PODCAST: Discussion of the Land Grant Mission with written thoughts about how I am beginning to think that higher ed has lost its way (a work in progress).

RIn this short podcast I discuss the passion I had for the land grant mission, as well as singing about the bus tour we took with new faculty so they could become familiar with the State and where their students were coming from.  I still have this passion of the transformational mission of public higher education that you will hear in this podcast  and the goal of not only transforming students, but communities. 

My thoughts have changed, though, as the clock struck midnight and I found myself no longer in a leadership role. Although I believe in the trasnformational mission with my whole heart, and I hear academic leaders parroting these words, their actions and pretense make me think that higher ed has lost its way.  To be fair, the business models for public research institutions don't appear to be sustainable into the future.  Maybe our institutions are metaphorical typewriter manufactures trying stay alive under attack by personal computers.  Is that the endpoint?

Sometimes higher ed is its own worst enemy.  It is a difficult environment for public institutions because they must respond to the needs and wants of a wide array of stakeholders-  provosts and chancellors live tightly squeezed between a rock and a hard place- there are often no good decisions,  The politics of higher education is insane (we act like this is new but it has been this way since the 60s) with harsh criticisms from external and internal constituents from both the right and the left.  The energy and work involved in navigating the gauntlet of various constituents is exhausting, inevitably leading many leaders to cloister themselves in an echo chamber, forced to rely on obfuscation and hyperbole to manage internal and external constituents; and to often make decisions on what is best for their own survival in the job or their career trajectory, as opposed to what is best to meet the mission of the university beyond just securing the funds to survive. 

More to come on this, but here are few things that bug me:

• Hyperbole:

Every leader says the institution cares deeply about teaching and learning and preaches that if a student chooses to enroll at their school, they will be taught by the best faculty teachers, anywhere. And, public research universities celebrate research and creative activity as an economic driver with a sky high ROI and a major source of revenue.

• Reality: 

Deans and provosts (including me) convince themselves that it is OK to pay part-time faculty below minimum wage (if you take pay and divide by the number of hours it takes to teach a course well) and to pay full time non-tenure track faculty members wages that are not that far from the poverty line.  Institutions also seem to be fine creating instability for those teaching the largest volume of credit hours by keeping them on one-year contracts.  Leaders of research institutions have become experts in obfuscating the business model, i.e., that large general education classes taught by low paid faculty generate the revenue that is necessary to pay for the extensive cost of research (universities generally lose at least 50 cents on every dollar of research funding- since facilities and administrative costs don't come near funding the full cost of research, and universities pay for a large portion of faculty's time to conduct research), and in some schools, large gen ed classes may subsidize athletics..  The reality is the vast majority of deans and provosts actually try to fix the problem of low salaries and short term contracts. And, most truly empathize with the challenges facing non-tenure track faculty and would fix the issues of salary and job stability in a second if there were enough resources.

As for research, external grants bring in a lot of money that builds infrastructure, purchases equipment, pays for undergraduate research assistants, graduate students, postdocs and the research portion of faculty salaries, and it increases prestige and the ability of research institution to raise philanthropic funds.  It also pays the salaries of a lot of people that alone drives strong economic benefits to college towns.  But, universities sometimes talk about external research funding as if it can replace state funding or tuition- it can't. And, the more research grows,  the higher the costs of operating a university. Some universities receive flexible revenue from commercializing technologies, but most university technology commercialization offices lose money.  Research, scholarship and creative activities are powerful and positive societal forces. Sometimes those activities truly fuel innovation and have positive impacts on economic development.  Many of those activities are not net-revenue generating, but the work can impact fields of study, expand understanding of the world, or cause reflection on what it means to be human and to live in a civil society.  There is no question that research is a positive force, but is there a way to be honest about the costs that is sometimes shifted to student, and to be honest, without hyperbole, with our internal and external constituents?

• Hyperbole:  

​Every leader of every public research institution will forcefully communicate the university's priority is to create a diverse, inclusive and equitable campus. They will hire diversity officers, develop strategic plans, do cluster hires, require training for search committees and faculty, create scholarship funds that can be targeted to high schools with more diverse students, and many, many other truly laudable things.

• Reality:  

Few if any leaders publicly acknowledge the exclusivity that forms the entire culture of more elite public research institutions.  They have exclusivity in enrollment.  In universities with a large Greek life presence, fraternities and sororities that have a central role in the life of many students, they cater to an exclusive culture . By definition, Greek organizations are exclusive, selecting members who fit.  Chancellors and presidents get memberships to exclusive country clubs, and host wealthy or powerful alumni, donors, politicians, and community leaders in exclusive private boxes in our stadiums. Leaders spend far more time in wealthy exclusive communities than they do in socio-economically less wealthy communities or meeting with average people, or even average students.  Universities praise and sell exclusive honors program and hide the work done in remedial education, They celebrate the accomplishments of the most academically successful students, but rarely celebrate the students that have overcome massive barriers to simply just graduate.  Universities celebrate the faculty that are recruited that have Ph.D.s from the most exclusive universities, and don't say much about the ones who aren't. 

And, perhaps, most importantly, there is a tradition of teaching founded in equality and not equity. Faculty have been taught through their entire careers, starting as undergraduates, to treat students equally.  They are asked to have guidelines that specify clear and inflexible rules in syllabi. They do this because university culture has determined that approach is fair.  This approach, of course, assumes, that students are equal at the beginning of class- equal in their preparation, their life circumstances, their mental health, and everything else.  Students who do not feel equal, are often required to file for accommodations from disability offices to get some flexibility. With this minor adjustment, and assuming all students were equal at the beginning of the class,  faculty go about the business of teaching, knowing that they will end up with a bell curve of grades, often with as much as half the class doing barely or less than satisfactory work. And, they assume that this proves their teaching is fair and their assessments are rigorous.

Equity n the classroom requires a different approach.  First, one starts with the assumption that students do not come to the classroom under equal circumstances. Then there is engagement (and discovered that it is possible to engage in large class, if one puts in the effort to care) with each student in order to meet them "where they are" and give them support and flexibility they need, within the boundaries of the art of the possible. Faculty have the power to exercise empathy in our classrooms.  Caring, support and flexibility are often reciprocated with engagement and interest in the material, at least from my experience.  Not surprisingly, students engage and do better in a course if they think the professor cares. Also,  good teachers should be able to help most, if not all, students to meet and exceed the learning objectives of a course and receive high grades. That can be done by creating a foundation in classrooms where each student is met where they are and provided, as best that is possible, what they need to reach their potential.  In having equality as the foundation of a classroom, the reality students come to the classroom with anything but an equal set of preparation and personal circumstances is ignored.  Perhaps, some day, universities will stop talking about equity, and actually implement it widely in classrooms.

• Hyperbole- 

University magazines, TV spots and press releases will tell you that every public research institution is distinctive and better than their peers; faculty are the best and their research accomplishments define innovation; their new ideas are "game-changes"; even moderate gifts are "transformational"; if you come to their institution you will have an experience like no other; and there are no challenges, only opportunities

• Reality-

Public research universities (and other universities) collectively spend multi-million dollars on creating brands to distinguish themselves from other institutions that pretty much do the same things.  Provosts can receive hundreds of university magazines, many with very high production costs, that tried to make sure one understands the unbelievable momentum described in each publication. But, if one takes off the logos and the pictures, it is hard to tell one magazine's institution from another. That is even more true with the TV spots during football games. Those are expensive to produce and do nothing to distinguish a university.  At one institution, a press release on a $1.6 million dollar planned gift, suggested it would allow a team to be a perennial powerhouse.  The gift won't be received for years, and when it is, and then endowed, it might provide $80-90K a year. That is certainly great- but ensuring a perennial powerhouse? Be serious.  Press releases can border on the absurd, and sometimes can have a content to word ratio nearing zero.  An institution I have worked for, for example, put out a press release on choosing an architect for a new 20,000 sq ft building that could have been a Saturday Night Live caricature of higher ed.  This paragraph was put together from sentences in a page long release: "This new facility will be a catalyst for creativity such that it will generate hotspots of innovation that will be inspirational and inclusive, creating accessible hubs of transformational creative dialogue and artistic exchange.  Because of our efforts we will better understand one another and our environments such that we will drive inclusive social practice, create new work, and promote change-oriented action. Our efforts will create a destination like no other and a gateway to a hive a creativity that will launch careers and foster collaboration and opportunity."  This is not a joke.

• Hyperbole:

Public research business models are not-sustainable so costs must be cut,  and new net-revenue will have to come from public-private partnership, online programs, more career oriented programs, certificates and stackable micro-certificate, research growth etc.  The future of higher education is in grave jeopardy.

• Reality: 

Residential campuses in flagship public research institutions,  as an industry  sector,  are not in grave jeopardy, albeit individual institutions that don't fit this criteria might be.  There has yet to be any evidence that elite private and public universities will disappear or transform into something very different than they are now. Despite many attempts, so far, nothing has significantly disrupted the need/desire for residential experiences in 4 year colleges (despite the hype for several (eg MOOCs) new models) that would make universities completely disappear and become collectors items like typewriters did as a result of the personal computer revolution.

The current business model, particularly for the large number of four year colleges and universities, though, is simply broken-  one of the reasons it is broken is because the demography is such that we may not need all of the infrastructure (e.g., campuses) for higher education that we have. Maybe a small number of schools will (have) figured out how to create a massive, net revenue generating,  online presence or public-private partnership, to offset growing costs of research, technology, people, and athletics (if not self-supported). Many institutions will focus on an expanded online presence with more completion options (e.g., badges, certificates, certifications in addition to degrees) and on retention of students. But, massive online presences can't be achieved by every school, and there is ultimately a limit of how much can be squeezed out of increased retention of students, especially in the more elite public research institutions that may have first year retention over 90%. At some point. increasing investments to squeeze the last bit out of student retention will have a negative ROI. 

Business officers often believe that faculty are the source of resistance to change; that the problem with the budget model are unnecessary expenses in academic affairs or the need to build more and more costly amenities for students. A CFO I know would confront the challenges of the business model by: 1) Getting rid of all non-professional programs and abolish or shrink liberal arts, humanities and social science; 2) Increase faculty teaching loads and greatly reduce workloads associated with research and service; 3) Get rid of tenure and expand/reduce the faculty workforce in sync with expansions or declines in enrollment revenue; 4) Reduce spending on non-core activities in student affairs and athletics; and 5) Reduce the number of employees, particularly faculty to create a much small cost per credit hour.   If one plays out this  model in one's head, it seems this would be a kin to creating a "no-frills" airline. or, perhaps, a technology education oriented community college.  That model would make sense if technology-oriented community colleges were the most financially stable of higher education institutions.  But, overall, the business model for community colleges seems even more broken than for public research institutions 

A challenge with the narrative that change is needed and needed now, is that universities waste a ton of resources,  in sending campus employees into chaotic Brownian motion. The message for the need for everyone to be in nervous motion is that something must be done, anything, because doing something, rather than nothing, even poorly thought out tactics, is better than nothing, and will slow the march to the edge of the cliff and maybe turn around.  Chaotic Brownian motion, however,  rarely solves a problem and usually ends up costing money because of poor implementation of poorly thought-out strategies; costing time that might be better spent elsewhere;  and reducing the morale of faculty and staff, which saps the positive energy needed to overcome a crisis.  In such cases, doing something in a rash and poorly thought manner, may only speed up the coming of the cliff's edge.

For public research institutions, a major challenge is declining financial support from state government.  As a former senior administrator, we believed a significant reason for the declining support was the inability to make a case for an institution's value to the State. For over 25 years, I've been involved with trying to tell the story better- the significant impact and return on investment that research institutions have on the economic well being of the State; the impact that graduates have through creating a talented and diverse workforce who become leaders, health care providers, educators, business owners, and public servants; the role of research institutions in attracting industry or creating new start-up companies; the improvements of the lives of people in communities across a state through outreach and engagement.  These are all true-- but the arguments and the data have not won the day.  

Is the reason the arguments have not one the day because of how they are presented? Personally, I think they aren't.  A narrative has been evolving for a long time that higher education is: a left-wing oriented industry that is not providing effective education for many students; incapable of presenting clear and transparent data on what drives rising costs and how tuition and state dollars are spent; characterized by a sense of self-righteous entitlement;  conducting research, scholarship and creative activities that nobody cares about except other academics; allowing tenured faculty to remain in well-paid jobs while they underperform; lacking any self-reflection; and led by snake-oil salesman that communicate to boards and funders with the hyperbole and superficial content of TV commercials. Like all narratives, there is some truth to this one, but for the most part it is wildly inaccurate. 

It is really hard to turn around such a narrative (or any narratives).  First, humans have evolved to quickly create narratives (stories) from their perceptions. Once those narratives are created, they are hard to change. It is simply far easier for the human mind to find data to support an already created narrative and to ignore data inconsistent with that narrative, than it is to create a new narrative based on new data.  And, given the large array of constituents that universities are trying to support, leaders and faculty end up saying, publishing and/or doing things are consistent with some part of the narrative that strengthens the entire story.  Second, public institutions in particular, are political entities. They were created by political action and win support through a political process.  Political process and perspective are often not moved by data.  

Is it possible to shape a revised or new narrative, at least without fundamentally changing the core mission of propelling students on to great lives; doing research and related activities that change fields and improve people's lives; and improve the well being of people and communities?  I don't know.  I've seen the narrative change in people who have the opportunity to engage deeply with institutions or their leaders over periods of several years.  But, I don't think the narrative can change with universities simply being better at marketing.  In the end, it is about building trust with all of the stakeholders.  Hyperbole and unbridled enthusiasm is not the way to build trust. Authenticity and honesty go much further. It is always risky to be authentic and honest because that requires exposing weaknesses and bad decisions that provide data in support of the negative narrative.  I don't know of any other way to build trust but I can't say I have seen that approach work in my time as a senior administrator, either.  Your ideas are welcome.