Canary: Higher Ed Issues Landscape Report 09/23
September 23rd, 2024
What we’re watching
Protests, career centers and recruiting
A "quick poll" from the?National Association of Colleges and Employers?found that campus protests have had little impact on staff practices and outlooks.
In addition, NACE found that:
Viewpoint neutrality
A string of universities have announced new institutional neutrality policies over the last few weeks, including UPenn, UVA, and the University of Wisconsin system.
In addition, Yale announced a committee to study whether or not the university “should comment on matters of public significance.”
“Over the years, and with increasing frequency, leaders . . . across most universities have made public statements in response to external events.. . .Although well-meaning, these institutional messages fundamentally compete with the free and unencumbered creation and expression of ideas by individuals … By quieting Penn’s institutional voice, we hope to amplify the expertise and voices within.”- Interim President J. Larry Jameson (UPenn)
Conference Realignment
As football season steps through the gears, so too does intrigue around conference realignment.
"We're basically rebooting a conference.” - Colorado State athletic director John Weber
As conferences and programs wrestle with the new NIL landscape, financial considerations are taking center stage.
"In this era of name, image and likeness, there has never been as close a connection between resources and competitive success. We want to be a leader in college sports. That means we want to be a leader in revenue sharing." - Tennessee AD Danny White (ESPN)
Meanwhile, the conference merry-go-round is playing havoc with some team schedules.
Who you gonna call?
Yale is looking to hire an “Administrator On Call,” who can act as act as “as an intermediary” between the university leadership and internal/external stakeholders during “protests and high-profile events.”
“It’s basically to try and avoid situations where things are escalated by encounters with police or security,” - Dean of Yale College,? Pericles Lewis (Forbes)
The position represents an innovation and evolution in how universities enforce new time, place, and manner policies on the one hand, and deal with protestors on the other. According to?the job posting,?the person hired must be able “to be on campus with very short notice” — and be prepared for some “evening and weekend work.”
Presidents and “communications savvy”
Last week, Rutgers president Jonathan Hollow announced that he would be stepping down at the end of the school year.
“We’re sort of at wit’s end,” said Holloway, speaking candidly to NJ.com and placing his resignation within the wider context of campus protests and controversy that have roiled higher education over the last year.
“We’re all seeing people we looked up to who are saying, ‘I’m out.’ And I think we’re going to see a lot of that. These jobs are difficult in good times but when you’re facing absolutely no-win situations constantly, in this era of hyperbole about failing to do X, Y, and Z…none of us signed up for that. Just like I didn’t sign up to have a police detail with me everywhere I go.” - Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway (NJ.com)
“You could not pay me enough to be a college president. It’s a thankless position. The primary jobs of any college president are fundraising and appeasing the most entitled constituencies on the planet. The rising political polarization, and obviously the student protests, those are just the cherry on top of the crap sandwich that you’re dealing with as president.” - Professor, Daniel Drezner Tufts University (NY Post)
领英推荐
As many high-profile universities continue to search for new college presidents, Academic Search, an executive search service for higher education institutions, has releases the results of a survey of 700 college presidents (as well as 4 presidential focus groups) about what it takes to succeed in today’s environment.
The research identified seven competencies:
Diving deeper into the parts of the research that touched upon communication, several survey answers stuck out.
Focus groups described “communication savvy” in numerous ways, including ‘tailoring messages to different audiences, storytelling through diverse types of data, infusing their personality and emotion into messages, and discerning which issues merit the ‘president’s voice.’”
“Our study revealed that being a data-driven decision-maker is not as simple as being a “numbers person.” Combining technical knowledge with people skills and a willingness to learn is one of the most important aspects of becoming a successful president.” (Academic Search)
Presidents also expressed feeling caught between wanting to inject a sense of personality and emotion into their communications, and having to rely on communication staff because of time and bandwidth constraints.
“We had a phenomenal communications director who I then made my chief of staff. . . We then hired her replacement who came from a corporate environment . . . He couldn’t understand why I wanted to put emotion into my communications . . . He wanted to use corporate speak… I finally had to say, “We’re not an insurance company that you came from.” - Focus group participant (Academic Search)
Tackling controversy head-on
Ultimately, when it comes to communication strategies, college presidents have to walk the tensions between under and over engaging — communicating too much or too little.
Presidents who under-engage or under-communicate have by no means been immune to the scrutiny and controversy that higher education leaders face today. As such, presidents are increasingly leaning in to controversy in an attempt to demonstrate authenticity and model engagement. As they do so, courage, humility and “communication savvy” will be vital competencies.
?? What we’re reading
The Atlantic: Saving the Idea of the University
Universities must be places where different ideas and opinions lead to personal growth, scientific breakthroughs, and new knowledge. But when a group of students takes over a building or establishes an encampment on shared campus grounds and declares that this shared educational space belongs to only one ideological view, the power and potential of the university dies—just as it would if a president, administrators, or faculty members imposed their personal politics as the position of the institution.
The New York Times: Harvard, Brown and Other Top Schools Are Thinking About Black Freshmen the Wrong Way
Eliminating both Black students’ stigma and Asian students’ sense of foul play is more important than closing any gap in future earnings, which in any case hardly indicates that Black students outside of the Ivies are relegated to washing cars for a living. Admissions preferences intended to promote socio-economic rather than just racial diversity would encounter much less pushback and confusion.
MarketWatch: Free four-year college was a rallying cry for Democrats in 2016 and 2020. This year they’re not talking about it.
During the past two election cycles, Democratic presidential candidates battled over the particulars of their proposals to make college free. But this year, at least so far, access to a free four-year degree isn’t a policy that the Democratic Party is emphasizing. . . Instead, it vows to make trade school and community college free, noting that “four-year college is not the only pathway to a good career.” . . The change from 2016 and 2020 comes amid growing skepticism about the value of so-called traditional higher education.
#?? Trending on Social This Week
Sources:
Legend Labs is a brand and communications consulting firm for the digital age. We help ambitious leaders create, grow, and protect their Legends. This analysis of reputation-related trends in higher education features insights from Meltwater and direct social media & web analysis.
For more information, email us at [email protected].