Good morning, and welcome to Monday, November 11. Scott Carlson contributed the top of today’s briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

What higher ed needs from its leaders now

As institutions prepare for a second Trump administration that is likely to bring more scrutiny and increasingly loud questions about the value of a degree, colleges have to consider what they will need from their own leaders in the months and years ahead. We asked leadership experts what qualities will emerge as the most valuable in college presidents.

The most frequently cited skills went beyond financial literacy. That is now a baseline amid all the pressure on resources. “I can’t imagine somebody right now without financial acumen,” said Scott Flanagan, a higher-ed executive coach and search consultant. But it might not be the most important quality, he said. “What can a president not get elsewhere? You can’t outsource resilience. You can’t delegate emotional intelligence.”

Empathy emerged as an essential quality. It underlies the ability to connect with different kinds of people.

Also: trust-building. In a recent report from Academic Search, presidents and focus-group members rated trust-building as the top skill college leaders need to meet today’s demands. Jorge Burmicky, an assistant professor of higher-education leadership at Howard University and a co-author of the report, said that as expanding constituencies cast a critical eye on higher ed, earning trust from those groups will be crucial.

Today’s leaders have to work the room — but in ways different from the past. More than simply fundraising, it’s now about creating partnerships with organizations or companies that can provide a sustaining flow of resources to institutions but, importantly, also align with their missions, said Felecia Commodore, an associate professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Presidents who are aware of that nuance are in a good position of being able to ensure that they’re engaging and preparing partnerships that their institution can get behind,” she said.

Political savvy must also bring conservatives into the higher-ed tent. Cody Christensen, a doctoral student in higher-education policy at Vanderbilt University and the author of an American Enterprise Institute report rating presidents on student outcomes, said conservatives will likely focus on whether students are getting jobs or learning anything — so presidents should focus on that, too. And as the country engages in heated debates about immigration and culture, presidents need to bring “a little bit more balance to the spectrum of what is included in this sort of free-thinking, wide-ranging education you’re getting at a liberal-arts college.”

Much of the work will involve courage and perseverance. Chuck Ambrose, who presided over the financial restructuring at Henderson State University and is now writing a book about no-confidence votes in higher education, has some advice for leaders entering this new era: Don’t let the job define your self-worth. At the same time, if you’re someone motivated by the service mission of colleges, focusing on that can help you navigate what could be a rocky time. “If you’re mission-driven, it’s the best job on the planet.”

The bigger question: Can one person embody all these skills and personality traits, or will the job of running a college and telling its story have to be distributed more widely across the campus?

📱 For more from The Chronicle: Scott will have more to say about the emerging qualities of leadership in next week’s edition of The Edge. Subscribe to that newsletter here.

Quick hits

• Carol Folt plans retirement: The president who led the University of Southern California through sexual-abuse and admissions scandals will retire in July, she announced Friday. Folt came to USC after simultaneously removing the remnants of the Silent Sam statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and handing in her resignation from the public flagship, a dramatic departure that capped a long struggle over the Confederate monument on campus. (The Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle)
• Grand Canyon touts court win: The Arizona university hailed a federal appeals court’s decision holding that the U.S. Department of Education applied the incorrect legal standard when it determined the university does not quality as a nonprofit. Grand Canyon has for years been fighting the department’s determination, arguing that the state of Arizona, Internal Revenue Service, and an accreditor approved it as a nonprofit. The Education Department must now re-evaluate Grand Canyon’s tax classification. (Grand Canyon University)
• More Salisbury U. students charged: Five more students have been charged for allegedly attacking a man because of his sexual preferences, bringing to 12 the number of young men accused of luring the victim to an off-campus apartment. The university suspended all 12, as well as Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a fraternity where some were members. One of the suspect’s lawyers said the case was not about sexual orientation but was in fact “an ill-advised” effort to expose someone who wanted to have sex with a 16-year-old. Maryland’s age of consent is 16. (The Baltimore Banner)
• Election reaction lands U. of Oregon employee on leave: Leonard Serrato, fraternity and sorority life assistant director, was placed on paid administrative leave after posting a profane video online telling anyone who voted for Donald Trump to jump off a bridge. Donald Trump Jr. called it “disgusting, but not surprising, that an employee at a state university would speak this way about more than half of the country.” The university described the statement as “abhorrent and not in alignment with our values.” (KPTV)
• New name in Texas: The institution that had been known as Texas A&M University at Commerce is officially East Texas A&M University after the system’s board of regents approved the change last week. The name Texas A&M at Dallas was floated earlier but drew objections because Commerce is some 60 miles away from Dallas. (Texas A&M University, The Dallas Morning News)
• Appeals court nixes challenge to loan-forgiveness deal: Three colleges lack standing to challenge a settlement between the U.S. Department of Education and student-loan borrowers, a panel of judges held. The settlement, initially approved in 2022, outlined $6 billion in debt relief for borrowers who went to some 150 colleges. Students sued the government alleging it mishandled debt-cancellation applications under a program for borrowers who were misled by their colleges. (Bloomberg Law, Higher Ed Dive)

Quote of the day

“The sole consideration of this is the endangering of the contracts.”

— Paula M. Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association

The MLA is refusing to allow its members to debate a boycott, divest, and sanctions resolution at its convention in January. Other humanities organizations, including the American Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the Middle East Studies Association, have endorsed BDS against Israel.

Twenty-seven states prohibit their public entities from doing business with boycotting groups. Two-thirds of the MLA’s operating budget comes from institutional subscriptions, including with public libraries, and its executive council decided that a call to boycott Israel could jeopardize those contracts.

Activists want MLA to fight it out in court. “To suggest that we don’t have a responsibility and capacity to push back against this oppressive legislation that exists across many states in the U.S. is deeply problematic,” said Neelofer Qadir, an assistant professor of English at Georgia State University who helped organize the BDS motion.

Krebs was nonetheless critical of states’ anti-boycott measures, saying they chill speech.

The bigger picture: The MLA is under renewed pressure after the American Association of University Professors ended its longstanding opposition to academic boycotts in August.

Read the full story: ‘A Lot of Anguish': Why the MLA Put an Anti-Israel Resolution on Ice

Stat of the day

49 percent

That’s how many private nonprofit colleges said their freshman classes were harder to fill this fall because of problems with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to a new survey.

FAFSA problems hurt colleges’ fall classes in several ways, suggest the findings, from the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities:

• 58 percent said the FAFSA challenges affected the amount of institutional financial aid they distributed — 37 percent reported an increase, and 16 percent cited a decrease.
• 44 percent said their incoming classes shrank.
• 22 percent said they enrolled fewer incoming students receiving financial aid.
• 11 percent said their first-year classes were less racially and ethnically diverse.
• 32 percent reported a drop in net-tuition revenue.

Many colleges provided more financial aid up front to students amid the FAFSA troubles, NAICU found. They sometimes overestimated students’ needs because they didn’t yet have data from the forms.

The bigger picture: No matter what the Education Department suggests, evidence keeps coming that FAFSA problems hurt students and colleges. NAICU’s members are among colleges that might be hardest hit by problems in the financial-aid system, because they often heavily discount tuition to compete for students on their net prices.

Read the full story: FAFSA Fiasco Changed Composition of First-Year Classes at Most Private Colleges

Comings and goings

• Frank Johnson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Tabor College, in Kansas, has been named vice president for advancement.
• Jason Guilbeault, associate vice president for sponsored programs administration and executive director of the AU Research Institute at Augusta University, has been named assistant vice president for research, post-award contractual compliance at Pennsylvania State University at University Park.
• Todd Pettys, a professor of law and chair in civil litigation at the University of Iowa College of Law, has been named interim dean of the college.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

Winter-sports fans might start seeing a little more talent sliding into collegiate competition.

Last week, the NCAA Division I Council decided to allow players who’ve competed in the Canadian Hockey League to take the ice for U.S. colleges. Skiers from up north can come on down stateside, too.

The change comes after a player filed a class-action lawsuit to challenge an NCAA ban. CHL players receive stipends of up to $600 per month that aren’t counted as taxable income, but the NCAA considered that enough to deem them ineligible professionals. It was hard to see the rule holding up in the burgeoning pay-for-play era, though.

This means Canadian hockey players won’t have to choose between the CHL and NCAA when they’re 16, the earliest age at which they can play in the Canadian league.

Young players “will no longer be faced with the momentous decision of playing Major Junior or going the NCAA route,” Allan Walsh, an NHL agent, told the Associated Press. Another agent, Brian Bartlett, hoped more colleges will add hockey programs, given a larger pool of potential players.

Now what do we have to do to get more curling programs?