Higher Education Renaissance
Peter Lake is a Professor of Law who has never shied away from addressing the controversial topics that impact higher education with his trademark candid, unique, and often humorous approach. Eric Seaborg has created this podcast series to capture the insight of Peter Lake on the status of higher education. Eric will have Peter analyzing the key issues challenging the industry of post-secondary education and the future direction of our institutions across the nation.
Higher Education Renaissance
Finding Strategic Balance on a Campus Tightrope of Politics
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Peter Lake discusses with host Eric Seaborg, the tension and strategic maneuvering defining the current academic landscape leading up to the election. Are the Federal gloves coming off or will the States shape the direction of higher education all while striving to maintain the essence of academic freedom? It’s a tightrope walk of political neutrality where expressing values could mean risking reputation.
Peter ventures into international waters, assessing what global higher education may look like with this new generation of students along with examining the pressures reshaping traditional faculty roles and governance models under the weight of expanding regulation. How are American universities positioning themselves on the world stage, as they confront the dual challenge of maintaining prestige while adapting to the changing appetites of education consumers? As summer approaches, we contemplate whether a renaissance awaits higher education, one poised to herald a transformative era of growth and innovation. Join us for this exploratory journey that promises to expand your understanding of the academic landscape, both at home and abroad.
I think this business still struggles with the identity of where its real wealth lies. I don't think we've had good theorists of what is truly a healthy, wealthy university.
Speaker 2:From MC1R Studios. This is Higher Education Renaissance with Peter Lake.
Speaker 3:Welcome back everybody. It's Eric Seaborg. Each year in March, my colleague, peter Lake, hosts the Higher Education Law Symposium at Stetson University, stetson University and I wanted to start out the program by getting some insight from him regarding his overall impressions of his conference and the attendees.
Speaker 1:I'd say the big thing that hit the table this year is a lot of people working at Publix have had job changes.
Speaker 3:So, peter, were these forced changes or voluntary?
Speaker 1:One of my speakers basically got reorganized out of a job.
Speaker 3:So how did that affect attendance?
Speaker 1:It had a number of people cancel at the last minute. I even had a strange request from one of the Publix to ask if former employees had registered for the conference. To ask if former employees had registered for the conference and I think they were trying to trace whether or not those folks had registered as employees of that institution.
Speaker 3:So checking up on registrants. It's really sad how institutions are getting caught up in all the politics.
Speaker 1:People who are telling me they don't want to come to Florida. I wouldn't call it a hard boycott, but clearly some people were not happy coming to Florida for a professional event in higher education and made that known, and at least one I had to coax here to say look, I think it's important that you support the people here and come.
Speaker 3:Well, hats off to you and your team for keeping the conference alive year after year.
Speaker 1:I'm seeing. You know, my little tiny conference is seeing the direct impact of political drama here.
Speaker 3:So was there one common topic that everybody was talking about.
Speaker 1:We had several sessions on inclusivity and recent rules. There was one session in particular that addressed exactly what was happening in Florida, with different rules, and tried to be very neutral about it. There was one session in particular that addressed exactly what was happening in Florida, with different rules, and tried to be very neutral about it. Quite a bit of discussion about the Harvard case and how that connects with DEI. I don't want to be too specific about one conversation I had, but I had one board invite me since we talked last to come in and they do kind of high level placement of really talented students with top companies and they wanted to get a sense of what the Harvard case and the DEI stuff was doing in their world, what that would look like, because the employers want inclusivity and diverse workplaces and they're recruiting for that. But then that kind of rubs up against some of the state mandates that continue to grow around the country to block overt DEI efforts.
Speaker 3:What were some of the solutions that?
Speaker 1:you heard, people are renaming their offices. You know, diversity is a word now that seems to be dropping out of the lexicon, and however much we want to pretend that the First Amendment doesn't walk in that space, the fact of life is that you take a typical generation and you can easily identify words that are taboo and will cost people their jobs or immediate scrutiny, and they change.
Speaker 3:That is so true.
Speaker 1:So it's funny because you know, when I was a kid the F-bomb was that was just going to get you suspended from school.
Speaker 3:So, peter, sum it up what was the central message you got from your conference?
Speaker 1:in the court of public opinion is not necessarily the legal mandate and that institutions are walking a tightrope because the very thing that you're being demanded to do could itself result in complaints, anything else. There's been a lot of discussion about whether institutions and leaders should just be politically neutral, like just stop communicating on political issues entirely. I think the other thing that came up is when people are communicating, are they talking in a way that they're saying nothing? It's just, you know, baffle gab. Meanwhile, back at the fort, people are demanding the institution take positions, articulate more clearly what values the institution are, and it's a real push-pull with the consumers, the governments and the law and expectations.
Speaker 3:At this point in the discussion, I again wanted to turn Peter towards the issue of compliance in regards to higher education. If you've been listening to some of the past episodes we've recorded, Peter has brought up compliance as more of a enterprise risk regarding higher education and the ability to fend off agencies and regulators from interfering too much into the structure of the system.
Speaker 1:Temperature is apprehensive, you can feel it, you know, bordering on fear, but apprehension and you hit it on the head is, you know, here's ORI now wanting to be more oversight oriented and much more legalistic. It's a miniature version of what Betsy DeVos did with Title IX and I think the reaction was predictable from higher ed. It's like do we need this and do we need these kinds of systems in place, and are they actually going to function to the end? That we would hope they would, and it's just. It's more regulation and you know, from someone that remembers, like Reagan, conservatism, the idea of a free market and higher education has cratered. This is now a highly regulated industry and the question on the table is will the Supreme Court in Loper Bright try to trim the regulatory state, to cut this back? Because they you know they would give potentially tools for higher ed and other organizations to fight back at hyperregulation of this type, but we don't know what they're going to do.
Speaker 3:So, Peter, how does this compare to years past? How does all this shape up?
Speaker 1:I don't think there's been a political moment that's harder to game theory than this one. Maybe 1968. Even then, I think in some ways you know, sadly, once RFK was shot, it was kind of a walk-on for Nixon, so you could start to plan. You know what that would look like. It just feels to me as if the next 12 to 14 months are going to be full of twists and turns that are extremely difficult to predict. And you know you've got the combination of what will happen in Congress in terms of trying to predict who's going to control what, and that could matter. So you could have a Republican president with an oppositional Congress or a Republican president with a fully supporting Congress and vice versa, or some mix of the above.
Speaker 1:I do think higher education is starting to recognize, painfully and slowly, that American government is starting to move a little bit closer to European parliamentarianism and that you have really four operating parties at any time you know sort of the far right, the near right, the center left and the far left, and this is very typical in European parliamentary behavior, that the two-party system is a bit of a chimera for what's actually lurking behind, which is, you know, very inconsistent position. So you'll notice that, you know, on both sides of the center point there's difficulty organizing the sides to one purpose. Just getting a speaker of the house has been, and keeping one has been a challenge.
Speaker 3:So what you're saying is the watchdog mentality of the federal government will continue.
Speaker 1:That, I think, is sort of the new normal, and what that tends to do is put a lot of authority in bureaucrats. You know, that's where the energy tends to run. So a lot of what we're doing is kind of watching with a level that we probably haven't in years. What's the Supreme Court going to do, what are the lower federal courts going to do, and particularly, how will those courts interact with their competitors, the regulators? You know what will they do. So it really pushes a regulatory state and a judicially managed state very, very prominent to people's attention.
Speaker 3:What do you think a typical college student thinks about all of this right now?
Speaker 1:Most of our customers are younger. I mean, they've gotten older by age, but they're still. The average age is still young. When you ask young people, you will hear a chorus of this is not the lineup for an election that they want. You know very elderly males running for president. They want something else, and the idea of a rematch to them is you know, this isn't the moviegoers wanting to see Rocky go at it again. They don't want this, and that itself, I think, is an issue. It's just that younger people are sort of gravitating towards a belief that there's a plutocracy in place that they can't really impact.
Speaker 3:So it sounds as if the student or the young voter won't seem to be as involved in the election this year as they were in the previous elections, or at least in the election between Trump and Clinton.
Speaker 1:Yes, in fact, some of the counseling centers are commenting on this that people are coming in for counseling and that people are saying I'm just tuning out, I don't want to watch CNN and Fox, I don't want to participate in any of this. I don't think it's real, I don't think I have a meaningful role in all of it and it's turning, I think, the energy towards micro issues like Gaza, and I say micro in the sense that it's one among many Tinder type issues, so people are less interested in who's running for president than they are in a particular set of issues that motivate them, and that seems to be a trend.
Speaker 3:I recall when I was in higher ed it seemed predictable in regards to the typical behavior of the majority of students, whether it was the incoming class or the graduating class. But now the behavior of today's student and the incoming students is very difficult for higher education overall to be able to understand or at least get a real grasp of what is important to them.
Speaker 1:You know, we always think generationally in this business, and Gen Alpha is turning 13 and 14, the top ones are, so they're just a couple of years out of college. You're looking at a demographic cliff that'll be coinciding with the arrival of some people who are. Your behavior is a little different, and so we're just trying to figure out. What are the customers going to look like? How will they behave, what are they going to do? And, of course, where we're seeing a lot of the issues now is already enrollment issues are popping up.
Speaker 3:We have enrollment issues under a Biden presidency. What's your feeling if Trump gets into office?
Speaker 1:One could speculate, you know, if Trump becomes president, that he'll return to, perhaps even eliminate try to eliminate the Department of Education or populate it with someone who's another version, or similar to, betsy DeVos. I'm not sure what that looks like, but I mean he's openly talked about a national university system. Really kind of hard to know, apart from the fact that he clearly is displeased with what he perceives are liberal elites that populate prominent institutions, particularly in the East.
Speaker 3:So is Hired turning into a game of survival of the fittest.
Speaker 1:I kind of feel like we're headed to something that I experienced in the 80s on Wall Street. It is a major shift in business leadership in the field. Shift in business leadership in the field and the result will be some hostile takeovers and very unpleasant, difficult corporate leadership moments. But also, alongside that will be a new generation of people that come to do the job, understanding the challenges and actually not just accepting but embracing the opportunities that lie in that world.
Speaker 3:So, Peter, what's the makeup for the board going to look like? What are these trustees facing in this new higher education so-called model that we're talking about?
Speaker 1:A few decades ago, board service was kind of a breeze. You know it wasn't. You weren't going to be on the front page of the news, you weren't going to get sued or criminally investigated. We ducked out of Sorbanes-Oxley, for example, so we can do it voluntarily. But we didn't have to, and kind of a good ride. But now I think people coming into it realize that any place, any time, you can be under scrutiny and if the ship sinks, people are going to be pointing fingers at board members to say what happened, how did this come about?
Speaker 1:And I think the other thing that vexes the boards tremendously now is trying to populate leaders for the next generation.
Speaker 3:We know the students seem to have the upper hand at this point. Who's really going to be under the microscope from your perspective? Faculty administrators, boards of trustees?
Speaker 1:The targets right now, politically, seem to be administrators. There's some attack on professors going on. You know. The plagiarism stuff is out there with some black scholars, for example. So I don't want to minimize that. But at a bigger political level, I think the political folks have said shoot the officers, you know, don't fire cannons into the troops, you know. Target the officers and go after them. I think that's caught fire a little bit. That's where I think this is going to be ever more challenging is to be there. And of course, what I saw at my conference was you start going down in the ranks, from the generals and the colonels to the majors and lieutenants and you're seeing, you know, the kind of thing that happens in an army that's in a big shakeup. Those mid-level officers are shifting jobs, being reassigned, in some cases let go, or leaving on their own volition. So there is no question that there's a management issue out there and who the next managers will be and what they'll look like.
Speaker 3:So let's continue now on this concept of the higher education business model. So let's continue now on this concept of the higher education business model. What is that shaping up to look like in regards to being able to survive?
Speaker 1:We're now routinely seeing program closures. Almost every week or month you've got one or two outright closures. Just business model fail can't continue. But lurking behind the tip of the pyramid is a lot of program redefinition activity and the big challenge I think for a lot of institutions is do you only survive through zombification? In other words, you got so much of what you are and what you were that you're still. The business is still alive, but there's nothing really left to it anymore. And you know, for example, look at Sears it. You know it took forever for the thing to finally wrap up, but for a long time it was just a shell of itself and just didn't really have a clear business model or future and was no longer the Sears that we grew up with. And I think that exact issue is lurking out there.
Speaker 3:So the whole scope of enrollment seems like that's going to be modified or drastically altered going forward correct.
Speaker 1:Well, people are definitely looking for affinity spaces. People are like I want that space more than ever. I want to go someplace that I identify with and feel like I'm in a protected space and a space that understands me. I think the challenge of that is well, let's say, people run to or from Florida. Well, guess what? Florida politics are going to change.
Speaker 3:But education is only one component regarding where you decide to move or live or spend a great deal of your life, correct?
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what Floridians care about right now Homeowner insurance, auto insurance. Care about right now Homeowner insurance, auto insurance, property taxes and consumer price index. I mean a lot of people here who are very unhappy that all of a sudden their auto rates and homeowner rates even if they can get the insurance is going through the roof and watch what happens. You know Floridians will vote with their pocketbooks and I think perhaps they even did the last time around. So you know you could say, well, red wave in Florida. But I'd be a little careful about what that could look like because I don't know if it's color-coded as much as it's the color of money.
Speaker 3:So what seems to be the direction that higher education can take in regards to being successful in this?
Speaker 1:new era. I think there are different paths for different institutions, and one option is a conglomerate. You know the kind that Pennsylvania has been discussing. Another, you know, I think a probably more common thing that people explore is partnerships or shared service arrangements and to say you know, we do this, you do that. I'm Reese's, I've got the chocolate, you've got the peanut butter. Together, we can be a better product than we are singularly, and that usually involves cutting fat away, things that aren't successful, that have been around for a long time, and that cuts into expectations of what an institution can do and I think it does. And all of that stuff, you know again, risks zombification because all of a sudden your identity is lost.
Speaker 3:How difficult will it be for all those experienced administrators and tenured professors out there who have been in the system for quite some time?
Speaker 1:A lot of people are considering retirement. They don't want to make the transition to the new models and, as I think we've talked before, I think, the idea that you would go to a dusty, ivy-covered institution and research and write and teach through a 30 or 40-year career.
Speaker 3:Will, shared governance exist going forward.
Speaker 1:One of the big challenges with shared governance is that the whole model of shared governance that was built out by AUP early in the 20th century and mid 20th century did not contemplate a highly regulated industry. And now sharing governance means sharing compliance requirements and is a faculty in the position to share governance over those types of issues the way they did before? And that gets really tricky when there are these regulatory metrics. For example, the, let's say, this Office of Research Integrity does ramp up the way they're proposing. Schools are going to have to cope with that.
Speaker 1:You know faculty might say, well, we don't want to go along with that, you could end up getting shut down or fined by the department. So the top managers are going to be saying look, you know, we're going to have to have some oversight at an administrative level for this, just to make sure that we're complying with the law. Level for this, just to make sure that we're complying with the law and don't get in a lot of trouble. And the faculty weren't really trained, designed, raised, et cetera, to be compliance experts and to have those kinds of instincts. And I think that's one of the big friction points now Compliance U and shared governance have a very challenging fit with each other.
Speaker 3:What about higher education internationally?
Speaker 1:Well, I've always got my eye on what's happening globally and you know, I think one of the things that is in the back of my mind is that Generation Alpha will be the largest group of young people that ever hit the planet, but a very large number of them will not be in the United States, but a very large number of them will not be in the United States. And one place to keep an eye on is Africa, where we literally an explosion of young human beings. It makes me think that we tend to become very myopic in these situations. I guess when you're an auspice, you know they talk about people going inward and the inward journey, but on the other side of this is looking outward, beyond our borders. I just can't help but believe that there's going to be an overwhelming cry to more higher education, to where the young and bright people are, large numbers of young people hungry to learn and grow.
Speaker 1:Higher education is never far behind.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's a global market and I think one of the things American higher education has to contend with is can it evolve to be a global business in the face of very strong parochialism at home that you know, of control here for domestic issues?
Speaker 1:But do we want to facilitate our industry to become globally postured as the global market expands in India and Africa and that has not really hit policymakers over discussion, but it needs to be, because I mean, consider the possibility of this that you know, let's say, central Africa starts opening much larger universities with more degrees and it's much, much more affordable. I mean American students will think I'm going to go take a degree in Africa or India. It could be for the first time in American history that when we sent a lot of young people overseas, they're not going with weapons and military units but instead they're going to learn in large numbers. And I don't think that that's an implausible future because with cost and affordability I mean think what happened with other industries like steel is people move businesses where there was cheaper overhead, cheaper labor, cheaper cost of living. And why wouldn't you do that?
Speaker 3:But, Peter, do you think it's really going to take hold with this divisive culture that we seem to have been turning into meaning that, you know, our separation from the rest of the world almost seems to be commonplace now?
Speaker 1:One phone call I had years ago still haunts me. It's been a while, but there was a mother who called me out of the blue, no connection with her son, and she said my son wants to get a free education in Finland. How do I do that? I'm like I have no idea. But she was insisting that well, you're a national expert, you should know this. And I'm like, well, I don't. Actually, you know, I don't have any knowledge of how one gets an education in Finland. But she was literally shopping the planet for a cheap degree for her son and I thought there aren't that many consumers like that right now, but I think there could be more.
Speaker 3:So will private institutions have a leg up, since they're not as regulated as state institutions.
Speaker 1:There's no question that some of the politics in some states will impact who enrolls and who persists, and I do think for globalization the privates are probably better situated to move.
Speaker 1:It wouldn't have all the requirements that the publics would have to do business outside the United States.
Speaker 1:But I've said it before, I'll say it again Harvard is a good example of a global business that's posturing itself as a local entity. I mean it again you know Harvard is a good example of a global business that's posturing itself as a local entity. You know, I mean, it started as a very small business in Massachusetts, but now Harvard is a global corporation, global activity, and it has a storefront in Boston. But it is definitely a global entity and has, as some institutions do, economic clout that is in excess of some countries, and so the model is already there for a globalized education system, and what I think you're tending to see right now is the most globalized institutions are the ones with a very focused brand. So Harvard doesn't have an interest in teaching the masses of various countries. That's not their goal, and I doubt that it would be. But someone else like Southern New Hampshire could set a different kind of goal and say look, we're going to become the global university for Central Africa or the partner with India, and watch what happens.
Speaker 3:So, without leaping ahead, what's the summer look like for higher education?
Speaker 1:It's not going to be the summer of 1968, but it's going to be interesting.
Speaker 3:In what way?
Speaker 1:My instinct is the Renaissance is around the corner and I haven't wavered in that, and that was actually a big part of the conversation at my conference is hey, you know tough times right now, but on the other side of this is a really kind of wonderful place that could evolve, and this is the platform for it and we're going to. A lot of this stuff has been long overdue to be examined.
Speaker 3:Peter is always great stuff and I always enjoy it, as do the listeners, of course, and right on the heels of this will be the update of the new Title IX regulations. Great talking to you again. Thanks everyone for listening. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:Higher Education Renaissance is produced by Eric Seaborg, technical production by MC1R Studios. Artwork by Gin G Productions. We welcome your comments or program recommendations for future episodes at ericseaborg at gmailcom and thank you for listening you.
