This academic year has been particularly challenging for those working at universities in the U.S. Over the past few months I've been thinking about how we ended up here, and some paths forward. I wrote down some of those thoughts for the Brookings Institution:
www.brookings.edu/articles/uni...
I’ve been talking lately about how higher education needs a campaign about its value to society beyond economic returns (this is important but not the only thing we should talk about). A series of ads like the “cotton” ads that talk about the importance of universities for democracy, etc.
Yes! I agree that something like that is needed. Was talking about this issue with a journalist this morning--the main thing people hear about universities anymore is their various scandals. If that's the narrative, it's hard to get/keep public support.
It’s puzzling to me why we don’t see ourselves as an industry and act accordingly. The individual schools do this and sometimes the athletic conferences but what we need is to talk about our benefits writ large from community colleges onward to 4 year graduate degree granting universities
I think some (a lot?) of that is the elitism; thinking of ourselves as an industry is "beneath us." People should just know that we are inherently worthwhile 🙃
True! But we’ve see a lot of things we thought people inherently valued like democracy, NATO, the EU and vaccines be undermined pretty substantially bc no one thought that they needed defending until they did. Let’s do some offense!
Nice work. I worry many university leaders have lost sight of our mission. They’re myopic as they focus on the short term budget. They worry about their own livelihoods as they try to appease those attacking them.
Following you, faculty can help by doing student centered and community based work.
I LOVE THIS: “Universities and their leaders spend so much of their time and energy fixated on changing the hearts and minds of political and monied elites that they often forget to engage with the people that have power and influence to advocate for them.” Thanks for this!
I hope your Brookings megaphone pulls some readers among presidents & provosts, helping them recall the greater purpose(s) of the university.
Many canNOT seem to get past the short-term crises of budget & enrollment, and seem to be misreading each of those.
In the past 24 hours I've received some heartening emails from several deans who have read the piece.
Hopefully they (and their presidents and provosts) will follow through and do the work 🤞🏿
Some deans are running scared, keeping their heads down. I don't really feel sorry for them (there's an extra digit at the end of their at-will salaries) but they're in the middle on this. I hope some have the courage to get their bosses to read your piece.
