves, they can simply say, why are you enforcing a discriminatory practice when the law is not asking you to do so?
00:37:49
Speaker
It remains to be seen.
00:37:51
Speaker
There have been efforts at some accreditors to change their standards, to modify either the language or what's required.
00:38:00
Speaker
In other cases, accreditors have looked at that and decided, no, we're going to push forward with what we believe is important about a well-run institution.
00:38:06
Speaker
this administration, this incoming administration is going to push very hard on it.
00:38:10
Speaker
They're gonna push hard on this in a lot of different ways.
00:38:12
Speaker
We expect to see a executive order, which will be on something along the lines that will mirror very closely an executive order that the Trump administration released at the end of their first term.
00:38:22
Speaker
called Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.
00:38:26
Speaker
Despite the sort of pleasant name, what it really says is that federal agencies and contractors and subcontractors to federal agencies can't actually employ diversity initiatives in terms of hiring or training or promotion retention policies.
00:38:45
Speaker
The first one, we got a lot of outside legal advice that said, well, the way it's written is a little ambiguous as to what a contractor is.
00:38:53
Speaker
Colleges and universities themselves may not qualify as contractors based on the way it's written.
00:38:57
Speaker
Certainly not in the way that you think of Northrop Grumman as a contractor to the federal government or Deloitte as a contractor to the federal government.
00:39:06
Speaker
We do expect though that with the new one that will be released that there will be a greatly expanded version of this with a much more explicit definition that will loop in colleges and universities and other entities.
00:39:16
Speaker
And it'll be the first elbow fired in a federal effort to block DEI programs at colleges and other organizations as well, not just higher ed, but across a wide range of organizations across this country.
00:39:30
Speaker
And then finally, I talked about this, the view of the incoming administration is that these programs are discriminatory.
00:39:36
Speaker
The other area where they will have influence is if you believe that these programs are discriminatory.
00:39:40
Speaker
And also say, if you believe that
00:39:43
Speaker
allowing transgender students to participate in athletics based on their gender identity is discriminatory.
00:39:51
Speaker
The Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education's job is to, and has many other roles, but a primary role is to investigate discrimination against students and staff on college campuses.
00:40:03
Speaker
It would not be
00:40:05
Speaker
surprising in the least to see that office initiate investigations into institutions that pursue DEI initiatives or that have transgender students participating in women's and girls athletics, because they would clearly, they've been on the record very publicly.
00:40:20
Speaker
They perceive that as discriminatory behavior.
00:40:23
Speaker
So, you know, it is a multi-front assault and it is one of those where, you know,
00:40:29
Speaker
Just to pile on the depressing news here, it is one of those where I've talked a lot about a lot of things you need Congress to do something, you need to change the laws.
00:40:36
Speaker
In none of the three sets of approaches, is there anything existing executive authority allows for it?
00:40:44
Speaker
You don't need a new law.
00:40:45
Speaker
You don't even really need to write a new regulation.
00:40:47
Speaker
This is just a change in interpretation of how their authority should be wielded.
00:40:52
Speaker
So yes, courts remain dominant.
00:40:55
Speaker
And yes, there will be opponents of these policies who will move forward in the courts to block executive actions.
00:41:03
Speaker
And we'll see how that all plays out.
00:41:06
Speaker
But especially around DEI, especially on some of these other issues, there are multiple tools at their disposal and they've given every indication they intend to use them.
00:41:14
Speaker
Well, I really appreciate your kind of getting in the weeds there because you were anticipating my next question, which was sort of about the difference between utilizing accreditation systems versus pursuing explicit legislation.
00:41:26
Speaker
So I think that's really helpful for people to understand the different tools in the toolbox and how they might be used individually or in concert.
00:41:34
Speaker
I don't want to get even darker here, but there has been some people who've been writing about how attacks on higher education are one of the first steps on the road to authoritarianism.
00:41:43
Speaker
And I'm wondering, I know this is, you might have to pull on your history background.
00:41:48
Speaker
If you have any thoughts on whether the current situation that higher education is facing is in fact a growing marker of authoritarianism.
00:41:57
Speaker
And if yes, you know, what role should higher education, not just experts, but constituents be playing in sort of raising awareness or in some cases sounding the alarm?
00:42:07
Speaker
It's such a good question.
00:42:09
Speaker
And keeping with our more depressing than hopeful theme, I think your premise is fundamentally sound, right?
00:42:16
Speaker
And I'll draw on my Eastern European history background that we saw this pretty clearly in Hungary, for instance, where the Orban rise was very directly tied to coupling with
00:42:29
Speaker
not just driving out particularly progressive pro-democracy voices from colleges and universities, but creating a sort of cultural divide between these global elites who weren't invested in the wellbeing of the nation versus, you know, in Hungary's case, sort of more of a,
00:42:48
Speaker
an agrarian rural constituency that were, you know, true Hungarians, to paraphrase, right?
00:42:54
Speaker
If you are looking to consolidate power and you don't want to be checked by all the frustrating and difficult and necessary checks and balances a democracy puts in place, a really good way to do that is to start by undermining and discrediting the people who uphold the institutions, right?
00:43:12
Speaker
And it's not...
00:43:14
Speaker
I want to be thoughtful about this and say, I don't necessarily know that there's the intentionality to this that we like to subscribe to it in retrospect.
00:43:22
Speaker
A lot of this is individual things where, you know, one side wants X, they see something else as oppositional, so they seek to undermine it.
00:43:31
Speaker
Some of these things grow very naturally.
00:43:35
Speaker
I think...
00:43:36
Speaker
Americans generally are distrustful of institutions.
00:43:39
Speaker
That doesn't necessarily mean they embrace authoritarianism.
00:43:44
Speaker
People have countless good reasons to be more skeptical now of law enforcement, of banks, of corporations, of any range of institutions, including colleges and universities, than they used to.
00:43:57
Speaker
Again, does not necessarily mean that they are seeking an authoritarian alternative, but
00:44:02
Speaker
when you start to erode the credibility of institutions, when you start to have a mass media and information system that allows people more and more to only hear viewpoints that reinforce their existing views, and you have fewer objective voices of credibility in the process, it's not shocking to me that you start to see a lot of these hallmarks and these norms falling away.
00:44:26
Speaker
And then, you know,
00:44:28
Speaker
Are there leaders who are manipulating that?
00:44:32
Speaker
Probably, yes.
00:44:33
Speaker
Are there leaders who are simply seizing on a moment because it advances their interests?
00:44:37
Speaker
Absolutely, right?
00:44:38
Speaker
Again, I don't know that there's a coordinated effort to topple democracy, but there are certainly people who benefit from democracy being weakened.
00:44:47
Speaker
You know, I think higher education, frankly, has done a really good job in a lot of ways about speaking to the challenges facing democracy.
00:44:54
Speaker
It benefits us in part because we are inherently tied.
00:44:56
Speaker
We, a stronger higher education system is a bulwark for a strong democracy.
00:45:00
Speaker
And that has always been the case.
00:45:01
Speaker
The better and more educated a populace is the more engaged in making
00:45:05
Speaker
better and more thoughtful determinations about the course of their country they will be.
00:45:09
Speaker
So those two things are inherently tied together, which is also why we make ideal targets if your goal is to weaken the democratic system rather than strengthen it.
00:45:19
Speaker
I really appreciate the nuance with which you answered that.
00:45:22
Speaker
And then also how you kind of brought it together to be talking about that connection between higher education and democracy, which of course the center really fervently believes in.
00:45:32
Speaker
And it kind of leads a
00:45:34
Speaker
meet kind of sort of our last few questions, which is about a lot of surveys, right?
00:45:41
Speaker
And of course, survey data can be interpreted in lots of different ways that the public is allegedly losing faith in the value of a college degree and in institutions generally, but in particular higher education institutions.
00:45:53
Speaker
And I'm wondering if
00:45:55
Speaker
What strategies you and your team have found to be most successful in promoting the value of higher education to federal lawmakers and even the public, including that connection between higher ed and democracy and why that matters, even if you're not someone who's able to access post-secondary education?
00:46:15
Speaker
It's a challenge.
00:46:17
Speaker
I think the thing I think a lot of people in higher ed find so frustrating is objective data backs up our arguments in all cases, right?
00:46:26
Speaker
There's no real question about the economic value to an individual or to society of higher education.
00:46:32
Speaker
It is the shortest path up the socioeconomic ladder.
00:46:35
Speaker
It's not resonating with the public in way.
00:46:38
Speaker
And there are deliberate efforts to undermine that.
00:46:39
Speaker
There are lots of learned experiences of people who have had an experience with higher education that was not beneficial and are more than happy to share that with people they know as well, right?
00:46:51
Speaker
Anecdote runs large in a lot of people's views of higher education.
00:46:55
Speaker
That said, I think for a long time, we kind of took the power of the objective data and this inherent belief in our mission and what we do to be self-evident and ignored the fact that that wasn't really working out that way.
00:47:12
Speaker
There is, I mean, reference fact, we're talking about it right now.
00:47:16
Speaker
I think there is a greater awareness that we need to do a better job of demonstrating value.
00:47:21
Speaker
At ACE, we're a national association.
00:47:23
Speaker
We represent a huge number of colleges and universities.
00:47:26
Speaker
We are talking at the national level about value writ large and what the value of higher education is.
00:47:33
Speaker
And moving away in some cases from this individual economic return, still important, not diminishing that, but looking at the role colleges and universities play as economic engines in their communities, the role they play in developing innovative technologies, the role they play in supporting national interests, national security, other things, where the value is a real, we're a force multiplier for all of the things people want this country to achieve.
00:47:59
Speaker
And for a national organization that makes, I think that's the right place to be putting our energies, articulating this vision, drawing in constituencies that don't think about higher education necessarily, but who depend on higher education to meet the goals they're setting for themselves.
00:48:14
Speaker
I'm going to sort of anticipate what your follow-up question here will be too, which is to say where I think the actual effectiveness in the national narrative around higher education is, and where I believe institutions are turning the corner in some ways,
00:48:27
Speaker
is talking back to their communities about what they do, how they serve people in their communities, including those, as you pointed out, who may not actually have the opportunity to access post-secondary education, as well as thinking about ways to reach out to those people so that their experience with higher education, post-secondary education looks different than it would have 20 or 30 years ago, that there might be workforce skills training involved at your campus.
00:48:48
Speaker
They might just be, you're the beneficiary of emergency supports or health services or cultural events or sporting events, whatever that looks like.
00:48:56
Speaker
that there's a clarity and a emphasis on how we're connected to the people around us, how we not just drive our economies, but build our cultures and our communities and how we're very much a part of that
00:49:09
Speaker
Well, so John, it sounds like you're anticipating my next and last question because sadly we're out of time, which is what can people who work in higher education day to day, what can they be, you know, like a lot of our listeners, what can they be thinking about and doing to assist people like you and your team to lobby to promote the value of higher education?
00:49:32
Speaker
So there's a lot of things they're already doing.
00:49:34
Speaker
And I'll just say, we do so many amazing things at our campuses at all levels and at all types of institutions.
00:49:42
Speaker
And having those experiences to share with people here in Washington, DC actually is one of the best ways to articulate the value of higher education.
00:49:50
Speaker
So that is tremendously helpful in the work that myself and my colleagues do.
00:49:54
Speaker
And certainly, you know, sharing those with us and making sure that we are aware.
00:49:58
Speaker
I would encourage your listeners to do that, to feel free to reach out to us.
00:50:01
Speaker
We would love to talk about that.
00:50:03
Speaker
But the other thing is, and I think not to give people who are already probably overworked more work, but a lot of this national narrative is driven by these individual examples and it's the encounters people have.
00:50:14
Speaker
with higher education with post-secondary institutions in their community.
00:50:17
Speaker
And that looks like a lot of different things, depending on whether you are a student or a family member or a staff member or faculty member, or somebody who just supports a local campus sports team or goes to a cultural event, or is a beneficiary of a medical clinic or a legal clinic or other services a lot of institutions provide to people in their communities.
00:50:39
Speaker
And the more you do those things, but also the more you do those things with an eye to the idea that you are a part of a community, making sure that the people within your community understand that you're there as much to serve them as to serve your mission or your other goals, that you really see yourself as central to everyone, whether they pay to attend your institution or not.
00:50:59
Speaker
Those are the kinds of things that when people are talking to their members of the conference or talking to their friends, they're talking about, it really relates very specifically to their views of higher ed.
00:51:09
Speaker
We do a lot of surveys.
00:51:10
Speaker
You asked before about surveys and survey data and what it says.
00:51:15
Speaker
And one of the things that always strikes me is when you ask people their views of higher education, they are generally, we do better than a lot of other people, but there's a lot of negative viewpoints.
00:51:25
Speaker
But when you ask people who went to a college or a university about their own experience, what they think about the institution they went to, they are uniformly incredibly positive and enthusiastic.
00:51:37
Speaker
And I think it highlights this point.
00:51:39
Speaker
When people actually interact with and experience colleges and universities that are on a campus, they interact with campus, whatever version that takes, that experience is very positive for the most part.
00:51:49
Speaker
The more that that happens, the more that campuses are thinking about and thinking very thoughtfully, intentionally about engaging their communities, giving more of those experiences to more people, the more likely they are to thrive in the environment.
00:52:01
Speaker
And the more that's done on a case-by-case basis nationally, the better the viewpoint of higher education will be.
00:52:07
Speaker
Well, I think everybody's plate is very full, but I think in some ways what you're talking about is storytelling, which is something that each of us does in our daily life.
00:52:15
Speaker
And I think we're just asking people to think about the stories that they might tell about their experience, either with a college and university or about how a college or university has impacted their life, even if they weren't in there in terms of community engagement and so forth.
00:52:29
Speaker
And so I think that's a really nice thing to sort of sum up the things that
00:52:35
Speaker
that people might do.
00:52:36
Speaker
We don't have to do all these things today, right?
00:52:38
Speaker
We can think about them as time marches forward.
00:52:41
Speaker
I don't know if there's, we've covered so much.
00:52:43
Speaker
I don't know if there's anything else you want to add, but I want to give you that opportunity.
00:52:48
Speaker
No, the only thing I would add is, is I would emphasize what you just said.
00:52:51
Speaker
And I think telling our story, we have great stories to tell and you put it so, so well, maybe being a little bit more intentional about it, but we have great stories to tell them when people hear them, their views change.
00:53:02
Speaker
So yeah, absolutely.
00:53:03
Speaker
That's I'll leave it there.
00:53:06
Speaker
Okay, well, I want to end.
00:53:08
Speaker
I get to have the last word, right?
00:53:10
Speaker
As the host to say just how grateful I am that you joined us.
00:53:13
Speaker
I know that you have been doing podcasts and talks all around the country.
00:53:17
Speaker
And so I'm grateful that you made time for Speech Matters and I look forward to continuing to work together.
00:53:23
Speaker
Very sorry.
00:53:24
Speaker
I know you're supposed to have the last word, but I absolutely agree.
00:53:28
Speaker
And thank you so much for having me and look forward to having you back on our podcast as well.
00:53:32
Speaker
And hopefully you'll have me back here.
00:53:35
Speaker
That's a wrap.
00:53:36
Speaker
Thanks so much to John again for joining us and for sharing his expertise.
00:53:41
Speaker
Next month, we'll talk social media and speech with John Perino, senior policy and advocacy expert at Internet Society.
00:53:49
Speaker
In the meantime, if there are topics you would like us to cover on the podcast this season, let us know.
00:53:55
Speaker
You can find us at freespeechcenter at uci.edu.
00:54:00
Speaker
Talk to you next time.