Author: admin
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Hume’s Fork and the Truth About Knowledge (Thoughtforge)
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Escalating Humanitarian Needs (Center for Strategic & International Studies)
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How a new Arizona school will use AI to teach students in 2-hour models (ABC 15 Arizona)
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Brand or Bust: How Universities Can Thrive in the Face of Crisis
Today’s weekend reading is by Zeenat Fayaz, Director of Brand & Strategy at The Brand Education, and Brian MacDonald, Chief Creative Officer and a co-founder at Zillion.
Pandemics, enrolment cliffs, budgets, student mental health, social media disinformation: higher education in crisis, globally, and it sometimes feels like crises are the new normal. This article explores these challenges in three key markets – the US, the UK and Canada – and proposes a change in the way universities think about communications to overcome such hardships.
The Challenge
Universities develop institutional strategies for growth and sometimes invest in brand strategies for perception management. However, when crisis communications are not integrated into these strategies, they can become distractions from them. Often when crises arise, neither institutional nor brand strategies are equipped to address them effectively. Nor does addressing them support either strategy.
With crises seemingly becoming more frequent, this is an unsustainable model – the longer crises continue, the longer the distraction from institutional and brand strategies.
The Opportunity: From Survive to Thrive
With crisis management becoming a continual need, universities need a crisis strategy that doesn’t indefinitely distract from institutional and brand initiatives – one that allows universities to address all the audiences of the crisis with messages and media relevant to each. If this sounds like a brand, that’s because it is! We propose a new approach, a “thrive mode,” in which brand strategy elevated to equal status with institutional strategy, and crisis management is integrated into both.
This approach transforms crises from distractions into opportunities to clarify the institution’s distinctive position and enhance its reputation.
Survive versus Thrive: A Deeper Look
Survive mode is a reactive approach to crises, treating each as a unique, temporary problem. It focuses on short-term damage control with transactional communication, often disconnected from overall institutional and brand strategies. Success in this mode is merely the survival of the institution and its brand reputation.
Thrive mode, conversely, is proactive, viewing crises as opportunities to reinforce institutional and brand strategies. It aims for long-term reputation enhancement through brand-based communication that leverages institutional expertise and core values. Success is defined as emerging from crises with an enhanced reputation and stakeholder understanding, measurable by existing brand performance indicators.
The change from survive to thrive offers numerous advantages. It allows for pre-crisis planning and offers efficiency by integrating with existing strategies. It allows for quicker, more coherent responses that align with overall brand and institutional messaging using existing brand communication tools. It involves broader stakeholder groups and leverages institutional expertise to provide a more valued response, resulting in trust and enhanced reputation beyond the immediate crisis.
Case Studies: Putting Thrive Mode Into Action
Survive mode has been displayed across headlines and news sites around the world since the inception of encampments and campus protests around the world since the advent of the Israel/Gaza conflict. Numerous university presidents provided testimony in front of Congressional hearings that reflected badly on their institutions. And the universities did survive, albeit with varying degrees of damaged brands, dismissed presidents, irate donors and declining applications.
With thrive mode responses, instead of preparing, as in some cases, to offer legal testimony, consider the many different outcomes that could have been achieved by placing university experts in Middle Eastern studies, philosophy and ethics, comparative religions, history, or many other relevant fields at centre stage. Thrive mode would have prompted a response about higher education’s and individual institutions’ leadership in education on Middle Eastern issues, or how they are preparing students to participate in civil discussion and achieve breakthroughs in understanding. Such discussions would have haloed positively on these institutions by reinforcing their brand values with audiences outside the university, and by clarifying their roles in supporting dialogue, tolerance and understanding.
Issues around academic freedom have been increasingly roiling universities in the UK, with the Academic Freedom Index (AFI) recording declines in each of the last nine years. The assessments measure interference by politicians, externally appointed management, and activists. Numerous crises have arisen involving scholarly censorship, the mainstreaming of racism and transphobia, and the stifling of academic pursuits that do not demonstrate profitable impact. The universities’ responses focused much negative attention on higher education, as a whole, and individual universities, in particular, in government, news media, and public opinion. And the responses allowed these negative stories to effectively lead the conversation, placing the universities in a reactive position. Survive mode squandered the opportunity to highlight universities’ research successes and student outcomes as well as to demonstrate leadership on important topics.
Thrive-mode responses could have allowed institutions to talk about important discoveries that would not be possible under recent restrictions on academic freedom. About alumni who have made important contributions to the economy or society who would not qualify for student support today. About the universities’ missions and their historical relationships to government and society. About brand values that the universities rely on to drive their results. These responses would allow the universities to participate in, guide, and lead these conversations, putting their brands in positions to make an impact on important external audiences.
With ongoing budget crises and newly imposed restrictions on the number of foreign student visas, universities in the UK and Canada are in uncharted territory. It’s not merely threatening many institutions with declines in funding, hard choices, and in some cases closure, but potentially reforming the entire higher education landscape. In a leaderless crisis where nobody knows what it will look like in the end, acting on coordinated institutional, brand, and crisis strategies effectively demonstrates leadership: with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and most importantly with the government. The opportunity is to talk about the budget crisis as a new lens through which to view the institutional strategy. A budget crisis does not change objectives like entering The Russell Group or becoming Canada’s premiere STEM educator. It may change the process of how an institution gets there – the timeline for milestones, the need for partners, the establishment of fundraising goals, etc. And brand strategy lays out ways to discuss how the crisis will affect its implementation with key audiences. This is what thriving looks like in the face of this crisis: opening and leading important conversations with governments, reassuring parents and inspiring students.
Conclusion
As Warren Buffett noted, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” In today’s media environment, a brand can be severely damaged in seconds. By integrating crisis management into overall institutional and brand strategies, universities can transform crises from threats into opportunities for growth and reputation enhancement. While crises may be inevitable, this framework offers a path for universities not just to survive, but to thrive in challenging times..
Zeenat Fayaz is Director of Brand & Strategy at The Brand Education. Zeenat’s experience working with QS and THE gives her unique insight into the way institutions are evaluated and ranked. Today, Zeenat helps top-tier universities understand the power of branding and use this to enhance their global reputations. You can find Zeenat on LinkedIn here.
And Brian MacDonald is the Chief Creative Officer and a co-founder at Zillion. He has worked on strategic, creative, and branding projects for dozens of universities in the US, Canada, and overseas. His work focuses on how branding can drive institutional revenue, and his work has raised more than $6 billion for his clients. You can find Brian on LinkedIn here.
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One day after FIRE lawsuit, Congress passes changes to filming permits in national parks
On Wednesday, FIRE and the National Press Photographers Association filed a lawsuit challenging the arbitrary and unconstitutional laws that require Americans to apply for a permit and pay costly fees before exercising their right to film in national parks. The very next day, the U.S. Senate passed a bill addressing these same issues. The bill now goes to President Biden, who is expected to sign it in a huge victory for filmmakers — and for the First Amendment.
Currently, filmmakers must obtain a permit and pay a fee if they intend to later profit from their footage in national parks, even if they are using the same handheld camera or phone that a tourist would use. Permits are routinely denied for arbitrary and unpredictable reasons, making it difficult for people like documentary filmmakers, press photographers, and wedding videographers to earn a living. Under the EXPLORE Act, that changes.
WATCH VIDEO The EXPLORE Act, championed in the Senate by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Wyoming Republican John Barrasso, does several things to fix the constitutional problems with the permit scheme that FIRE is challenging. First, so long as the filming takes place where the public is allowed, doesn’t impact other visitors or damage parks resources, and involves five or fewer people, no permit is required. Second, no permit is required simply because the filmmaker intends to make a profit. Third, no permit is needed to film activities that are already allowed in the park. And fourth, the EXPLORE Act makes clear that when the National Park Service has already approved an event like a wedding to take place in a national park, no additional permit is needed to film or photograph the special occasion.
After filing, FIRE and NPPA took the story to the media and to Capitol Hill. FIRE looks forward to seeing this bill become law.
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Biden scraps debt relief plans, other regs
President Biden has so far forgiven $180 billion in student loans for 4.9 million borrowers. Much more relief is unlikely now.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
The Biden administration’s ambitious plans to provide debt relief for millions of Americans is officially dead along with a number of other proposed regulatory changes.
The administration said Friday it’s withdrawing two debt relief proposals from consideration. The Education Department had been reviewing thousands of comments on the plans and preparing to finalize at least one proposal before Friday’s announcement. The Associated Press first reported on the decision.
The department is also scraping its proposal to amend Title IX to prohibit blanket bans barring transgender students from participating in the sport consistent with their gender identity. That proposal proved controversial, receiving more than 150,000 comments and prompting legal challenges to the department’s separate overhaul of Title IX. added
“In light of the comments received and those various pending court cases, the department has determined not to regulate on this issue at this time,” officials wrote in a notice on the Federal Register. added
The department also said Friday that it’s abandoning the effort to update the rules for accreditation, state authorization and cash management. Regulatory proposals were hashed out in the spring but have stalled since. Proposals to gather more data about distance education and open up college-prep programs to undocumented students appear to be moving forward. added
The department said terminating the rule-making process or those three areas will “allow for additional evaluation of recent changes in other regulations and industry practices.” added
The debt relief plans have been in the works since summer 2023 after the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s first attempt at providing student loan forgiveness. Republicans and other critics said these latest debt relief plans, which would have benefited 36 million Americans, were unconstitutional and amounted to an unfair wealth transfer.
Education Department officials maintain that they have the authority to forgive student loans for borrowers who meet certain criteria or are facing financial hardship, but they concluded that they don’t have the time to implement the proposals before Biden leaves office Jan. 20.
“With the time remaining in this administration, the Department is focused on several priorities including court-ordered settlements and helping borrowers manage the final elements of the return to repayment,” officials wrote in a Federal Register notice. “At this time the Department intends to commit its limited operational resources to helping at-risk borrowers return to repayment successfully.”
Withdrawing the rule “will assure agency flexibility in reexamining the issues,” officials added. The move means that the incoming administration would have to start from scratch on a rulemaking process rather than just rewrite the pending proposal.
Some Republican attorneys general sued the administration over one of the plans, which would have provided targeted debt relief to borrowers who owe more than they initially borrowed or have been repaying their loans for more than 20 years, among other groups. That plan was blocked by a federal judge before the department could finalize it.
The department’s decision came on the same day the Biden administration announced another round of loan forgiveness. The Education Department announced Friday morning that it would forgive loans for 55,000 borrowers who reached eligibility through Public Service Loan Forgiveness. A program created in 2007 and retooled under Biden, PSLF relieves an individual’s remaining debt if they properly complete 120 monthly payments while working full-time in a public interest career like law enforcement, health care or education.
Including Friday’s batch of relief, which totaled $4.28 billion, the Biden administration has now forgiven $180 billion in student loans for 4.9 million borrowers.
Borrower advocacy groups like the Student Borrower Protection Center say that while they are deeply disappointed the Biden administration has to withdraw its regulations in response to legal pushback from right-wing attorneys, they appreciate Biden’s efforts and celebrate the regulations he was able to finalize.
“President Biden’s fixes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and other student loan relief programs have once again delivered lasting change and will benefit millions of borrowers for years to come,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, in a statement. But, at the same time, Yu added that “the actions of right-wing attorneys general have blocked tens of millions of borrowers from accessing critical student debt relief.”
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers, including Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, described Biden’s unfinalized attempts at student debt relief as a “scheme to transfer student debt onto American taxpayers.”
“The Biden-Harris administration’s student loan schemes were always a lie,” the senator said in a statement. “With today’s latest withdrawal, they are admitting these schemes were nothing more than a dishonest attempt to buy votes by transferring debt onto taxpayers who never went to college or worked to pay off their loans.”
Jessica Blake contributed to this report.
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Brown faces $46 million budget deficit
Brown University, one of the nation’s wealthiest institutions, is facing a $46 million structural deficit, prompting efforts to limit growth in hiring and doctoral programs.
“Without changes to the way Brown operates, the structural deficit is expected to continue to deepen significantly, including a deficit next year that would grow to more than $90 million, with steady increases in subsequent years. Although the current deficit of $46 million is only 3% of Brown’s total operating budget, increases in the deficit over time are not sustainable,” Provost Francis J. Doyle III and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Sarah Latham announced in a letter to the community on Dec. 17.
Officials noted a range of factors driving the deficit, including flat undergraduate tuition revenue growth, increased financial aid, inflation and rising salaries and benefits.
Brown announced a four-pronged plan to “constrain the deficit.”
First, the institution will “hold faculty headcount growth to 1%” and limit the growth of staff members “not fully funded externally by grants and gifts” at zero percent, according to the letter from administrators. In addition, Brown will reduce admissions targets for Ph.D. programs, which have grown rapidly in recent years. The university also plans to “hold growth in unrestricted operating expenses to 3%.” Finally, the letter noted the university will work to “continue to grow master’s [program] revenue, ultimately doubling the number of residential master’s students and increasing online learners to 2,000 in five years.”
While officials did not announce job cuts as they grapple with the yawning budget deficit, the message noted Brown will review vacancies “to determine if they will be refilled.”
Brown is among the richest universities in the U.S. with an endowment valued at $7.2 billion. Last year, a study of endowments put Brown just beyond the top 25 wealthiest institutions.
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College holiday videos feature mascots, movie references
It’s been another challenging year in higher ed, and colleges are unsure what 2025 could bring, especially with the Biden administration coming to an end and former president Trump returning to the White House. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing for them to celebrate this holiday season, whether it’s increased enrollment, new awards and recognitions, a close-knit campus community—or just the fact that there are students on campus willing to star in a silly holiday video.
Here are Inside Higher Ed’s favorite greetings of this holiday season, including five presidential cameos, four mascot stunts, three live music performances, two Die Hard references … and a partridge in a pear tree.
University of Wisconsin–Superior
Since when can yellowjackets ice-skate? Google tells me that wasps need to find somewhere warm to hide away when temperatures drop below 40 degrees—but Buzz the Yellowjacket, the University of Wisconsin at Superior’s mascot, appears to be the exception. In this holiday greeting video, Buzz not only makes an impressive ice hockey goal but also displays some figure skating prowess, pulling off a top-rate arabesque. Could Buzz become the nation’s first ever apian Olympian?
Riverland Community College, Austin, Minn.
In this video from Riverland Community College in southern Minnesota, different groups of students wish viewers a happy holiday in turn. Their greetings give glimpses into the unique programs, clubs and spaces on campus, from cosmetology students giving pedicures in a salon to handy welders- and electricians-in-training showing off their skills.
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Iowa State’s Cyclone Marching Band comes together in perfect harmony in this artfully choreographed video, marching across campus to provide some brassy musical accompaniment for the campus’s tree lighting. From what I could find in my research, the group first plays the university’s alma mater, “The Bells of Iowa State,” which was written in 1931 by Iowa State English professor Jim Wilson, followed by a rousing rendition of ISU’s fight song.
Georgia State University College of the Arts, Atlanta
Coniferous trees spring from sidewalks and dance studios in this collage-like animation by a GSU alumnus, featuring background music by a current undergraduate student. The video concludes with punny well-wishes for the holidays: “May the arts spruce up your season with good cheer!”
Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Wash.
This sketch from Washington’s EWU opens with the university’s president, Shari McMahan, jokingly bemoaning the fact that she had run out of acorns on which to use her large collection of nutcrackers. But the campus community takes that joke seriously and shifts into high gear, with each department researching how to help her get her hands on more “nutcracker food.” I hope those math students were able to finally solve for the numeric value of acorn!
Howard University, Washington, D.C.
Howard president Ben Vinson III highlights the university’s 2024 achievements in this holiday message, including the D.C. university’s record-breaking freshman class and its 100th homecoming. “As we prepare for the holidays, I look forward to all that lies ahead. I wish everyone a joyful and restful break and a successful start to the new year,” Vinson said.
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wash.
Rhythmic choral music rings out through Whitman College’s Memorial Building before the singers are eventually joined by an instrumental septet in this distinctive holiday video. What makes this video so unusual is the choice to use not a well-known holiday carol but a choral song by living composer Jeff Newberry with lyrics by Malcolm Guite, a poet and Anglican priest, that nevertheless speak to the gratitude and peace of the holiday season: “Become an open singing-bowl, whose chime / Is richness rising out of emptiness, / And timelessness resounding into time.”
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
MIT’s video this year is a short animated sequence that shows what happens after it magically begins snowing inside one of the university’s academic buildings. A student walks through the snow-dusted hallway, eventually happening upon an atrium where her classmates are playing instruments crafted from ice, sledding and crafting a snow beaver in the image of the institution’s mascot.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
What a beautiful message for this holiday season: the importance of friendship across differences. When Norm the Niner, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s gold-mining mascot, orders goose on a food delivery app, he’s expecting dinner to arrive. But instead, he finds a live goose at his door at ready to move onto UNC-Charlotte’s campus. At first, the goose only wants to cause chaos, but eventually he mellows out, learning to enjoy college basketball, fine art and taking selfies before eventually departing south for the winter.
Tarrant County College, Tarrant County, Tex.
In this heartfelt video from one of Texas’s largest counties, members of the Tarrant County College community join together at a beautifully set table for what looks to be a homemade holiday dinner, reminding TCC students that they will always “have a seat at the table.” Joining them is college chancellor Elva Concha LeBlanc and Toro the Trailblazer, the college’s blue bull mascot, which is dancing in the background.
Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Okla.
Hot takes abound in this video of Oral Roberts students answering Christmas-related questions, like their favorite holiday songs and films. Is Home Alone 2 superior to the original? Does the Phineas and Ferb Christmas special really qualify as a Christmas movie? Does anyone actually know the words to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”? If you and your family don’t have enough to argue about this holiday, these are some questions you could bring up to really cause a ruckus.
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Why does it seem like there’s a trend this year of rebuffing all the classic carols in favor of introducing new songs to represent the spirit of the season? I’m not complaining; apparently the song in this video is from Frozen 2, a movie I have never seen, but Yale’s student performers make it sound as loved and lived-in as a warm woolen sweater. This video also features Handsome Dale, Yale’s bulldog mascot, and Angus, the university’s First Puppy.
Clackamas Community College, Oregon City, Ore.
One of two institutions returning to this list from last year, Clackamas Community College in Oregon is back with another parodic holiday heist. This year, the college took inspiration from Die Hard. It stars Adam Hall, a math instructor at the college, in the role of John McClane, having to fight against a plot to “encrypt the digits of pi to ruin their holiday joy.” I’ve never seen Die Hard, but I have to assume that’s extremely accurate to what happens in the movie.
Oakland Community College, Oakland County, Mich.
Oakland Community College is the second to make another appearance on this list from last year. In this year’s self-aware video, chancellor Peter Provenzano decides to use ChatGPT—one its few, if only, appearances in any of these videos!—to gather ideas for a Christmas movie parody that Talon, OCC’s owl mascot, could star in. The AI spits out It’s a Wonderful Life, Die Hard, A Charlie Brown Christmas and more, but none satisfy Provenzano. The moral of the story? “There are a lot of stories Talon can tell to capture the season’s joy, but none better than the story we tell at OCC,” he says. (And stick around to the end for bloopers!)