e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Author: Susan Baldridge

  • Having the Hard Talk

    Note from the editor: This is a guest post from Susan Baldridge, one of the authors of the book The College Stress Test: Tracking Institutional Futures across a Crowded Market.

    A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post about the need for conversations about change on college and university campuses and some of the challenges to that kind of engagement.  At the end of that post, I promised a second installment in which I offered some thoughts on how one might begin such a conversation.  And then the world changed – you know, COVID.  Those of you serving institutions of higher education as administrators, faculty, and staff have been hit with a tsunami of change, and nearly everything about your work has been upended.  At first, it might seem that the kind of conversations I was calling for is a luxury that can’t be afforded in this moment of crisis.  But I’m going to make the case that it’s more urgent than ever that communities find ways to have these conversations, especially under these circumstances, and I want to offer some suggestions for how one might try to do this.

    As to the “why,” we know that many institutions are being forced to make fundamental changes to the way they do business in the current circumstances.  Although many are hoping against hope for a return to “normal,” that seems pretty unlikely at this point.  All commitments are being examined, all assumptions being questioned, and every dollar scrutinized.  We knew that change was needed, but the urgency has just been turned up to 11.  We had a very brief window in which most members of academic communities understood that decisions were being made very quickly and with little guidance or evidence to support one decision over another.  But already, barely 2 months since these changes have begun to be implemented, calls are coming from campus groups, from the AAUP, from unions, for transparency, consultation, and communication about how we will operate going forward.  The fact that we are all working in physical isolation, connecting only virtually, increases the fear and sense that decisions are being made “behind closed doors” and that normal processes for engagement, consultation, and shared governance are being thrown out the window.  When those concerns take over, people find it very hard to devote their energies on behalf of the institution – which ironically, we need right now more than ever.

    So that’s the “why.”  But in these strange circumstances, how is it possible to have the kinds of conversations and engagements that are needed?  Well, the short answer is start with what you have.  I’ll offer some concrete suggestions here, but welcome the ideas and thoughts of others about practices for meaningful consultation and engagement.

    Let me start with the obvious: Technology is going to be the new context.  Everyone has gotten a crash course in Zooming with students and colleagues, and you are going to have to think about how to use those tools and skills both in the short term – and perhaps in the longer term.  Zoom and other virtual meeting tools are being used not only for small groups, but sometimes for very large ones, convening dozens and even hundreds of individuals for a “live” experience. What lessons are we learning about how and when these work well?  Take advantage of the recent lived experiences of your community members and ask them – what are the most effective ways that videoconferencing is being used for learning?  For meetings?  What are the practices that feel most inclusive and effective?  The same questions can and should be asked of asynchronous teaching and learning tools and practices, of course.

    But if these tools are the medium, we also need to be intentional about the content of the work that needs to get done.  If change is inevitable, that means there are many decisions to be made, and we need to be mindful of governance as much as possible.  OK, committees and faculty meetings need to happen differently, but that doesn’t mean we should forego them.  Ask yourself the question:  If we were going to make these changes a year ago when we were all together on campus, who would have been involved?  What groups would have been consulted?  What communications would have gone out?  As much as possible, continue to work within these structures, and when you can’t, say so and explain why.  If possible, work with groups and constituencies already in place.  These are not ideal circumstances for creating new committees, charging a new Task Force, or bringing people together for the first time to do difficult work.  If it isn’t obvious who should be involved in making these sometimes unprecedented decisions, review your Handbook and find the groups whose charges most naturally overlap with the situation at hand.

    Once the parties have been engaged, everyone involved in making these hard decisions is going to have to face the reality that…well, they are hard.  The decisions you and others are making will most likely involve uncharted territory, and chances are good that there isn’t an obvious “right” choice about how to proceed.  So how do you make these kinds of decisions?  I refer you to a wonderful TED Talk by philosopher Ruth Chang, in which she points out that hard choices are sometimes hard not because there is a right answer that you haven’t yet figured out, and you must simply wait for the right piece of information or evidence to solve the puzzle.  Rather, the choices may be difficult because there are two or more roughly equal choices available to pursue — equal in the sense that they all may contain some positives and some negatives, and even some uncertainty.  She suggests, then, that the key is to ask not “What is the right answer?” but “What kind of person do I want to be?” and let this be your guide in choosing.  To quote from her talk, “It is here, in the space of hard choices, that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves to become the distinctive people that we are.”  I want to suggest that we extend her point to apply to institutions as well.  None of us has a crystal ball about the future, and if we do, it’s cloudier now than ever.  In that context, let’s try to let our values, commitments, and vision be our guide. This means, of course, articulating what those values and commitments are.  Many campuses already have existing frameworks and principles that spell these out.  If they don’t exist, then at least be able to reference the values that are informing the decisions being made.

    Of course, not everyone can or will be engaged with making or even providing input into those decisions.  It’s worth being honest and clear about that.  But since the stakes of some of these deliberations will be very high, it is all the more important to be especially diligent about clear and frequent communication.  Most of us loathe email, but let’s face it, it’s one of the primary modes of communication available to us right now.  So use it, and any other communication tool available.  Whatever the medium, regular updates, even when there isn’t much to report are better than no updates.  Remember that the question foremost in people’s minds is “What about me?” followed closely by “Who’s talking with whom about what?” and  “When will they decide?”  Answer any questions you can, and when you can’t, say so.  The more that folks have a sense of what to expect, the less likely they are to have to manufacture narratives about what is really happening, and the less time will need to be devoted to addressing erroneous conspiracy theories.

    Finally—and I know this one may feel most challenging of all—try to create space for creativity.   This may sound like a luxury: “Who has time for creativity when we are desperately trying to put out fires??”  But a crisis, especially one as unprecedented as this one, is precisely when creative solutions are most needed.  One leader with whom I’ve spoken has taken a brief time in her regular (virtual) meetings with colleagues for explicitly creative brainstorming – she calls it “idea factory” time.  She reports that not only have some of these ideas been enormously helpful, but that colleagues felt a bit more optimistic and energized for having tried to focus, even momentarily, on positive and creative solutions, rather than dwelling only on challenges and worst-case scenarios.  And sometimes the most innovative ideas come from those who are closest to the work – so don’t be afraid to be broadly inclusive in seeking creative solutions.

    None of these suggestions are specific to this pandemic.  But the current circumstances have increased the urgency around implementing them.   And if you’ll indulge my tendency toward optimism, I’ll note that while many have complained that higher education is notoriously slow to change, we have all just demonstrated that when we had to, we could fundamentally change nearly every aspect of how we do business in a few short weeks.  It wasn’t easy, and time will tell how effective these efforts have been thus far.  But we have demonstrated that significant change, even rapid change, is possible.  Let’s be intentional about the lessons we take from the changes thus far, and use them to inform the future we need to create.

    Post-script:  If you work in higher education, in case no one has said it to you:  Thank you for all the hard work you are doing under extraordinary circumstances.  Thank you for caring for your students, your communities, and your institutions in such trying times.  We need an educated populace now more than ever, and your efforts matter.

  • “We Really Need to Talk…” Now.

    Note from the editor: This is a guest post from Susan Baldridge, one of the authors of forthcoming book The College Stress Test: Tracking Institutional Futures across a Crowded Market.

    Clayton Christensen got the attention of campus leaders with his claim that 50% of colleges will be closed within a decade, and others – perhaps with less dramatic predictions – have joined the gloomy chorus.  As overstated as that number may be, you might expect that we would be moved by this prediction to ask hard questions about the future of higher education and what it means on our campuses.  And some of us are.  But the academic communities that are collectively engaging the challenges implicit in such dire predictions are few in number.  Not only are these difficult conversations infrequent, but when they do take place they are fraught with controversy and rarely result in significant, sustained change.  Why is it so hard?

    It isn’t because we don’t know what the challenges are.  Read the Chronicle or Inside Higher Ed on any given day and you’ll find a ready list of topics for campus conversations:  providing a relevant curriculum and effective pedagogy, responding to dwindling enrollments and resulting resource constraints, addressing failures of equity and inclusion in an increasingly diverse environment, developing the optimal role of technology to promote learning…the list goes on and on.    

    Even with so many places to focus a collective search for solutions, we seem to avoid naming the elephants in the room.  Even schools that are teetering on the brink – who presumably stand to gain (and lose) the most from collective action – are not talking openly about their institutions’ particular challenges.  Witness the shock and outrage when colleges (there have been a number in the last year in my home state of Vermont) announce that they are closing, or merging, or seeking partners to help them weather the storm.  In one highly-publicized case—Mt. Ida College in Massachusetts—lawsuits were filed following the closure announcement alleging that leaders intentionally kept the reality of the school’s circumstances from the campus and other stakeholders.  The outcry seems to be, “Why weren’t we informed?”

    It’s not hard to understand why a college president might not wish to share the problems of an institution with the wider world.  Candid efforts to confront challenges to the long-term health and success of an institution invite external scrutiny, and this creates a counter-pressure to focus solely on the positive.  My co-authors, Bob Zemsky and Susan Shaman, and I address this in our newly published book from Johns Hopkins University Press, “The College Stress Test,” in which we examine the market factors associated with institutional risk of closure:

    “…A common focus of campus messaging is on the particular data points that suggest that, whatever risks may be facing other schools, the future for my college is bright. The point would seem to be to reassure constituents that, in the landscape of higher education, one’s own school is well-positioned to withstand today’s threats. Thus, presidents’ communications are far more likely to share the good news that applications are up this fall or to highlight the positive publicity received by a recent graduate, than they are to speak to potential threats to long-term viability.

    This language of optimism and reassurance is understandable. Addressing threats to the sustainability of an institution requires persistent hard work by many, and a panicked community isn’t likely to be able to respond effectively. What’s more, if there is anxiety within the leadership ranks, it would not benefit anyone to acknowledge it. Much of the work of recruiting, enrolling, and retaining students—to say nothing of fund-raising—is about building reputations and managing the public’s perception of an institution’s desirability, prestige, and credibility. Potential students and donors are not likely to open their checkbooks to an institution whose future appears shaky. So, a struggling institution’s leaders may wait to publicly acknowledge that reality until the very last hope for recovery has faded.”

    The College Stress Test

    Understandable or not, as leaders work to keep the public perception oriented toward the strengths of the institution and its bright future, the opportunity to begin necessary, but likely difficult and nuanced conversations, is passing.

    The disincentives around meaningful conversation and collective problem-solving go beyond external pressures and marketing concerns, however.  When resources are diminishing or need to be reallocated, it shouldn’t surprise us that those who have been the beneficiaries of historical privilege (and I mean that in the broadest sense) tend to wrap their arms around what’s “theirs” and hold on tight.  Administrators who have made decisions to take funding away from one group in order to support the work of another, or who have closed an expensive and declining program to keep a college afloat, know what it means to incur the wrath of those accustomed to an institution’s historical beneficence.  And on some campuses, the need to make significant changes falls upon a community that has already suffered a kind of “death by a thousand cuts”—short-sighted, marginal, supposedly temporary budget reductions that have left those who might have been invited in to a collective conversation about long-term change and transformation feeling resistant, diminished, and beleaguered.

    I don’t mean to suggest that we resist these conversations merely out of avoidance, however.  Rather, the difficulty in addressing necessary change is often a function of something that is a source of strength:  the values, commitments, and identities of those who work in higher education.  Those who have made their careers on college campuses are typically deeply invested in the work that they do and the way that they do it.  For many, it is not merely a job, but a calling.  What’s more, faculty have spent years training to be critical evaluators of new ideas and initiatives.  These people bring all that commitment and all those critical skills to bear on a proposal for change.  Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised that moving an academic community in a new strategic direction can feel like a Sisyphean task.  

    I spent 15 years serving in a variety of administrative roles. It was my job to lead just this kind of challenging conversation and to work to bring a diverse community together in productive pursuit of collective action.  Sometimes I was successful – and I hold those successes close at night.  But even when change was achieved, it often required endless discussion and debate over months and even years.  In one particular case, I recall a colleague who was opposing a proposed change to the structure of several departments – a change that he felt called into question his past and future contributions.  Although the process had involved years (literally years) of meetings and votes, as it neared its conclusion, he said to me, “Susan, this is all happening with baffling speed.”  These conversations can be tests of endurance.

    This may be even more true when changes speak to the fundamental mission of an institution.  If an institution’s leaders decide that the curriculum must be more explicitly oriented toward career preparation in order to maintain financial viability, what does this mean for the faculty members whose work, and sense of professional identity, has always been focused on learning for learning’s sake?  And even if those colleagues are permitted to continue their work without participating in the broader institutional shift, what does it mean that they may no longer feel connected to the institution’s most visible priorities?  No wonder that these people might question and even resist attempts to promote change that leave them feeling sidelined and their work diminished.  Thus, it’s worth remembering that some resistance to change reflects the real and deep commitment of many individuals to the students and institutions they serve.  

    Sometimes the difficulty in these conversations isn’t nearly as meaningful as a fight for scarce resources or a battle over values and identity.  At times, it simply represents a kind of reflexive laziness, or at least mindlessness – administrators react this way because they’re administrators, faculty respond that way because they’re faculty.  Tackling these hard conversations can sometimes feel like staging a well-known play in which all the players know the text by heart.  No one need question the characters’ motivations– we know the tropes and how we are supposed to respond to them.  President X is the evil villain, Professor Y is the brave hero or heroine, Student Z is the pitiful victim.  One of the most common complaints I hear from administrative colleagues across the country is their frustration with being presumed to be ill-intentioned, motivated by corporate greed, and lacking a commitment to the mission and values of their institutions.  These presumptions seem to come with the role.  

    Even if everyone on a campus came to these conversations with good will and benign assumptions about one another, our governance practices and structures are often an impediment, not a facilitator of progress. If you read most college handbook provisions on changes to the curriculum or terms of employment, you’ll find a manual of hurdles and roadblocks.  Of course, these checks and balances have been put in place to prevent short-sighted, ill-advised, and possibly nefarious actions.  But they can also impede progress and necessary change.  Anyone wishing to undertake a candid campus-wide conversation had best be a student of campus governance and should pack for a long trip.  

    So there are many reasons why we are more likely to avoid than engage the complex challenges we face.  And yet, the stakes for many institutions, and ultimately for the students we seek to serve, could not be higher.  There are certainly some who will simply continue to avoid and delay, hoping that the path will be charted by someone else or that the turbulent times will resolve themselves and allow us all to return to life as we knew it.  But as we demonstrate in the analyses we present in the “College Stress Test,” and as others like Nathan Grawe and Jeff Selingo have shown, demographic change and shifting markets mean that many schools will need to respond and adapt, not simply wait out the turbulence.  Put another way, for many, there may be no way out but through.  

    So how do those most at risk begin a conversation that is so potentially fraught and that experience suggests may be unpleasant and perhaps ultimately unproductive?  At the risk of appearing to offer a facile answer, let me propose that the work starts with the realization that, difficult or not, we must have those conversations anyway.  How, in particular, we might approach them will be the subject of another post in a few weeks.  But let’s begin by acknowledging that many schools are facing, or will soon face, the necessity of some kind of significant change.  The path to success will require collective action – and I believe that the most creative and effective action will start with honest, clear-eyed conversation about our challenges.  The most important work is ahead of us.