Category: Featured

Bronx CC, Olin, Bethune-Cookman, TCU and More

Shantay Bolton, who most recently served as executive vice president of administration and finance and chief business officer at Georgia Tech, became president and chief executive officer of Columbia College Chicago on July 1.

Sandra Bulmer, dean of Southern Connecticut State University’s College of Health and Human Services, has been appointed interim president of the institution, effective July 1.

Joyce Ester, who most recently served as president of Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn., became president of Governors State University in Illinois on July 1.

Heather Gerken, dean of Yale Law School, has been named president of the Ford Foundation, effective in November.

Joseph Greene, vice chancellor of finance and administration at Johnson & Wales University, has been appointed president of the Johnson & Wales Providence campus, effective fall 2025.

Charles Lee Isbell Jr., provost of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has been named chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and vice president of the University of Illinois system, effective Aug. 1.

Larry Johnson Jr., president of the City University of New York’s Guttman Community College, has been appointed president of CUNY’s Bronx Community College, effective July 14.

David Jones, a former vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Minnesota State University, Mankato, became interim president of Southwest Minnesota State University on July 1.

May Lee, vice president and chief strategy officer for institutional impact at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been named president of Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, effective Aug. 18.

Albert Mosley, president of Morningside University in Sioux City, Iowa, has been appointed president of Bethune-Cookman University in Florida, effective July 7.

Jeanette Nuñez, the interim president of Florida International University who formerly served as a Florida state representative and lieutenant governor, has been named FIU’s permanent president.

Daniel Pullin, who spent the past two years as president of Texas Christian University, has been appointed TCU chancellor, effective May 30.

Manya Whitaker, interim president of Colorado College, was named the institution’s permanent president in June.

James Winebrake, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, has been appointed president of Coastal Carolina University, effective July 7.

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July 3, 2025
Scientists Took Support “For Granted” Before Trump

Devastating cuts to U.S. science under Donald Trump’s presidency have been made possible by a pervasive complacency that scientific achievements will always be celebrated, a leading American Nobel Prize winner has said.

Frances Arnold, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for her work on engineering enzymes, told an audience of young scientists in Germany that the “utter chaos” in U.S. politics of recent months, which has seen billions of dollars removed from scientific research, might be viewed in terms of a wider failure to communicate the value of scientific discovery.

“Never take for granted that scientific achievement is celebrated—we took it for granted, and for far too long, and we are paying the price,” Arnold told the June 29 opening ceremony of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, an annual conference that brings together Nobel laureates and early-career researchers.

“Instead of viewing science as the foundation of prosperity, as an investment in the future, it is being portrayed as a burden on taxpayers,” said Arnold, professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.

The Trump administration has so far canceled at least $10 billion in federal grants on the grounds that they contravene its anti-DEI agenda, but further unprecedented cuts are in the pipeline; under Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill, the National Science Foundation’s budget will be cut by 57 percent, by $5 billion, while the National Institutes of Health will see its support slashed by 40 percent, or $18 billion.

In an address given on behalf of 35 Nobelists attending the conference on the Swiss–Austrian border, Arnold said that this “concerted attack on the universities will drive many brilliant young scientists to Europe and other places,” adding, “I hope you will make the best use of this opportunity and give them a home.”

On the need for more effective communication of science’s benefits, Arnold, who chaired former U.S. president Joe Biden’s presidential council on science and technology for four years, said she hoped other nations would “learn the lesson that we are learning the hard way—that it is so important to convey the joy of science, the joy of discovery and the benefits to our friends and neighbors outside the academic laboratory.”

“They pay the bills but do not necessarily understand the benefits [of science]—it is up to us to explain that better.”

Arnold’s comments about the likely U.S. brain drain were also picked up by Germany’s science minister, Dorothee Bar, who told the conference that her government would make funds available in its high-tech strategy, due to be launched shortly, to attract international researchers.

“We are launching the One Thousand Minds Plus scheme to attract minds from across the world, including from the U.S.,” she said on the plans to divert some of the $589 billion technology and infrastructure stimulus plan toward recruiting global talent.

Appealing directly to disaffected U.S. researchers, Bar said, “You are always welcome here in Germany.”

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July 3, 2025
The Meaning of July 4 to Political Science Teacher (opinion)

Every year for the past 25 years, I have taught an intermediate-level undergraduate course at Indiana University Bloomington called The Declaration of Independence and the Meaning of American Citizenship. I love teaching this course, because it allows students to engage history by interpreting a rather simple text that is well recognized even if not necessarily well understood—and this tension between vague familiarity and real understanding makes the teaching fun.

My basic approach to the topic and the course, outlined on the syllabus, has remained pretty fixed over the years:

This class will pay special attention to the meaning of “America.” It will address serious questions about what it means to think “historically.” It will trace and analyze the many ways that the meanings of American citizenship have been contested since 1776, and it will do so through a focus on alternative interpretations of the Declaration of Independence, which has sometimes been called the “birth certificate of American democracy.”

The Declaration is not the only important text in American political history. In particular, we will pay attention to its complex relationship to the U.S. Constitution, the other seminal “founding” document of the U.S. political system. But it is a very important touchstone for many important historical debates, and it is an even more important symbol of American political identity (which is why the late historian Pauline Maier referred to it as “American Scripture”).

The Declaration is also a very instructive example of the fact that core political symbols, texts and principles can be interpreted in different ways and are often heavily contested. Such rhetorical contests play an important role in the evolution of democracy over time, as disenfranchised groups appeal to “foundational” texts, like the Declaration, to justify their demands for recognition and inclusion—and as those who oppose recognition and inclusion also sometimes draw upon the same texts, though in very different ways.

In this course we will discuss how the Declaration has been a source of inspiration for activists and social movements seeking to democratize American society, and how it has also been used, differently, by opponents of democratization.

As we will see, there is not one true “meaning” of the Declaration.

But there are more and less nuanced, and more and less inclusive, interpretations of the Declaration. The primary goal of this course is to develop a historically and philosophically informed understanding of the Declaration—what it says, what it has meant, how it has justified many of the things most of us hold dear and some things many of us find revolting—and, by doing so, to nurture a more informed and reflexive understanding of contemporary American democracy. And because it is a course taught in a U.S. public university, to students most if not all of whom are citizens of the U.S., such an understanding has potentially significant implications for the way each of us thinks and acts as a citizen.

The course was originally inspired by a chance encounter, many decades ago, with a fascinating anthology, published in 1976—the year of the Bicentennial—and edited by famed labor historian Philip S. Foner, entitled We, The Other People: Alternative Declarations of Independence by Labor Groups, Farmers, Woman’s Rights Advocates, Socialists, and Blacks, 1829–1975. This volume, as its title suggests, furnishes a wide range of texts to explore with students. Over the years, I have incorporated dozens of other texts, some modeled directly on the 1776 Declaration, others simply drawing heavily on it, including the speeches of a great many presidents, especially Lincoln.

Central to the course are three famous speeches delivered by dissenters who were widely reviled in their time: Frederick Douglass’s 1852 “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”; Eugene V. Debs’s “Liberty,” given in 1895 upon his release from six months in prison for leading the 1894 Pullman strike; and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, given at the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

But the syllabus also includes speeches by Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens; populist Tom Watson; and segregationist governor George C. Wallace. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments,” adopted in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights, plays an important role; so too the 1898 “White Declaration of Independence” published by white racists in Wilmington, N.C., who overthrew a multiracial city government and terrorized the Black community.

The course is very historical, but also very contemporary, because July 4 comes every year, and because past historical struggles over the meaning of the Declaration continue to resonate in the present—and indeed are sometimes revived in the present.

But in the coming year the course will be more relevant than ever, because President Donald Trump has made clear that he plans to turn the entire year leading up to next year’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration’s signing into a celebration of “American greatness”—and thus of himself.

Back in May 2023, Trump released a campaign video promising what Politico described as “a blowout, 12-month-long ‘Salute to America 250’ celebration,” including “a ‘Great American State Fair,’ featuring pavilions from all 50 states, nationwide high school sporting contests, and the building of Trump’s ‘National Garden of American Heroes’ with statues of important figures in American history.”

In his second week in office, Trump issued two executive orders centered on the Declaration. The first, “Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday,” announced that “it is the policy of the United States, and a purpose of this order, to provide a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American Independence on July 4, 2026.” The other, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling,” mandated the termination of “radical, anti-American ideologies” and the re-establishment of a “President’s Advisory 1776 Commission” charged with promoting patriotic education.

Trump has long laid claim to “the spirit of July 4, 1776.” In the final days of his first term, as the nation was overtaken by a wave of Black Lives Matter demonstrations protesting the police killing of George Floyd, he established his “1776 Commission,” which was intended to legitimate his increasingly repressive approach to the demonstrations and to energize his 2020 re-election campaign (the resulting report was also an explicit repudiation of The New York Times’ 2019 “The 1619 Project”).

The commission and its hurriedly drafted “The 1776 Report” failed to help fuel Trump’s failing 2020 campaign. But its broader ideological mission—to inaugurate a MAGA-inflected cultural revolution in a second Trump term—was hardly defeated.

The MAGA movement’s attempt to overthrow Joe Biden’s 2020 election— “Today is 1776,” tweeted MAGA congresswoman Lauren Boebert on Jan. 6, 2021, speaking for the thousands of “3 Percenters,” “Proud Boys” and assorted “patriot” groups that invaded the Capitol building—may have failed. But only temporarily. For Trump has returned to the White House with a vengeance and has commenced an ideological and economic assault on higher education, committed to “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” by purging society of “divisive narratives that distort our shared history.”

Historical understanding and social criticism are out and national reverence is in.

I cannot imagine a more exciting time to be teaching a course on the Declaration of Independence and the meaning of American citizenship.

But I also cannot imagine a more challenging and indeed precarious time to do so.

For the course—which does not seek to promote reverence or national pride or “American greatness”—is at odds with the prevailing spirit of the time, or at least its ascendant ideology.

It seeks to promote historical understanding, based on serious historical scholarship, and a general appreciation for the complex ways that the Declaration has figured in debates and conflicts over the shifting meaning of American citizenship. The course refuses to ignore or whitewash the ways that patriotism and even the preamble of the Declaration itself have been mobilized to oppose the forms of inclusion, and democratization, that we now take for granted (like the abolition of chattel slavery, considered by Southern states to be such a despotic violation of slaveholder property rights that they seceded from the Union, and formed the Confederacy, by appealing to the Declaration’s “consent of the governed”).

It also refuses to treat American history as the happy working out over time of a beneficent commitment to universal freedom that was embraced from the beginning by all Americans. For while certain universalist words were there from the beginning—coexisting with much less universalistic words, to be sure—a commitment to their universal application was most definitely not there from the beginning. That promise took decades and even centuries to be even haltingly redeemed, partially and in steps, due to the blood, sweat and tears of generations of brave activists—a process that continues to this day. And the fact that the Declaration’s words played such an important role in this contentious politics is the very reason why it is such a seminal text, one that deserves appreciation and celebration even as it is a human invention not above moral reproach or historical critique.

In politics as in life, criticism, and not easy praise, is the sincerest form of flattery.

As a professor, my approach to the course material is not partisan in any sense. I have no interest in changing the minds of any of my students, whatever they happen to think, except in the sense that all good teaching is about getting students to think more deeply and more regularly. In this sense, I seek to change the mind of every student, by engaging every student with historical materials, and ideas, and intellectual challenges, and by fostering a climate of respectful questioning and disagreeing in the classroom so that students can hear and listen to those with viewpoints different from their own. The pedagogy of higher education is not normal out in the world beyond the academy, though it would not be a bad thing if it were much more normalized than it currently is. That is why colleges and universities exist.

All the same, we have arrived at a historical moment in the U.S., perhaps unlike any before, in which such education is considered partisan, and denounced as “indoctrination,” by a MAGA movement and a Trump administration obsessed with a closing of borders, and ranks, and minds, in the name of patriotic “unity” and “American greatness.”

At a time when historical education is reduced to the celebration of national greatness, a historically serious course on the Declaration of Independence that treats it as a text to be critically engaged, not worshipped, might be considered subversive. Indeed, GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country, following the Trump administration’s lead, have instituted a wide range of measures designed to subject university teaching to heightened political scrutiny (in my own state of Indiana, vague “intellectual diversity” standards have been enacted into law, and Attorney General Todd Rokita has created a web portal, ominously named “Eyes on Education,” that encourages parents and teachers to report “objectionable” forms of teaching).

The problem with such censoriousness is that, if taken seriously, it is hard to see how the Declaration is worth anything at all. None other than Frederick Douglass himself noted precisely this back in 1852: “There was a time when, to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men’s souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! Here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers.”

Since July 4, 1776, the Declaration’s words have resonated at every moment when citizens have together sought to make the society, in the words of that other foundational text, the Constitution, “a more perfect union.” To dismiss the critical appropriation of the Declaration is to devalue both the text itself and the entire course of American history.

This July 4, I will be reflecting on the historical and the contemporary meaning of the text whose publication Americans will celebrate, and gearing up to once again teach The Declaration of Independence and the Meaning of American Citizenship at a time when it could not be more relevant.

Jeffrey C. Isaac is completing a book, entitled Defending Democracy’s Declaration, that challenges the ways that the MAGA movement is poised to weaponize the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington, Isaac writes regularly on current affairs at his blog, Democracy in Dark Times, and at his new Substack dedicated to the forthcoming book, also named Defending Democracy’s Declaration.

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July 3, 2025
Lawmakers Confront Columbia President About Old Messages

Shipman has been Columbia University’s acting president since March.

Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia University, apologized Wednesday for writing messages in 2023 and 2024 that House Republicans say “appear to downplay and even mock the pervasive culture of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus,” Jewish Insider reported.

“The things I said in a moment of frustration and stress were wrong. They do not reflect how I feel,” Shipman wrote in a private email the outlet obtained Wednesday. Shipman said she was addressing “some trusted groups of friends and colleagues, with whom I’ve talked regularly over the last few months.”

The apology comes one day after the House Committee on Education and Workforce sent Shipman a letter asking her to explain the intent of internal messages she wrote about antisemitism on the Manhattan campus following the start of Israel’s war in Gaza and the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. During the time frame in question, Shipman, who became acting president in March, was co-chair of the university’s Board of Trustees.

In its letter, the committee, which has subpoenaed numerous documents related to antisemitism at Columbia, cited a message Shipman wrote to now-resigned president Minouche Shafik on Oct. 20, 2023, that said, “People are really frustrated and scared about antisemitism on our campus and they feel somehow betrayed by it. Which is not necessarily a rational feeling but it’s deep and it is quite threatening.” The committee told Shipman her statement was “perplexing, considering the violence and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students already occurring on Columbia’s campus at the time.”

The committee, which has already compelled Columbia and numerous other universities to testify about their responses to campus antisemitism, also cited in its letter several messages from Shipman that convey alleged “distrust and dislike” for Shoshana Shendelman, a Jewish member of the university’s board who has been outspoken about perceived inadequacies of Columbia’s antisemitism response. “I just don’t think she should be on the board,” Shipman said in a January 2024 message. In April 2024, Shipman wrote that she was “so, so tired” of Shendelman.

In addition to ongoing scrutiny from Republican members of Congress, the Trump administration has attacked Columbia for months, accusing the university of not protecting Jewish students sufficiently and cutting off more than $400 million in federal funds. Although Columbia agreed to the administration’s demands, including overhauling disciplinary processes, Trump hasn’t yet restored the university’s funding. Instead, the Education Department reported Columbia to its accreditor, which has since issued a warning to the university.

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July 3, 2025
Penn Gets Funding Back After Agreeing to Trump’s Demands

Penn had $175 million in federal funding frozen in March.

Kyle Mazza/Anadolu/Getty Images

After the University of Pennsylvania agreed to strip a trans athlete’s awards and comply with the Trump administration’s other demands, the Education Department said Wednesday that the university will get its federal funding back, Bloomberg News and CNN reported.

The administration had paused $175 million in funding to the university because Penn “infamously permitted a male to compete on its women’s swimming team,” an official said in March. After the funding freeze, the Education Department said in April that Penn violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by allowing Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, to compete on Penn’s women’s swimming team in 2022. (That decision followed NCAA policies at the time as well as Title IX.)

In order to resolve the civil rights investigation, Penn had to agree to three demands including “restoring” swimming awards and honors that were “misappropriated” to trans women athletes and apologizing to cisgender women who competed with Thomas. Penn officials said this week that the agreement ends “an investigation that, if unresolved, could have had significant and lasting implications for the University of Pennsylvania.”

After announcing the agreement, Penn quickly began complying. CNN reported that Thomas is no longer included on a list of women’s swimming records. The document now notes, according to CNN, that “competing under eligibility rules in effect at the time, Lia Thomas set program records in the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle during the 2021–22 season.”

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July 3, 2025
A Re-Engagement Strategy for Administrators (opinion)

In American higher education, teaching is our business, research our currency and service our obligation. It has always perplexed me that the pursuit of higher education administration has traditionally compelled individuals to move away from a continued practice of two of these core faculty functions. The path of a faculty administrator is typically marked by a shift away from teaching and research, an evolution that makes returning to the faculty for some almost an impossibility, after years of being disconnected from the disciplinary practices that propelled their trajectory through the faculty ranks to secure an administrative role in the first place.

At Kennesaw State University, we are exploring a new approach to academic leadership that reverses this traditional model of administrative disconnect. Starting this past academic year, every senior academic administrator serving on the provost’s leadership team (including all deans) joined me (serving as provost) in a commitment to teaching or researching annually, with the goal of helping us better understand and serve our university community. For some, the move to formally carve out approximately 10 percent of their time for either teaching or research validates ongoing teaching and research practices, while for others, it provides administrative latitude to reignite their passion for teaching and/or research.

KSU’s president, Kathy Stewart Schwaig, co-taught an honors course with me this past spring, leading this strategy by example. President Schwaig, who holds a Ph.D. in information systems and whose leadership trajectory has evolved through faculty ranks across two Georgia institutions, takes this philosophical commitment to staying connected to the business of higher education even a step further, as she is currently enrolled as a graduate student at Dallas Theological Seminary pursuing a master’s in biblical and theological studies.

As Kennesaw State, a Carnegie-designated R-2 institution that serves a population of more than 47,800 students, some could see this strategy as a pragmatic way of extending the capacities of the senior academic administrators to serve the institution’s growing needs in research and teaching. At a time when the capacities of faculty colleagues are being optimized to serve one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing public institutions, the members of the senior academic administrative team are committing to optimize their own collective capacities to serve the mission of the university.

The consequences will be more than just pragmatic, however. The annual commitment to serve as a higher education practitioner in addition to a higher education administrator could help us pursue administrative approaches that are rooted in a pragmatic understanding of both the shifting needs of industry and the changing needs of students entering higher education today. And it can also help build goodwill among faculty colleagues, who sometimes feel university administrators fail to fully comprehend the growing challenges of the classroom and pressures of research productivity.

Serving as provost, I have found my annual commitment to teaching an opportunity to inform administrative priorities. In fall 2020, when we struggled to comprehend how best to reopen and calibrate to the safety needs of the COVID pandemic, I was scheduled to teach a senior seminar course in the Department of Dance, while I served as dean of the College of the Arts at KSU. For a moment, I thought I should excuse myself from the added responsibilities of teaching a course at a time when my administrative capacities were being tested in rather unconventional ways. Better judgment prevailed, however, as I realized that out of every year that I continued to teach in my higher education career, this would be the semester when being in the classroom and experiencing the challenge alongside my faculty colleagues was most critical.

I would be lying if I said the experience was transformative. The challenges of lecturing with a face mask to socially distant students, split into two groups and separated by technology and physical space, was an experience that most faculty would likely agree was frustrating. But serving as dean and being in the classroom all semester allowed me to skip past several steps to serve the needs of my faculty colleagues with an understanding and empathy that was experientially relevant.

I am hoping that the impact of KSU’s administrative re-engagement strategy will be similarly impactful, ensuring that all senior academic administrators reignite their capacities to contribute to the teaching and research mission of the university. The idea seems to have been embraced at the outset by most; its sustainability, however, will require a continued institutional commitment and individual prioritization. While the true outcomes are yet to be empirically assessed, my hope is that this move will convert administrative faculty into faculty administrators, building their capacities to more effectively serve the growth of our institution with relevant, ongoing experiences in teaching and research.

Ivan Pulinkala is the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Kennesaw State University.

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July 3, 2025
USF Ditches Search Firm That Helped U of Florida Pick Ono

SP&A previously helped UF select Santa Ono, a former University of Michigan president.

Bryan Bedder/Stringer/Getty Images

The University of South Florida has dropped SP&A Executive Search as the firm leading its presidential search, The Tampa Bay Times reported Tuesday. The move comes after the Florida Board of Governors rejected the candidate that SP&A had helped the University of Florida pick for its top job: former University of Michigan president Santa Ono, whom the UF board unanimously approved.

Ono’s rejection came after conservatives mounted a campaign opposing him, citing his past support of diversity, equity and inclusion and his alleged failure to protect Jewish students.

After that failed hire, Rick Scott, a Republican U.S. senator representing Florida, blamed SP&A, telling Jewish Insider that the firm didn’t sufficiently vet Ono.

SP&A describes itself on its website as a “boutique woman- and minority-owned executive search firm.” Scott Yenor—a Boise State University political science professor who resigned from the University of West Florida’s Board of Trustees in April after implying that only straight white men should be in political leadership—highlighted that description in an essay he co-wrote, titled “How did a leftist almost become president of the University of Florida?”

“We can only speculate about how the deck was stacked,” Yenor and Steven DeRose, a UF alum and business executive, wrote. “SP&A colluded with campus stakeholders, especially faculty, when they were retained. Together, they developed the criteria necessary to hire a Santa Ono.”

They also pointed out that SP&A was leading the USF search. SP&A didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Wednesday.

USF didn’t provide an interview or answer written questions. In a June 20 statement, USF trustee and presidential search committee chair Mike Griffin said the university was now using the international firm Korn Ferry.

“We value the expertise of our initial search consultant and thank them for their engagement,” Griffin wrote.

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July 3, 2025
Own Your Narrative: Why Personal Branding Matters for University Leaders
Many university leaders are uneasy about the idea of personal branding. It can feel self-promotional, even uncomfortable – and it’s often a concept that jars with their personal values, the culture of their institution, and indeed their perception of how higher education itself operates.

However, personal branding should not be about ego or marketing. It’s about clarity, authenticity, and trust. In an environment where leadership visibility, credibility, and alignment with institutional values are increasingly scrutinised, shaping how you’re understood by others isn’t merely helpful, it’s essential.

So, while we’re a bit uncomfortable with the term, personal brand, we think it’s extremely important for aspiring university leaders to think about how they go about developing one for themselves.

Personal branding – it’s not just what you say about yourself

It’s perhaps worth reflecting on what Jeff Bezos has said in this context because it’s helpful:

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

Your title and role may open doors, but it’s your values, your expertise and your contribution that leave a lasting impression. Personal brand is the space you occupy in other people’s minds: your colleagues, students, and external connections. In today’s digital world, you are visible in search results, social feeds, LinkedIn and other platforms. If you’re not actively shaping your own narrative, others will do it for you – forming opinions and perceptions that may not be accurate or aligned with your values.

Why should personal branding matter for aspirational university leaders?

Thinking about your personal branding allows you to control the narrative. Essentially, if you don’t shape your story, someone else will. It allows you to build trust and credibility authentically. This is vital, we all know that a consistent, values-led brand is consonant with reliability in times of change. Where there is so much information out there, it can be a strong signal among confusion and noise. It also gives you a better handle on future-proofing your career.

Executive search companies, partnerships, board appointments all begin with discovery, and if you can’t be found, you can’t be considered. Distilling your experience and expertise beyond the role you’re in now makes moves to other roles easier. People do their homework on you, they want to know what kind of person you are, not necessarily the nitty gritty detail (although bad social media lingers) but to know that you are real. And it’s not always about a positive career trajectory to the next job. In these times your role might be at risk, and you might need to consider your next position, even beyond your current role, institution and sector.

This is about developing a personal mark, but it’s worth noting that an authentic personal brand also benefits your institution. Visible leaders attract talent and partnerships, and can draw top academics, high-calibre students, and external funders. People will engage because of what you stand for in terms of your values and your impact. And got right, it will help your students, staff, external connections and the public to be more confident about your vision and your decisions.

Equally important, a clear and visible personal brand enables you to communicate more effectively – an essential skill for building strong teams, driving change, and leading through crisis. You are future-proofing yourself, becoming a trusted authority, so that you are known for more than just your job title and credentials.

It starts with how you present yourself in meetings, working groups, committees, stakeholder meetings, even corridor conversations and incidental interactions.

Articulating your expertise beyond your job title

To be able to develop your personal brand, you need to ask yourself several questions and answer them honestly. And bear in mind that ‘showing up’ is not showing off, you can’t make a difference if you’re invisible!

Truly understand what your goals are: who you are trying to help, and what positive difference do you want to make? Understanding your reason for doing what you do makes being visible that much easier.
1. Do I want to make a positive difference?
2. What do I want to change and how?
3. What do I want to be known for?
4. Who do I want to help?
Ask yourself these questions in the context of what you want to change or influence, such as Leadership & Change Management; Equity, Diversity & Social Mobility; Research Impact & Knowledge Exchange; Student Experience & Wellbeing; The Future of Work & Skills. These should, of course, be significant topics that reflect what you want to be known for and the people or communities you aim to support.

Before you can become an authority on your topic, you need to have a proven track record of success in that area. Your credibility is built not just on what you say, but on what you’ve delivered; your demonstrable achievements and real impact that others can recognise and rely on. Without this foundation, personal branding risks sounding empty or a promissory note rather than coming from a position of authority and authenticity.

When you are speaking to others about what you are doing, it is helpful to reflect on how you should structure what you say. Make sure, for example, that you’re clear about defining the issue: speak directly to the challenges your audience faces (e.g. navigating grant applications, improving departmental culture); position the challenges. Share frameworks, tips, or toolkits you’ve developed, and humanise your advice – weave in a short anecdote or lesson learned, for example.

Do these things in the context of people you might be able to support by being more visible: students and research students, people more junior, and those wanting to get into HE, particularly those from minoritised backgrounds. Essentially, leadership isn’t just about climbing, your role should be to hold the ladder down for others.

Practical Tips

To help you maximise your impact – here are some ideas:

1. Digital Footprint Audit
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July 3, 2025
Civic engagement offers a firm foundation for universities contributing to regional economic growth agendas

When searching for friendly support or warm words from politicians, the media, and the public, UK universities are increasingly being left empty-handed.

Last year’s modest increase in tuition fees allowed universities a temporary reprieve after years of tightening financial constraints but came with a firm warning that standards must improve and was quickly wiped out by rises in National Insurance. Meanwhile, culture wars and negative perceptions on quality and graduate outcomes continue to dominate discourse around the sector, fuelling criticism of universities from all directions.

Richard Jones, vice president for regional innovation and civic engagement at the University of Manchester posited last week that university leaders may be tempted to look for easy savings in their civic impact work – initiatives that engage with and benefit their local community but ultimately fall outside of a university’s traditional mission of teaching and research. But as he argues, this would be a profound mistake.

The outlook in recent years for universities may have been challenging, but hope lies in Labour’s focus on place-based policy. Place has driven flagship funding decisions and policies including the Spending Review and the Industrial Strategy, with more money being devolved from Whitehall to the regions in pursuit of growth. New Mayoral Strategic Authorities have been empowered to take the reins on transport, investment, spatial planning and skills, with the promise of further autonomy as they mature. A new Green Book – government’s methodology for assessing public investments – is being updated and will broaden the criteria to look more favourably at investments outside London and the South East.

Universities are perfectly placed to be the drivers of Labour’s regional growth ambitions. The priority sectors in last week’s Industrial Strategy – including advanced manufacturing, life sciences, and clean energy industries – are some of UK universities’ best strengths. Moreover, as anchor institutions located in the heart of communities, universities are physically well-placed to address causes of economic decline.

Civic engagement for economic growth

The civic university movement, which champions collaboration between universities and their localities, has an established framework for institutions looking to ramp up civic impact initiatives with their civic university agreements. More than 70 civic university agreements are already in place between universities and their local authorities, with universities in Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Exeter, Derby and London, among others, providing a range of examples for institutions to learn from.

A UPP Foundation series of roundtables held in four regions across England recently has also highlighted that the civic university movement remains active, with a wealth of civic activity taking place across the country. Universities are finding creative ways to engage with their local communities, with examples including offering to host events in university spaces, or running a café that demystifies the benefits of nuclear energy while providing employment and training for local people. For institutions nervous about signing up to lengthy and potentially costly partnerships, participants at the roundtables instead stressed that smaller gestures can be just as meaningful. Rather than draining resources, civic activity can in fact alleviate funding pressures when universities work together to learn from one another.

Irrespective of geography, participants were united in their contention that universities should collaborate with their local partners to develop civic initiatives, working collaboratively to address the real day-to-day problems communities want help with, such as helping local businesses transition to net zero.

Labour’s devolution agenda also offers an opportunity for universities to become visible bridges working across regions and political geographies. While mayoral devolution has been lauded in cohesive urban centres like Manchester and Birmingham, there are concerns the model will work less well in rural areas where proposed Mayoral Combined Authorities will intersect with traditional county borders. For such regions, universities can both serve as bolsters to wider regional identity and can benefit from the flexibility of their own geography that may span mayoral regions.

The opportunities are there for universities to re-embed civic activity into their core work under Labour’s agenda – but it needs brave leadership to embrace them. In the face of tough financial decisions, university leaders must champion the benefits of civic activity. The late Bob Kerslake, chair of the UPP Foundation’s Civic University Commission 2018–19, deeply understood the potential and necessity for universities to be rooted in their local communities. For a higher education sector that has spent recent years on uncertain footing, tapping into Kerslake’s vision could provide a more certain path forward.

The UPP Foundation’s full report UPP Foundation Spring 2025 Roundtables: The Role of Universities in Regional Placemaking explores the key themes of the roundtable discussions. You can download the report here.

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July 2, 2025
Is CTE the future of arts career pathways?
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Dive Brief:
- While career and technical education has long connected students to real-world job skills and opportunities in different fields, it may also offer an avenue to strengthen arts programming and diversify career pathways for students interested in the arts.
- CTE experts emphasize the importance of thinking outside the traditional arts education framework by combining foundational techniques with an awareness of how those skills can be applied in the real world and meet local job market needs.
- “There’s a dismissiveness about careers in the arts because it’s assumed that you have to be a starving artist, but that’s truly not the case,” said Ashley Adams, executive director of Arts Media Entertainment Institute, a nonprofit that connects educators to creative professionals. “There are incredible jobs for students that use their creative skills, and it empowers them if you can teach them about those careers early on.”
Dive Insight:

Adams began as a classroom teacher at a school with a robust Parent Teacher Association that regularly fundraised to support high-quality arts programming. However, not every school has access to this type of resource, Adams said, which is why she views CTE in the arts as an avenue for equity and access for students.

For example, a theater teacher in Colorado launched a new course that teaches technical theater skills such as set design and sound design in order to qualify for CTE state and federal level funding.

Technical training is valuable for students because graduating with a certification in an industry-recognized software platform boosts and strengthens their resume when applying for jobs, Adams said. She added that because CTE programs are project-based, it’s a great preparation for the workforce, as many jobs are seeking professionals who can work collaboratively.

For an arts-oriented CTE course to succeed, one of the main factors to take into consideration — as with any CTE course — is labor market value. Dan Hinderliter, associate director of state policy for Advance CTE, a national association for CTE directors and professionals, explained that there needs to be at least some level of local labor market analysis to determine which careers and opportunities are available, and to make these explicitly clear to stakeholders.

“There’s a lot of programs in, say, California — where there’s more opportunity because they have the labor market — than you would find in rural Oklahoma, where they don’t inherently have a lot of need for students with a lot of technical arts skill and background,” Hinderliter said.

If a school district decides they have a local labor market that’s looking for a much more technical approach to arts education, Hinderliter encourages them to make sure they partner with the employers in that area and, more comprehensively, with the state.

At the local level, the AME Institute connects teachers with creative industries and ensures they have training resources and the knowledge necessary to prepare students for these jobs. The organization provides virtual learning opportunities, in-person institutes that include visits to industry studios, and curated programming to strengthen pathway curriculum.

“It’s workforce development, and our workforce needs creators, it needs innovators, if we are going to continue to be a leader,” Adams said. “Entertainment is a huge industry sector within our economy, but if we’re going to continue to lead in that industry sector and many others, we have to have creative thinkers. We have to have people who are taking these tools and using them in innovative ways.”
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July 2, 2025