On March 6, Sarah Brown and Rick Seltzer hosted a live event to take questions about Donald Trump’s first months in office. Watch a recording here. A lightly edited transcript is below.
Sarah Brown: This is our second webinar focused on the impact of the Trump administration on higher ed. This event is devoted to answering your questions. I am The Chronicle’s news editor. I’m here with Rick Seltzer, a senior writer at The Chronicle. Rick, how’s it going?
Rick Seltzer: I’m doing great.
Brown: I’m going to get started with a poll. Which topic should we tackle first? We’re going to get to as many questions as possible that you all have submitted. We know the elephant in the room is that it is very possible that we are going to get an executive order from President Trump announcing that he wants to dismantle the Education Department. We are prepared to talk about it.
While you guys weigh in on the poll, I want to flag that this is a follow-up event to one that we ran two weeks ago. 10,000 people joined us live. There was so much we didn’t cover, and a lot of what we didn’t get to cover is your questions. So today we’re just going through your questions. We’ve gotten 2,500 questions in advance. I will also try to take a few questions live. The only other thing is that if you want to stay up-to-date on the latest with the Trump administration, Rick is your person. He writes the Daily Briefing, our subscriber-only newsletter. The only way to get it is to subscribe to The Chronicle. So if you want to really keep up with the day-to-day of the Trump administration, subscribe to The Chronicle so you can get the Daily Briefing.
Seltzer: I try to make that newsletter a combination of the great Chronicle coverage that our own reporters do, stories from around the web that we just cannot get to for various reasons, and I also try to add as much of my original reporting as possible.
Brown: While we wait for the poll to end, let me answer one important question that I know we want to talk about. Do Trump’s threats to yank federal funding from institutions that do not comply with his administration’s priorities affect private colleges or just public colleges?
A lot of people might think public colleges are government entities, so it’s understandable that they would be affected by what Trump is doing. Private colleges are not, so why would they be? The simple answer is yes, private colleges are affected. Federal guidance and executive orders apply to you, too. There are some distinctions here. Public colleges are subject to the Constitution. Meanwhile, some public and private colleges are federal contractors that have direct relationships with the federal government. So there are some differences there. But by and large, this guidance, for example, on diversity, equity and inclusion and Title VI, that applies to private colleges as well. The latest Q&A from the Trump administration explicitly says we will be applying the same standards to public and private colleges now in terms of investigations. Trump has mostly been going after the big name private institutions like Columbia, for example, and Northwestern. But in terms of the letter of the law, yes, public and private colleges are both affected. Rick, do you have anything to add?
Seltzer: The big lever that the federal government has is federal financial aid and the funding that students draw from the federal government. To be a college that can accept that money you have to agree to do certain things with the feds and you are subject to all sorts of laws. So that’s the lever, and that’s what they use to threaten institutions with loss of that funding. The interesting dynamic here, the only other important dynamic to mention, is smaller institutions, whether they be private or public. Community colleges are in this as well, as they are very reliant on that student financial aid. Look at the students who enroll in those types of institutions, the non-wealthy institutions, the students who are attending often disproportionately draw Pell Grants. And so the loss of the ability to enroll students who need Pell Grants would be devastating for most of these institutions.
A lot of people might think public colleges are government entities, so it’s understandable that they would be affected by what Trump is doing. Private colleges are not, so why would they be? The simple answer is yes, private colleges are affected.
Brown: Let’s go ahead and close the poll. We’ve got a lot of different answers, but number one is DEI. Second is college finance. Third is the Education Department’s final mission. Our first question is from Laura, who asks: Are universities required to remove DEI language from websites and materials, close DEI offices, and cancel DEI-related programs? Is this enforceable? What are the risks to taking or not taking these actions? What are the benefits to ignoring this demand and conducting business as usual? What do you think, Rick?
Seltzer: This is a good time to give our very important disclaimer that I am not a lawyer. I don’t think you are either, Sarah? Although by the end of this, we both would qualify if we can get credit for experience from reading so many different laws and executive orders.
The short answer is that it varies based on state law. I’m going to talk about the federal perspective. This landscape has changed significantly in the last week or so. If you go back up to February you see the Department of Education puts out this Dear Colleague letter. And it had wide-ranging guidance suggesting that all sorts of race-conscious practices on campuses are illegal. And that was widely interpreted and widely reported as, if not explicitly focusing on DEI likely covering DEI. What happened in the last week is that the government put out a Frequently Asked Questions document that more or less walks back some of the more wide-ranging aspects of this guidance. It specifically noted that federal law prohibits the Education Department from controlling the curriculum. So concerns about mentions of DEI or other diversity-related topics in the should be put to rest. It also made the point that using specific terms like “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” is not what breaks the law. What it argues breaks the law is treating students differently based on their race. So it’s what you’re actually doing, it’s not how you label the practices. This highlights an interesting and important dynamic, which is that a lot of institutions did start scrubbing their websites, and it was not always clear if they were changing what they were doing because they suddenly thought they were breaking the law or because they were trying to not draw scrutiny. But I think there’s less impetus to make language changes today than there was previously.
While we’re on the topic of this frequently asked questions document, this clarification to the Dear Colleague letter, a couple other points to make. It specifically said that interest groups that are focused on specific cultures or heritages are not banned if they are open to all. I know we received a lot of questions about whether you could still have a student affinity group for any number of different focuses. And then it also said that celebrations of cultural history are still allowed if they are open to everyone. So you can celebrate Black History Month if your celebrations of Black History Month are not limited to Black students. Presumably that would apply to Saint Patrick’s Day also. If you want to have a celebration for that or any number of other less sensitive holidays.
There’s still a lot left to be fleshed out. This document still casts some negative light on graduation ceremonies focused on specific students. And any number of cases on the ground are difficult to parse without more guidance. And that’s where we get into this question of enforcement. Is this enforceable? In response, I ask: What do you mean by enforcement? Do you mean I do not want to be investigated? Or do you mean I don’t want to actually be sanctioned?
One other key part of this guidance document that came out last week is that the Department of Education acknowledged it cannot yank your federal funding overnight. There is a relatively lengthy process that involves trying to negotiate a resolution after you have faced the allegations, and then you can end up in administrative hearings or court hearings as you fight this, if you so choose. And so I think the question for institutions to answer is, are they afraid of being questioned? Are they afraid of being publicly paraded as potentially violating one of these guidance documents? Are they afraid of actually losing federal funding? Or are they afraid of losing something in between? That’s something that I think a lot of executive offices are probably discussing right now.
One other important thing to note is that the Dear Colleague guidance has been challenged in at least two court cases. The ACLU, NEA, AFT and American Sociological Association are the organizations that have brought those challenges. And then as a broader point: It’s important to remember as we talk about the guidance coming from the administration or the executive orders coming from the administration, a lot of these actions have been blocked once they were challenged in court. The DEI guidance has not been blocked, to my knowledge, unless it was blocked in the last 15 minutes. But 41 different actions have been taken to court. The courts have blocked 41 different initiatives, per The New York Times as of this morning. That is not a small number. That doesn’t necessarily help you decide how to comply or not comply right now. But it is very important from the broader perspective.
Brown: On that question of do you comply or not, we have a couple questions on that. Jamie asks what percentage of universities are complying and what percentage aren’t? Candice also asks, are most or many institutions outwardly complying with reduced DEI efforts and inwardly still pursuing those efforts?
I can take a run at that and then you can jump in, Rick. We’ve been tracking this across the country and it’s all over the map. Some colleges have been adamant that we are still doing the work, but the exact structure and the name is evolving. I will say that this situation can be different in red states. For example, Texas public colleges. Some of them tried making primarily semantic changes, and Republican lawmakers got so mad that they threatened state funding and passed new restrictions. And a bunch of universities had to fire staff.
The question for institutions to answer is, are they afraid of being questioned? Are they afraid of being publicly paraded as potentially violating one of these guidance documents? Are they afraid of actually losing federal funding?
We are also seeing DEI changes at public and private universities in blue states. So, for example, the University of Colorado system changed the name of their systemwide office to Office of Collaboration. We also have Rowan University, in New Jersey, which initially renamed its office and then closed it and reopened a different one and reorganized all the programs. Some colleges have changed nothing and say we do not believe that any of our legitimate equity efforts violate federal law. We interviewed San Diego Community College District’s chancellor who said, nope, no changes here.
One thing that’s worth noting is that one of the institutions that initially said we are not changing anything in response to federal guidance was Portland State University. They got called out after doing this in a widely shared social media post that tagged President Trump and the newly confirmed Education Secretary, Linda McMahon. And Portland State is one of the first targets for investigation into alleged antisemitism by the Trump administration. Anything to add, Rick?
Seltzer: The Portland State situation is an important one to watch. Portland State has been, I guess, on a watch list for a while. It has a really strong association with protest and some things that the right has been skeptical of, to say the least. So I do wonder to what degree there was already monitoring of their action in this case versus, you know, this just happened to pop up.
Another thing I want to mention is that we are still seeing some stories about institutions pulling down DEI language or not allowing certain groups to meet even after the federal clarification came. And in some cases, these changes are what folks who don’t like them would call over-compliance or pre-compliance. I saw a story today about a group of Black graduates in Ohio that has met every three years and now can’t meet or supposedly can’t meet. So there’s still some question about whether institutions are doing it in some cases because they wanted to make changes and it’s just kind of easy to say we’re doing this in response to the guidance? There are a lot of questions. It’s going to vary based on a case-by-case basis.
I’m really glad you brought up the case of California and its institutions. They’re continuing with their operations because California has had a state law against affirmative action for many years. And DEI is one of those bundles of strategies that has been rolled out to serve students who have not traditionally been served on our campuses, even in an environment where affirmative action is not allowed. The fact that they’re doing it there sets up a good contrast between the federal interpretation of DEI as discrimination and indoctrination, and the interpretation you see on many campuses of DEI as a way to help students who have not always felt that they belong on campus, matriculate, and graduate.
One more point. You’re starting to see groups that are pro-DEI circulating arguments for it in a way that we had not seen during the initial Trump blitz. Either moral arguments for it or arguments that it is legal. That’s a really notable thing as the marketplace of ideas fleshes out both what is allowed under the law and what strategies campuses can use that are going to receive widespread buy-in.
Brown: Before we get into college finance, I do want to address diversity-related topics in the curriculum. Ava asks: I have spent years updating my course materials and choosing textbooks to be DEI forward. Am I going to have to scrub my course materials of DEI content? Victoria asks: Are there indications that academic programs that focus on race or gender might come under enhanced scrutiny? The simple answer is the federal government cannot interfere in the curriculum. The longer answer is a little bit more complicated. Right, Rick?
Seltzer: Yeah. I’m most closely watching the state level because we’ve seen politicians in several states either use the bully pulpit or try to pass legislation against these programs or classes. You’ll see some of these programs held up as examples of not meeting workforce needs or not producing enough graduates who go on to earn enough. So we’re seeing a lot of focus at the state level on aligning programs at colleges with what the workforce demands. Are these programs collateral damage in those moves? Are they being targeted but not explicitly targeted? It probably depends on the case, on the lawmaker. The legislative process is never a single motivation. But I think at the state level is where this is most important. Again, because the federal government is constrained by the law, it is not allowed to dictate curriculum.
Brown: The Education Department acknowledged that in the latest guidance on Title VI. They said explicitly that we cannot interfere with the curriculum. So it is not illegal to teach African-American Studies. However, there can be indirect impact. One of the places that we’ve been following at The Chronicle is Florida, which has reshaped general education. They had a state law that basically said, you can’t teach these kinds of ideas in mandatory courses. Fifty-seven percent of courses across Florida’s public colleges were removed from the general education curriculum. And the effect of that is not that the courses are no longer being taught, but they’re not gen-ed courses. And that could harm enrollment, which could have an implication for the future of the program.
Seltzer: There are a lot of small levers you can pull. There are a lot of ways that you can shift the discussion or shift what is most likely to grab a student’s attention or move a student into a course that is not explicitly banning a course or going after someone who teaches it. An important point: The Florida law was challenged several weeks ago. That’s a 2023 law. It took a while to get challenged. That’s an example of another key theme, which is the court system will work through all of this, but it is slow. Some would probably argue it is behind in some of these cases, and so that does not mean that you will not see short-term effects, and in some cases short-term harms.
Brown: Let’s talk college finance. A question from Tricia: Are most higher-ed institutions applying hiring freezes due to the federal funding cuts?
Even though on the research side of things, cutting one grant is not going to be the end of an institution, it does have very real impacts.
Seltzer: I don’t want to say “most” because I’m not confident that we can say it’s most or not most, but I think it is fair to say that we’ve seen a large number either freezing hiring or trying to clamp down on spending. That may be offering fewer Ph.D. or graduate admissions, that may be offering contingent admissions. Cash is king in uncertain times, a very old saying in the financial world, and these institutions do not necessarily know what kind of research funding they’re going to draw if they’re a large research institution. As we’ve spent the first 20 minutes of this session talking about, some are worried about federal financial aid. And then the broader climate is the Trump administration has tried to freeze various other streams of funding, at least temporarily. Now, again, the courts have stepped in in those cases. But a court injunction is a piece of paper, and it may or may not be enforced. And the administration has shown a willingness to at the very least slow walk some of the funding. It has also cut some grants for things like teacher training. None of those single actions is probably enough to force an institution to have to cut its spending. But you start adding them up and you’re going to see more conservative activity on the budget side.
Brown: I also want to note that even though on the research side of things, cutting one grant is not going to be the end of an institution, it does have very real impacts. Our Stephanie Lee reported today that some scientists who study the LGBTQ community are seeing their funding canceled in the middle of a grant. There’s new reporting out in Nature indicating that these grant cancellations will be quite widespread, including any projects studying trans people, DEI in science, and environmental justice research. In some cases, researchers and grad students are immediately losing their jobs. So I want to be clear that on the institutional finance side caution is being exercised, which is understandable. But some of the cuts and freezes have already affected people.
Seltzer: That’s right. And even if the money gets freed up, that doesn’t help you if you don’t sit around with a ton of cash on hand. You may have I don’t know how many days of cash on hand you’re comfortable with as an institution. When the federal government stops cutting checks and you start to see that number of days dwindling, you as a financial officer start to get very concerned.
Brown: We did get a couple of questions from folks about what’s happening with Congress and the budget, which is very much in flux right now. We are t-minus one week until a potential government shutdown. So that is another thing to keep in mind. Rick, can you offer any initial insight of what we can expect from President Trump and from Congress in proposed budget appropriations for both research as well as for the Education Department. The spending framework that the House passed is just a framework. It’s not the final word, but it does call for a lot of cuts, right?
Seltzer: It makes sense to keep this very high level because there are so many moving parts and so much that can change at this point. The House framework calls for trillions in cuts. It does not explicitly say where it assigns different amounts of cuts that various congressional committees would need to find. You start to read the tea leaves. I think it’s safe to say they would require substantial changes, probably cuts in research. So you’re going to see them looking for ways to squeeze money out of the system. And the reason for this is Republicans want to pass a large tax cut. And they need to pay for it because of the congressional strategy that they have to follow to be able to pass such a bill in a very, very narrowly divided Congress.
Brown: Speaking of tax cuts, multiple people asked for an update on the endowment tax. It is currently a 1.4 percent tax on certain private college endowments. There have been proposals to increase it. Currently, there’s one bill in Congress that’s been introduced that would raise it to 21 percent. Obviously, it’s a massive increase. At this point, we’re kind of in wait-and-see mode. But do you have any update for us on the endowment tax?
Seltzer: I haven’t done a ton of reporting on this lately, but I expect it to show up as part of this larger package that is looking to offset tax cuts. I know that the current tax could be raised tenfold more, so very substantially depending on which of the proposals you’ve seen floated in the last few years. We’ll see where it lands. I would be surprised if it does not go up somewhat. But our experience the first time around with the endowment tax when it was added in the first Trump term is that there were some important carve outs. We’ll see if the congressional power structures look the same to allow that to happen again. But I would expect to see it come in the new package that everyone is waiting for Congress to work out.
You’re looking at a Republican Congress that wants the student-loan portfolio to make money for the government and every loan that is forgiven is a loan that is not generating money anymore.
Brown: I have seen a few questions coming in live about federal student aid, also several about the dismantling of the Education Department. So I think we should get right into it. This question just came in from Frederica: Can we provide information as to whether SAVE public-service loan forgiveness and income driven repayment plans for federal student aid will be dismantled under this administration? Rick, this is much more your area of your expertise than mine. Do you have any insight on this?
Seltzer: My understanding is that SAVE is basically dead. A court blocked it. The Trump administration has no interest, probably less than no interest, in reviving it. And the congressional Republicans have their own preferred reforms to the student loan repayment system. The first Trump administration was accused of slow walking approvals, and the Biden administration arguably had to do a lot of fixes to make up for folks who were owed public-service loan forgiveness for teachers and firefighters who have jobs that aren’t necessarily the most lucrative in the world but are a very important service. That’s what public service loan forgiveness is for. So there are some questions about how they will make those programs work going forward.
One thing to note: regulators have been cutting some of the folks whose job it is to take complaints about student-loan repayment. We’ll see if they can make those processes more efficient or if some of those complaints just pile up. But at a higher level, I don’t know that making loan forgiveness work quickly is as high of a priority as it was in the Biden administration, which wanted to forgive loans. You’re looking at a Republican Congress that wants the student-loan portfolio to make money for the government and every loan that is forgiven is a loan that is not generating money anymore. So there are various proposals for new loans going forward and what would happen there? With PSLF specifically, since that was the question, I’ve heard some talk about eligibility limits going forward. We’ll see what happens there. But overall, top line, I would expect Republicans to change the debt forgiveness landscape with legislation or at least attempt to do so.
Brown: They might do it part of as part of budget reconciliation.
Seltzer: As part of that one big, beautiful bill that everyone is talking about, even though we don’t have the text. Apparently, it’s beautiful.
Brown: We’ve got another question that is student aid related, but also related to the Education Department dismantling. Lori asks: Are Pell grants just gone? Will students receive less financial aid if the Education Department is dismantled? We do have a new Secretary of Education. Secretary McMahon has been officially installed. A couple of conflicting things to note. We have an expected executive order coming that would direct the dismantling of the Education Department. Secretary McMahon has said different things on this, but she’s also said she’s not interested in cutting education funding, especially financial aid. So what do you think, Rick? Are Pell Grants going away?
Seltzer: Let’s talk about Pell. And then I’m going to jump right into the dismantling of the department business. But let’s pause on Pell for just one minute here. These grants, which go to low-and-middle income students, are already facing a shortfall. I will not put you to sleep by explaining why -- it is because of the way they are funded -- but they are facing a shortfall. Unless Congress were to put more money into the Pell program, you are going to either see eligibility restricted or you are going to see the maximum grant get smaller. That is before we talk about anything else.
It has been reported that as soon as 2:00 today, so when this event ends, we may have the president signing an executive order ordering the abolition or dismantling of the Department of Education. The text that was leaked said, quote, “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the education department.” And then this is the language that we have to stress, because it’s doing a lot of work: “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” So the Education Department doesn’t actually do a ton. I mean, it does some things. It does some very important things, but it doesn’t influence college operations in all the ways that some folks might think that it does. It provides funding. It oversees that funding. It enforces anti-discrimination law. It collects data. And many of those functions are required by law. Not all. And there’s some debate about what functions you can shift out of the department, and how you could restructure it. Secretary McMahon has suggested very strongly that she will follow the president’s lead here. Her message once she was confirmed was something about a momentous final mission for the agency. So clearly, they’re going to try to at the very least make it smaller. And so the question is where do you and how do you move the things that it does. There have been proposals that would move, say, the federal student loan portfolio to the Department of the Treasury, antidiscrimination enforcement to the Department of Justice. There are some very clear reasons you might want to do that. Would those agencies oversee those functions as effectively and with as much care as the Education Department does? Opinions will vary drastically. There are a lot of folks on campus who would say we’d rather have the Education Department do it. I think there are a lot of folks on some campuses who are not very happy with the way the Education Department has carried out various functions over the years, and in some cases are very vocal and have been very vocally unhappy about that.
It’s a question of, in some cases, the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know. If the Education Department goes away, some other regulator could very well have more power.
Then there’s this question of block grants and turning the Education Department’s functions to the states. The basic idea that McMahon talked about in her confirmation hearing was that the administration doesn’t want to reduce funding for things like student aid, but they do want to send as much of it through the states as possible, as opposed to routing it through the federal government. Are the states ready to do it? And what degree of control do they have over that money? Those are open questions. It depends on what latitude the department has administratively or McMahan has administratively to make it happen without a congressional change. It depends on what Congress might want to change if it were to be able to pass a bill. And it depends on whether that bill can pass. If you keep the programs with all of the requirements as they are today and then just say the states are going to administer them, that’s basically an unfunded mandate on the states, many of which probably don’t have offices that are stood up to do this overnight. I started my career as a local government reporter. I can tell you that one thing local elected officials hate is unfunded mandates. I’m not sure that is what the Trump administration wants to do politically. I’m not sure that it would fly if they tried to do it. So where does all this end up? Stay tuned.
Now let’s circle back up to what it means for Pell. You’re looking at a program that is potentially facing cuts without any action. Congressional Republicans have said they want to expand it to more short-term programs. The one backstop to all of this, I think, is that Pell is an overwhelmingly popular program. I don’t know that I’ve heard of any appetite for eliminating the program. The real question is, in what form does it exist going forward?
Brown: Before we get more into the Education Department, I do want to acknowledge that a few folks asked, both in the Q&A as well as in advance, what’s happening with Title III and TRIO. Great question. We would like to get answers for you because as far as we know a lot of TRIO grants are expiring this summer. They’re on a five-year cycle. Stay tuned.
Seltzer: It is a low-information environment and unfortunately there are a lot of good questions on this and other topics where we just had to put them in a bucket of, we want to run that down but we don’t have anything good to share with you at this moment in time.
Brown: Going back to your point about some people probably aren’t that happy with how the Education Department has been operating for the last few years, Elizabeth asks: Why wouldn’t higher ed want to dismantle the pervasive direction and control of a federal department that for nearly 50 years has clearly demonstrated its failure to improve student outcomes? I’m sure that’s on people’s minds as well.
Selzter: The Education Department has had some really high-profile failures, most recently its inability to produce an overhauled FAFSA that was not filled with glitches last year. That caused all sorts of headaches for students and administrators and probably faculty members who are dealing with unhappy students. I think it’s a question of, in some cases, the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know. If the Education Department goes away, some other regulator could very well have more power. It’s also a question of a level playing field. Student aid is mobile across state lines, across county lines, across jurisdiction lines because it is subject to federal rules. Does that continue? So it’s a high risk proposition more than anything. And the higher-ed sector is a very risk-averse sector.
Brown: As we get into our last 15 minutes, I do want to pull up a poll to ask people what should we make sure to hit.
Seltzer: As folks respond to the poll, Sarah, let me just add one more thing to that last question. There are widespread concerns that states would enforce civil-rights laws or not enforce them and that the landscape there would be very uneven, whether that is folks from races that have not been traditionally represented on campuses in even numbers or in equitable numbers, or whether that is students with disabilities. That is a very fraught path for many people in this country.
Brown: I do want to note that a bunch of people asked about students with disabilities and how the dismantling of the Ed Department could affect them. Frankly, it’s confusing. President Trump’s executive order calling for the end of diversity programs in the public and private sectors has been blocked in court. But what it says is not only DEI but DEIA -- he phrased it to include accessibility. As we noted earlier, however, Secretary McMahon has said that she’s not interested in cutting education funding. Education Department staffing may be seriously reduced. Grants may be reduced, so that may be a problem. Another important note here, speaking of civil rights, is that that Office for Civil Rights investigations at the federal level are an important way of holding institutions accountable for providing legal accommodations for students. So if they’re hampered, that could be a problem.
Office for Civil Rights investigations at the federal level are an important way of holding institutions accountable for providing legal accommodations for students. So if they’re hampered, that could be a problem.
Seltzer: What’s the old saying, personnel is policy. How you staff really matters in terms of what gets done. Can you do it more efficiently? Can you do it more effectively? We’re about to find out.
Brown: One thing I do want to make sure that we hit on is surviving the chaos. Multiple people have asked for tips for higher ed staff to handle this tumultuous landscape and not burn out. How can we support students? How can we support colleagues? What are actionable steps that we can take?
I want to say up front that the impacts are real. People are losing their jobs and their grants right now. This is seriously impacting people. We did just publish a big package on higher education’s workforce that was not directly connected to Trump, but I think it has general strategies that are helpful for anybody. A couple of ideas that I want to flag. How do we help our staff in times of chaos? Mini sabbaticals for staff to pursue some kind of professional development. Offering better training for bosses. Lots of complaints in higher ed have to do with inadequate supervision and bad bosses. Another thing people mentioned is even in your budget cutting, don’t cut your pizza money, don’t minimize opportunities to come together around a shared meal.
Kevin McClure, a really outstanding professor, talks about how sometimes recognizing staff and recognizing the good work they’re doing is sometimes about formal awards. Sometimes it’s about money. We all know that a lot of higher ed staff are under paid. Some of it is about funding for professional development. Some of it is acknowledgment in non-monetary ways, like genuine personalized notes from supervisors and things like that.
Do you have anything to add, Rick?
Seltzer: I want to emphasize an element of what you said with personalized notes. There’s a lot that we can’t control, let’s face it. Whether you are an administrator trying to help the people you manage, whether you are a faculty member trying to help students, I think a lot these days about the value of personal relationships. There are some things that you simply cannot change in the world, but being able to talk openly and talk through things with people is probably the advice that applies to everyone. No matter what your job is, no matter what comes up, clear communication, letting people know you care, even when you have to make hard decisions. In uncertain times, it is one of the few strategies that is available to us, no matter your job description.
Brown: Stefan asked: Why aren’t more college presidents speaking out? Rick, what do you think about how higher ed has responded so far? We just co-published a piece with Open Campus about Senate Bill 1 in Ohio, which is a massive higher ed reform bill. It would ban faculty from striking. It would ban diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. It would institute new post-tenure review requirements. And all of the college presidents at public institutions in Ohio basically in a coordinated way decided to stay quiet in hopes of getting a better deal in the state budget. And they didn’t get more money in the state budget. What do you think about this, Rick?
Seltzer: This is one of the key stories that both of us are watching. I’ll frame it a little more broadly: What strategies is the sector going to use to either ingratiate itself or fight back against some of the policies it does not like, or all of the policies it does not like? I’ve gotten some feedback from folks after I wrote about this topic that effectively boiled down to college presidents are terrified that they’re going to invite scrutiny, and that scrutiny is going to lead to bad outcomes for their campuses and their students. It is important to consider that psychology for leaders. There are college presidents who are very active on social media, some are better than others. I think it is safe to say that the social media world is not a particularly welcoming or particularly comfortable place for college leaders. There isn’t really a model for someone who dominates social media the way that the Trump administration or some of its affiliated voices dominate social media. And so that tends to skew the strategies towards more silence, more reservation.
Another important aspect of this is that many campuses adopted some form of institutional neutrality as a policy within the last two years. Some of that is because leaders were either tired or felt they’ve gotten over their skis, or felt they could not respond to certain current events, like the war in the Middle East that was so divisive, particularly on a set of prominent campuses. And so now, after you’ve just adopted this institutional neutrality pledge, what do you do? Do you right away rush in and comment just as soon as you have your first test? I think a lot of places are hesitant to do that too.
If you work at an institution, probably all you can do as you look forward right now is to be aware of the broader environment and keep up with the news.
An important note on institutional neutrality is that most of the policies I’ve seen allow presidents or other leaders to comment if their campuses are directly affected. I certainly think funding pauses, research grant cuts -- all the things we’ve talked about today count as your campus being directly affected. So institutional neutrality is an important topic to discuss as far as the current culture on campuses and among leaders. I don’t think that any of their hands are tied. I think they send a message when they don’t comment. I think they would send a message when they do. And in the last two weeks, and especially after I went back and read through the commentary in our last live session that we did, I’ve really been struck by the number of people who are just desperate for some sort of leadership. I don’t think we’ve seen it, frankly. Maybe that is because, as you mentioned in Ohio, they were in there lobbying behind the scenes. And there’s probably some merit to that. But lobbying behind the scenes is not the same thing as defending yourself and what you do in a culture that is suddenly very hostile towards the idea of higher education. At some point, either someone will emerge who can defend the idea of higher education or translate why it matters to a skeptical public, or I think the sector is going to continue to take its licks.
Brown: I want to build off that and look forward. Quite a few people submitted both in questions beforehand as well as during the event something like this: This is the president for the next four years so let’s discuss how to stop banging our heads against the wall and change the conversation to how we support our students. Deborah asks, what are the positives that we can expect in higher ed from the changes proposed? It can’t all be negative.
When you were talking, Rick, I was thinking about an op-ed that Jeremy Young of PEN America recently published in the Chronicle about higher ed fighting back and what that could look like. He talked about how there are some real higher ed reforms that probably need to happen. Colleges need to figure out how to charge lower tuition. They need to figure out how to promote greater intellectual diversity. They need to build stronger relationships with local communities and employers. And they need to do a better job helping students make progress toward completion and building pathways into the workforce. All of those are things, no matter who is in power, higher ed should be really focused on. What do you think, Rick?
Seltzer: Those are very clear when you look at polling. If you work at an institution, probably all you can do as you look forward right now is to be aware of the broader environment and keep up with the news. It will help you in your day-to-day life. But at the end of the day, if you’re a faculty member it’s about translating that into how do I go about teaching students, making sure that they are able to navigate the world. If you hold any of these other jobs, it’s about knowing here’s the federal landscape, here’s the policy landscape, here’s what other places are doing, and here’s how we move forward. So it’s a complicated situation in a complicated moment.
Brown: We’ve reached the end of our hour. Thank you all so much for your fantastic questions both in advance and live. We read all of them. We are going to go do some reporting on TRIO. We also got some great questions about minority-serving institutions and impacts for them. We’re going to be doing more reporting on that. I’m going to be watching what President Trump is potentially going to pursue in terms of cracking down on “unlawful protests.” We may have our first institution that could have federal funding at least threatened with Columbia University. Rick, anything you want to add as we sign off today?
Seltzer: I think we covered it all.
