Our first Fifteen in the New Year! Although many institutions have been on winter break in recent weeks, numerous important stories from the world of higher education continue to unfold. This week on The Fifteen, we look at what’s happening around the globe. Enjoy!
A thought-provoking post from the LSE Blog discusses whether traditional academics bring the ideal skills-set to institutional leadership positions as the UK PSE faces a financial crisis. Let’s look outside academia for university leaders. (LSE Blog)
Report from a US Conservative think-tank finds that US college accreditation is not an effective means of quality control and recommends scrapping it in favour of more general consumer protections to allow more new entrants to deliver higher education programs. Report: States Should Drop Accreditation Requirements for New Colleges. (AEI)
Japan’s highly structured, seniority-based compensation system tends not to reward young people with very high levels of education. Result? A big drop in applicants to PhD programs. Now the government is experimenting with ways to make PhDs more financially appealing. Japan seeks to improve salary prospects for PhD graduates. (Times Higher Education)
I’ve covered some of the UK’s ancient universities – Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh – in this blog. And if I tell you that the University of Al-Qaraouyine used to be known as the University of Fez, you might know that we’re going to look at somewhere that makes these universities look like the new kids on the block.
We need to start in the year 859, using the common era calendar. In Britain, there were many small kingdoms. The great Viking invasion hadn’t yet happened. Æthelbald was King of Wessex (you might have heard of his brother Alfred, the Great). Rhodri Mawr was asserting kingship over something approximating to modern Wales. The unified Kingdom of Alba in Scotland hadn’t yet happened. It was a long time ago.
In continental Europe the Byzantine empire still had hundreds of years to go. The empire formed by Charlemagne was already in the process of breaking up; France was just beginning to emerge as a single political entity. There were emerging states in Serbia and Hungary. There was not yet a Russia, although the Kievan Rus’ were around and about.
Further south, across the Mediterranean, there was less flux. In Baghdad and Cairo there were caliphates; there was an emirate in Cordoba; and in Fez the Idrisid dynasty had ruled for almost 100 years. And in Fez, or so the story goes, a woman named Fatima al-Fihriya founded the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque. She was daughter of a merchant, and inherited money, which she used to establish the mosque. And her sister Mariam similarly used her share of the inheritance to establish another mosque in Fez.
It is obviously hard to know the truth from a distance of over eleven centuries, but historians have disputed this foundation story. Some say that the mosque was founded by the son of Idris II, the then ruler. But in any event, it was founded. At that time mosques tended to be centres for teaching and other civic roles, as well as their religious function, and it seems that this was true for the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque. Certainly in the early 900s it became the Friday mosque for Fez – the main one in the city.
Now hang on a moment, I hear you say, this is meant to be higher education postcard, not religious building postcard. To which I’d reply, remember that in many cultures, education and religion have at times gone hand-in-hand. Christ Church Oxford, which I wrote about last year, is both college and cathedral. And when Galileo was prosecuted by the Catholic Church, part of the case was made by the church’s own astronomers, who were proper scientists.
In the same spirit, bear with me on the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque. For it became much more learned. No doubt with the patronage of Fez’s richer residents, some scholars believe that it gained status as a teaching institution from the 1040’s onwards. And certainly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was offering a wide curriculum, similar to that at Oxford and Cambridge: as well as theology and jurisprudence, students studies grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, medicine, astronomy and geography. Indeed, in 1207 the university (as it was now known) awarded the earliest known doctor of medicine degree to Abdellah BenSaleh Al Koutami. Other sources suggest that Pope Sylvester II (before he was Pope) studied at the university, although, to be fair, specific evidence for this has not been found.
The university then went into decline – as has happened elsewhere – with a narrower curriculum, perhaps aligned to an increasingly conservative approach to religion. Fez had become less important over the centuries, and perhaps this lack of access to power and cultural significance contributed to the decline.
As the nineteenth century turned to the twentieth century, the political landscape was changing. European powers were increasingly flexing their muscles, fuelled by colonial ambitions and notions of racial superiority. Morocco went to war with France in 1844 and Spain in 1859, coming out worse both times. Increasing European influence further weakened the Moroccan state, and in 1912, after some gunboat diplomacy, Morocco became a French protectorate, via the Treaty of Fez.
The postcard dates from this time: my French isn’t up to scratch, but I think it is saying that the image was taken by one of the French air force units stationed in Fez in 1927. The picture on the front of the postcard shows two mosques. The Al Quaraouiyine university is the building to the right centre, with the tall stone minaret and the white-walled buildings with steep roofs. The presence of the French military reminds us that the French occupation was by force: it was only in 1926 that the first armed resistance to French rule was ended.
In 1947 Al Quaraouiyine university was integrated into the state education system, and women were admitted as students. By 1956 Morocco had gained independence from France, and in 1963 Al Quaraouiyine officially became a university, by royal decree. Classes moved from the mosque to an old barracks; faculties were established. It became officially the University of Al Quaraouiyine in 1965.
But history moves in fits and starts, not in a straight line. In the 1970s secular subjects were moved to another university; Al Qaraoiyine was to focus on theological disciplines; and in 1988 traditional Islamic teaching was resumed at the university. And then the pendulum swung again – in 2015 the university was re-founded. The words of the university president are worth quoting in full:
His Majesty King Mohammed VI May God Assist Him, keen on conferring to Al Qaraouyine University its intellectual and social influence anew, and given the historical role it played in teaching and training scientists, scholars, lecturers and orators for nearly twelve centuries and in order for Al Qaraouyine University to regain its scientific clout as referenced in specialized, distinguished and judicious training in legal sciences, Islamic studies, comparative jurisprudence and Maliki heritage, and in order to develop scientific research and its methods in such fields Royal Dahir (Decree) no 1.15.71 dated on Ramadan 7th, 1436 corresponding to June 24th 2015, was issued, stipulating the reorganization of Al Qaraouyine University as a public higher education and scientific research institution, with a legal body, financial, educational and scientific autonomy.
Such a new regulation aims at enabling Al Qaraouyine University and its affiliated institutions to optimally and efficiently carry out its mission. Such will be performed through improving the content of programs at all levels of training cycles on one hand, and enhancing the supervision at all affiliated institutions or the ones under its educational supervision on the other hand
Generating and passing on knowledge requires building and highlighting the qualifications, revealing and confirming the skills to ease the educational process in Qoran, Hadith, Figh studies and legal sciences, besides the religious supervision.
Whereas Al Qaraouyine University wishes to train researchers, specialized scholars, Imams, male and female qualified guides, by means of methods and knowledge that enable them to perform their tasks as best as possible, such training requires being aware of the key contemporary issues. This implies teaching foreign living languages and impregnating with a dialog culture and a break-off with preconceived ideas and slavish imitation. In this regard, it is now necessary that Al Qaraouyine University students know about open and illuminated Islamic thought issues, imbued with the dialog culture, so they would be become more open and prone to exchange and coexistence using all granted communication tools.
Such openness will undoubtedly make Al Qaraouyine graduates strongly quipped in the face of the future, with solid science and efficient culture, while greatly combining the heritage drawn from religious principles and national values, Moroccan identity resources, good knowledge of Morocco’s history, and the contemporary life that allows them to manifest modernity free from intellectual alienation. Ultimately, this will help improve the image of Islam and Muslims in countless fields, so that the glorious past of Al Qaraouyine University will serve its present, bestowing it with the position it well deserves and shining its light in the near future with its usual influence in the Arab, African and Islamic world, and worldwide.
I like a university seeking to regain its “scientific clout”; and you can see in “this implies teaching foreign living languages and impregnating with a dialog culture and a break-off with preconceived ideas and slavish imitation” a defence of university values. It’s worth remembering that all universities exist within a society’s culture, and that if a university is worth having it will be pushing the boundaries of that culture. That’s what I see here.
So that’s the University of Fez, or as it is more properly known, the University of Al Quaraouiyine. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site as well as being a modern university. And here’s a jigsaw of the card to keep you occupied.
A chapter of history is closing: Jim Grossman is retiring after 15 years as executive director of the American Historical Association, a group of more than 10,400 members. He began leading the scholarly organization after two decades at Chicago’s independent Newberry Library, where he was vice president for research and education. His own scholarly work focused on American urban history, especially of Chicago, and the Great Migration of African Americans.
In the past decade and a half, the AHA and its members have commented on contemporary controversies that have arisen from or invoked historical events, such as the Charlottesville, Va., white supremacist rally; the debate over whether to remove Confederate monuments; the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection; and more. Over that time, lawmakers in some states began restricting how history—especially when it’s relevant to current events—is taught.
Grossman headed the AHA amid such controversies and has repeatedly spoken out in defense of the discipline. He’s denounced the first Trump administration’s 1776 Commission report, which criticized histories produced by Howard Zinn and The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. Grossman called the report “history without historians.” He’s also pushed for other historians to do more public-facing work.
The AHA has itself faced criticism during Grossman’s tenure, including for then-president Jim Sweet’s critique of The 1619 Project in 2022. This past weekend, it entered another current controversy when attendees of its annual conference overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing “scholasticide” in Gaza and the U.S. government’s funding of Israel’s war.
Inside Higher Ed interviewed Grossman shortly before that conference about his tenure and the current issues the history discipline faces. The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Q: Why did you apply to become executive director in the first place?
A: I had been involved in a variety of AHA activities. There were things I was trying to do in Chicago at the Newberry Library that involved increasing the public scope of historians. What the AHA provided was the opportunity to do some of those things on a national scale, rather than just within Chicago. How do we get historians to be more involved in public culture, more influential in public policy?
Q: Why are you retiring now?
A: I’m 72 years old. It’s time for somebody younger to be doing this work—not because I don’t enjoy it, but because I think it’s important for membership organizations to be directed by people who are generationally closer to the membership and the audience. And I’ve had 15 years to accomplish what I’ve tried to accomplish.
Q: What have your biggest accomplishments been?
A: At least getting started on helping the discipline rethink the definition of historical scholarship—to broaden the definition of scholarship for promotion and tenure. We came out with recommendations that departments are taking seriously about thinking about going beyond books and peer-reviewed articles. Reference books, textbooks, op-eds, testifying in legislatures and courts—all of these things are works of scholarship.
Second is I think that we reoriented the AHA towards a much broader scope, so that the AHA and the discipline itself take teaching more seriously. Our annual conference is no longer “a research conference”; it includes all sorts of things that relate to teaching, that relate to advocacy, that relate to professional development. I also think that we have ramped up and broadened our advocacy work. We’re very active in state legislatures now; we’re very active in reviewing changes to state social studies and history standards for K-12 education. So, we’ve kept our focus on Capitol Hill and in Washington, but we’ve moved out to the states.
Q: Why did you make such an emphasis during your tenure on broadening the focus of AHA? Is it because of a decline in tenure-track, traditional faculty jobs for new history Ph.D. earners?
A: That was part of it. But that came later. I had that goal from the very beginning because I became a historian because I think historians are useful to public culture as well as academia. If I had my druthers, every time a decision was made at a table in government, private sector, nonprofit sector, I would want a historian at the table. Everything has a history, and since everything has a history, historical context always matters when you’re making decisions, when you’re trying to develop good judgment.
That’s what someone learns in a history course. They learn judgment by thinking about the past. Historians don’t need to be working just as teachers and professors. Historians should be everywhere.
Q: You’re saying you’ve gotten AHA more involved in state legislatures, in discussions of state standards—all of these things are political or politics-adjacent, right?
A: Not necessarily. Let’s start with the federal level. We work on the Hill and in federal agencies to promote history. Our congressional charter, which goes back to 1889, says that we are here to promote history. So that’s not politics. It’s engaging in politics in order to promote history, yes. We are providing historical context to congressional staff so that they can make well-informed decisions when they make recommendations to their member. If you’re going to think about immigration policy, you need to know the door was closed for 40 years.
There are times when we take stands that are perceived as political. We took a stand against the Muslim ban, for example. But we did so on the basis of what we’ve learned from history. State legislatures, it’s the same thing—we are promoting the integrity of history education. We are saying high school teachers need to be trusted as professionals, high school teachers should not be censored in the classroom; we are saying that state history standards should be good history.
Q: What are the biggest issues within K-12 history—teaching and learning—and how do they actually impact colleges and universities?
A: State legislatures have mandated that certain things have to be taught for years. What they have not done in the past is say certain things cannot be taught, which is censorship. There’s very little precedent for this. So that is one big challenge, which is fighting back against this notion that state legislatures can tell teachers you cannot teach X, Y or Z. And that affects college because if students don’t learn things in high school, then they’re less prepared when they get to college. If students don’t learn in high school that racism has been a central aspect of American history since Europeans came to the Americas—if students don’t learn that in high school, then the college professors are starting off at a much different level.
If I had my druthers, every time a decision was made at a table in government, private sector, nonprofit sector, I would want a historian at the table.”
—Jim Grossman
We do know that young people are reading less. Instead of wringing our hands and saying they have to read more, we need to step back and ask ourselves, “How do we rethink our college courses for students who are now educated differently?” That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be pushing them to read, but it also means that we need to think about different ways of teaching history.
Q: Has the discipline of history become increasingly polarized over your tenure?
A: The discipline itself has not been polarized. Historians are still much more capable of disagreeing with each other in a civil manner than my neighbors in the capital. The larger polarization in public culture has harnessed the discipline of history in the same way it’s harnessed other disciplines and other aspects of life, but no, historians are still arguing with each other in a way that’s productive and constructive.
Q: How do you expect the Trump administration and Republican control of both chambers of Congress to impact the discipline of history?
A: I have no idea—that’s why we’re here to watch.
Q: I know you’ve expressed concern about the 1776 Commission coming back.
A: There has been talk among people who are part of the incoming administration of reviving the 1776 Commission and that notorious report, and so I’m concerned about that possibility, and I’m prepared for that possibility, and when things like that happen, we will speak out.
Q: What impact has The 1619 Project had on the teaching of history and history scholarship? For instance, I know you were leading the AHA as it faced controversy over former association president Jim Sweet’s criticism of that work.
A: Jim Sweet, like every historian, has a right to criticize any work of historical scholarship. The 1619 Project is not a work of historical scholarship. It’s—according to its compiler, its organizer—it’s journalism. And that’s fine, and there are aspects of it that I and many of my colleagues agree with, and aspects of it that I and many of my colleagues disagree with, just like any other piece of historical scholarship or journalism. It’s an easy target for people who want to take one thing that has been controversial and then use it for all sorts of other purposes.
Controversies that ask people to ask questions are useful. It’s useful for teachers to be able to say to students, “So how do we think about the beginnings of a nation? Do we think of the beginning of a nation as the creation of its governing documents? Or do we think about the beginnings of a nation as the origins of its economy? Or do we think about the beginnings of the nation as the beginning of its culture, or as the origins of it, the roots of its culture?” Those are good historical questions, and The 1619 Project has initiated or nourished those questions.
Q: What impact have the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and related U.S. higher education developments had on the teaching and study and scholarship of history?
A: I think that many people who teach Middle Eastern history have probably been more careful, and I suspect that classroom management has been more difficult because it’s an emotional topic. But it’s different from The 1619 Project. The 1619 Project offered a certain way of understanding the history of the United States, and a controversial way of seeing the history of the United States—and offered, therefore, teachers an opportunity, or a nudge, to ask important questions and have students address them.
That’s very different from a war that’s happening on the other side of the world. It’s important to the United States, it’s important to Americans, but it doesn’t have the same valence in teaching a course in American history, which is the most widely taught course in the United States. It does mean that historians have to balance sensitivity to diversity of students in their classroom with the integrity of the history that they teach.
The U.S. Department of Education has named the six inaugural winners of its Postsecondary Success Recognition Program, which were selected out of a pool of 200 institutions invited to apply, according to a Thursday news release.
The program, which was introduced last April, aims to reward institutions that “are enrolling underserved student populations, facilitating successful student transfers and completions, and equipping graduates for careers that lead to economic mobility,” Thursday’s announcement stated.
The winners include three associate degree–granting institutions—CUNY Hostos Community College, Miami Dade College and Salish Kootenai College—and three bachelor’s degree–granting institutions: San José State University, the University of South Carolina and the University of Texas at Arlington.
The department also granted a special “trailblazer” award to Georgia State University, for both its internal efforts to improve graduation rates and its National Institute for Student Success, which supports student success efforts at more than 100 campuses across the country.
The presidents of the winning institutions celebrated the achievement in statements shared by the department.
“As a community college in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the United States, our mission is to provide social mobility through education and to create lifelong learners who will uplift their communities for generations to come,” said Hostos Community College president Daisy Cocco De Filippis. “We understand that for our students, the stakes are high, and the challenges can seem insurmountable. That is why we dedicate ourselves to relentlessly supporting our students and helping them get their degrees with a manos a la obra (all hands on deck) ethos that informs everything we do. While our students’ success is the highest reward, on behalf of the entire faculty and staff of Hostos Community College, I want to express our most sincere gratitude for this recognition of our efforts. Mil gracias y bendiciones.”
Advocates for undocumented students have their hands full as they prepare for President-elect Donald Trump to take office later this month.
They’re fielding questions from nervous students fearful of Trump’s promises of mass deportations and advising college staff members seeking to support these students within legal bounds. But then, the Biden administration dropped a fresh disappointment on top of their heaping pile of concerns when it pulled back on a proposal to make undocumented students eligible for some TRIO programs.
The decision—tucked into a set of finalized rules released at the end of the year—was met with mixed emotions from advocates who have long pushed to give undocumented students access to the federal college prep programs designed to help disadvantaged students enroll and persist in college. Some mourned the chance to secure a win for undocumented students before Trump took office. Others saw the decision as a painful but pragmatic response to the incoming administration, which may have barred undocumented students from these programs anyway or penalized TRIO programs for serving them. Proponents of the dead proposal expect it’ll be years before the opportunity to open up these programs presents itself again.
Magin Sanchez, higher education policy analyst at UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights organization, said undocumented students would have a lot to gain from TRIO programs, given that they already face major hurdles to enrolling in college, like a lack of access to federal financial aid. He believes the extra academic support and college counseling these programs offer could put these students on a more level playing field with their peers.
“Higher education is one of the surest pathways to economic mobility and prosperity,” Sanchez said. “There are significant barriers for this population, students that just want to have access to a better life, like any college student.”
A former board member at the Council for Opportunity in Education told Inside Higher Ed that they didn’t know how to feel about the Biden administration’s decision. The organization, which supports low-income and first-generation students and students with disabilities, was among those that pushed for the change.
“With the new administration coming in, we want to do everything to protect our students, so in that sense, I kind of understood why,” said the former board member, who asked to remain anonymous in order to avoid speaking for their current employer. “My other reaction was, man, we’re doing this again? We’re bringing up students’ hopes again? We bring up their hopes only to shoot them down again and again.”
What Happened
The Education Department initially proposed that noncitizen students be eligible for three TRIO programs—Upward Bound, Talent Search and Educational Opportunity Centers—if students enrolled in or planned to enroll in high schools in the United States, its territories or Freely Associated States and met other eligibility criteria. Those programs were selected because they serve students in public K-12 schools, which are open to all students, regardless of immigration status.
But in finalized rules released Dec. 30, the department decided against it.
Department officials wrote that, after reviewing public comment, they believed the proposal was “too narrow,” because it didn’t include the Student Support Services program, which offers academic support to college students, or the McNair Scholars program, which prepares students for graduate education. Officials also concluded that opening only some programs to undocumented students would “cause confusion” and “increase administrative burden.”
Department officials also argued that the Higher Education Act, the federal law that governs how federal higher ed programs are administered, doesn’t explicitly bar noncitizens from participating in TRIO programs.
So, the department scrapped the proposal altogether “to reconsider how best to ensure that the TRIO programs are able to reach all populations of disadvantaged students, irrespective of immigration status,” officials wrote.
Pushback, Parsing and Planning
Some advocates don’t buy the department’s explanations.
The former COE board member said TRIO directors already have to parse regulatory differences between different programs, so the idea that opening up only some programs to undocumented students would prove too confusing “didn’t fly too well with me.”
“I get it, it’s a political explanation, but at the same time, it doesn’t help the community with that messaging,” they said.
Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education, said as far as he’s concerned, “This really seems like a classic case of elections have consequences. Had we been talking about an incoming Harris administration, I don’t know that the department would have pulled back the regulation.”
At the same time, the Biden administration seems to have left the door open a crack. The language of the finalized rules implies TRIO directors could interpret the Higher Education Act as not explicitly forbidding undocumented students from participating in TRIO programs.
“I think you can certainly read that as offering up an interpretation of existing statute that might provide some flexibility—certainly the idea that if it’s not delineated, that doesn’t necessarily preclude it,” Fansmith said. So, the Biden administration may be “indicating where schools could go, but frankly, stopping short of something they know would be quickly reversed by the incoming administration.” Still, that’s “certainly not as clear as formally regulating on it.”
Now in a gray area, it remains to be seen whether TRIO directors will use that latitude to serve students regardless of citizenship or if they’ll continue to bar undocumented students, given the Trump administration is unlikely to interpret the law in this way. Their choices could prove risky. A year ago, some school and college administrators were already worried that, if undocumented students were granted access to these programs, TRIO programs could face Republican backlash and funding cuts. This summer, six Republicans in Congress, including former chair of the House education committee Virginia Foxx, opposed the proposal in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
Education department officials wrote in the finalized rules that the department “may reconsider TRIO student eligibility through future rulemaking efforts.” But the proposal’s proponents believe there’s a slim to none chance of that during Trump’s term, given his rhetoric against undocumented immigrants.
“We’re going to have to wait at least four years again,” Fansmith said.
Nonetheless, some remain hopeful that undocumented students will benefit from TRIO programs in the future. Sanchez said he still thinks it’s going to happen, even if this “window of opportunity” has passed.
“We’ll keep fighting,” Sanchez said. “We’ll keep advocating, because we may not have gotten it right now, but we’ll get it eventually.”
As a first-year college student, Sarah Ellison never imagined working in higher education or earning a doctorate, but her experiences have developed her passion for helping students identify their strengths and build strong foundations for their futures beyond graduation.
Sarah Ellison, Sonoma State University’s associate vice president of student affairs
Sarah Ellison, Sonoma State University
Since Jan. 8, 2024, Ellison has served as associate vice president for student affairs at Sonoma State University, part of the California State University system, overseeing the university’s student access and success team. Ellison spoke with Inside Higher Ed about her work in and outside higher education, her portfolio at Sonoma State, and her goals for the future.
Q: What led you to a career in higher education?
A: I’ll have to say, it wasn’t something I was looking for.
I, right out of high school, went to the University of Hawaii and was planning to do a business degree. I failed my entire freshman year and went to community college. In community college, I thought I would do a focus still in business, so I did do my associate’s, and then continued on to my bachelor’s at the University of La Verne in business.
My whole entire plan was to go into sales. That’s what I thought I would do. I was really fascinated with companies like Coach and Michael Kors, Macy’s.
But throughout that time, life just happens while you’re in college, right? You’re learning about yourself, you’re learning about your goals, defining them, more and more.
During that time, I was very fortunate to meet my husband, and life started to happen during that time as well when I was finishing my undergrad. I actually went to work for a nonprofit organization, Goodwill, in California and got to work at Fort Irwin, which is a military base, serving as a career adviser for transitioning veterans. And I really loved it.
Career services was a new field to me, and I really thought that’s what I wanted to do. And so I ended up doing my master’s in career services, and was trying to think about how I would advance my career from that role into career services in higher education. I really couldn’t find a direct path, but I got into academic advising, and fell in love with academic advising. I met a recruiter at one of our fairs for military folks, and she really introduced me to the whole field of higher education. I had been exposed through going to college and meeting with different mentors. I did my internship in career services at the University of La Verne, and the director there was phenomenal, and that’s what kind of started that piece.
But that’s how I found myself working directly in higher education. I started at a small private university, then went into the Cal State system, then went to University of Kentucky, and then now I found myself back in the Cal State system. It’s been a bit of a wild ride, but it’s been a lot of fun.
Q: Would you say that you’ve brought any of your career services experiences into the work that you do now?
A: I felt that my experience working with transitioning veterans and working in career services really helped my advising platform and role working with students from the advising standpoint, because I was able to better connect with students, with their plans for their degree, and then all of the opportunities that come from different knowing different career fields and aspects, and then helping them leverage all of their experience.
I worked with nontraditional students, first-generation students [and] traditional students, and it’s just amazing how much students can learn from the career aspect that helps with their finishing of their degree, so working towards retention and degree completion.
While I don’t directly find myself in career services in higher education in my current role as associate vice president, I have a pretty large portfolio, and one of those areas being career services now. Now I get to oversee both academic advising [and] career services, as well as many other parts of my portfolio that include advising for equity and access program, disability services, and then also precollegiate programs. It is cool to find myself now directly overseeing those aspects.
Q: Who are your learners at Sonoma State and what are some of the challenges and opportunities at the university based on your student population?
A: Sonoma State has a very diverse student population. We are an HSI, so we do serve a large proportion of Hispanic students. We do have a large proportion of first-generation students, but our makeup is really, really diverse.
I think with anything, like most institutions are facing right now in terms of serving our students, it’s really about showing that pathway, so really working within the community, so that our [high school] students see a path directly into a four-year institution.
[Through] a lot of my precollegiate programs, which serve our K-12 setting, we’re really trying to strengthen and build pathways for those students who typically come from low income, and also our will-be first-generation college students, really helping them to define that pathway and see a clear vision for going into a four-year institution.
I also think it’s the life after, it’s the career trajectory, it’s the employability plans for students that they see the value in their degree. That’s what we’re really working with here, with our students, is really helping them see the value of their degree, retaining them and helping them move them into careers that are both fruitful, exciting and in line with how they saw themselves, with their goals and what they wanted to do.
Q: One of the cool things about working at a public institution is you get to serve your region and the state as a whole. How is that incorporated into your vision for student success?
A: That is one thing I’ve always enjoyed about the Cal State system is that regional perspective and focus that we have.
My first Cal State experience was at Cal State San Bernardino, and then now being here at Sonoma State, it’s amazing how different the Northern California and Southern California regions are—even the issues that we face with those students—but coming together in the system is always really exciting, because we do get to collaborate and think about how we serve the state, but then also, again, focus in on initiatives specific to the regions that all of the Cal State [institutions] are in.
In the work that I do now, I find myself in the community a lot more: serving on different boards, working with different local employers, local community agencies. I will say that Sonoma State has had a pretty good grounding in that prior to my time here.
Before coming to Sonoma State, I worked at the University of Kentucky, which is a land-grant–serving institution, and [that] also gave me a lot of experience to what it is to serve the community in the region and meet the needs of the state as well, too. I spent about three years there learning a lot about extension work.
I strongly believe that it’s amazing to have those ties to the community, because it helps us keep a pulse on what the needs are of the community, helping to prepare our students to go into different career fields, but also have a civic tie as well to what they’re doing.
Q: “Access” is a key word in your list of responsibilities, managing the student access and success team. How is access central to your role?
A: When it comes to access, I think it’s critical for students, because when we think about the different student populations we serve, there’s also these technology pieces. In higher ed—at least at all of the institutions I’ve worked at—we love new technology. We love starting new programs and new platforms.
I think it’s always really critical that we ensure our students understand and have a knowledge base as well, and that the technology works for them. So how they schedule appointments, the flexibility to do Zoom, and then also thinking about some of our students who are native in other languages. Do we have opportunities and space for students to be able to speak with advisers and faculty and have support in their native language? That’s always been really critical, because the meaning is different.
When I was at Cal State San Bernardino, we had some really great faculty from our Spanish department who would come in and help in group advising sessions and do it in Spanish, which is really helpful for our students.
When we think about the technology pieces, that’s critical, how they apply to come to any university. And then when they get to campus, and that consistent communication from the time that they’re interested to … actually enrolling, and then when they’re here, can I get ahold of and work with folks in all of the offices that I need to? That’s critical for us in higher ed to always consider and be mindful of, because that is another part of the student experience.
Q: What are some of your short- and long-term goals at Sonoma State?
A: I’m a year in, so I still consider myself very new in my role.
In terms of some short-term goals … we’re really looking at making sure students have an adviser, someone they can connect with. That we’re breaking down silos within the institution, so that way, advisers, faculty, staff [and] directors feel comfortable working with each other and communicating and supporting each other.
In terms of long term, it’s really strengthening that career side. We have a lot coming down from the governor here in California related to workforce development and those things. I’m partnering with our vice president for student affairs and our provost and associate provost, building out and strengthening our career services programming. So that’s another focus, and some long-term planning that we really need to think about for the future here at Sonoma State, while still continuing to focus on improving equity gaps, retention rates, graduation rates and enrollment as well.
Q: Career services is a growing focus nationally within higher education. What are some of those barriers that you’re facing, or where do you need those resources to really strengthen that arm of the institution?
A: I would say, throughout my time in higher ed for all the institutions I’ve worked at, I think staffing is a huge piece of career services, being able to have enough career staff to meet the needs of the campus.
I also think there’s a training and development piece, and that, to me, ties in to the connection with the faculty and academic departments to make sure that the career advising aligns with the major and department and career pathways.
Leveraging the network as well, I think that’s another thing with career services, is really building strong portfolios for professional networks, and that can be an issue depending on the institution, what their access, their leadership, being embedded in the community and those things, as well as embedded nationally to see new trends, new careers.
That’s another exciting piece about careers, that there are jobs that we don’t even know of that are going to be created here soon. How do we think about skill sets and plans and helping students see their strengths in everything that they’ve accomplished throughout their time, in their academics and at the institution, to prepare for [future] fields? And then we have emerging fields, in AI, green technology, agriculture, health services and all of that.
That’s what’s kind of the fun side of career services, but also creates the challenges, because you’re thinking about current trends, emerging trends and then the trends that you don’t even know are going to exist yet. Helping students define and understand the skill sets that they have, and making sure they’re building and aligning those to those professional fields.
Do you have a career preparation program that impacts student success? Tell us about it.
I often ignore my well-being—mind, body and spirit—while advancing my academic career. As a woman of color academic, balancing work and life feels very hard. My personal and professional lives are tangled, pulling at me in tiring ways. Relaxing seems wrong, and resting feels like a luxury.
I get so caught up in meetings and deadlines that on a typical day I often skip lunch. I forget to drink water and don’t even step outside for fresh air. My self-care plan has been “out of sight, out of mind.”
Now, in my 40s, I see the toll this has taken. I struggle with muscle spasms, neck pain, mental health issues and deep exhaustion. The hardest part? My six-year-old daughter says, “Mom works a lot.”
Enter Slow Living: A Revolutionary Recalibration
The slow living movement, rooted in the slow food movement, promotes a lifestyle centered on mindfulness, sustainability and quality over quantity. It encourages us to slow down and make intentional choices in a world that often values speed and productivity. This philosophy emphasizes the importance of relationships, well-being and balance.
For women of color in academia, slow living practices provide a means to counteract the intense pressures of teaching, administration, funding and publication. These pressures are heightened by systemic challenges such as microaggressions, tokenism, code-switching and the obligation to mentor students from similar backgrounds. This leads to cultural taxation and the demands of invisible labor, resulting in increased stress and burnout. The slow living approach promotes self-care and helps us reconnect with what truly matters, enhancing resilience and mental well-being.
The Invisible Burdens Women of Color Carry
Women of color in academia often face unique challenges that remain invisible to many of their peers. For example, the overwhelming burden of service work, particularly mentoring students of color, frequently contributes to feelings of isolation and burnout. While mentorship is vital and rewarding, it takes a significant toll, contributing to a sense of alienation, invisible labor and racial battle fatigue. The emotional and intellectual labor involved often detracts from time that could otherwise be spent on research, teaching or personal pursuits. Addressing these issues requires a deeper understanding of systemic obstacles and intentional efforts to foster equitable academic environments.
Furthermore, women of color academics often encounter challenges related to tokenism within predominantly white academic settings. Their roles can be perceived as symbolic, which leads to the expectation that they represent entire racial or ethnic communities. Faculty of color are frequently called upon to address student concerns regarding racism or to spearhead diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, a burden not equally shared by their white colleagues.
Moreover, microaggressions—subtle yet harmful discriminatory behaviors—can create an environment in which faculty of color feel compelled to continually validate their competence. These experiences highlight the need for systemic change to cultivate a more inclusive atmosphere where women of color faculty can thrive and contribute their invaluable perspectives.
The Slow Living Solution
The principles of slow living offer women of color academics a robust way to reclaim their time and energy, enabling them to focus on their well-being, passions and purpose. Embracing slow living practices may aid us in navigating the often overwhelming demands of academic life with greater intention and balance, which may amplify self-agency.
Mindfulness practices such as morning meditation or walking in nature can provide essential moments of peace. Setting boundaries, saying “no” to additional commitments and taking mental health days are other strategies that allow academics to preserve their energy. Intentional time management helps reduce stress and ensures alignment with personal values, creating a more fulfilling academic experience. Institutional support for mindful practices can be crucial in promoting the well-being and retention of women of color faculty by creating environments that prioritize self-care, work-life balance and mental health.
Slow living enhances career satisfaction by aligning daily tasks with long-term goals. Reflecting on work can help identify opportunities that bring purpose and joy, like prioritizing collaborative projects that match personal values. A model that reflects this intentional approach is transformational leadership in academia. This model focuses on leaders encouraging collaboration, promoting shared goals and emphasizing personal growth and well-being. Women of color faculty may use this model to engage in work that is aligned with their values and supported by institutional leadership, promoting meaningful collaboration and decreasing the likelihood of feeling disconnected or burned out.
Incorporating slow living into academia can inspire a ripple effect across departments and institutions. Women of color faculty prioritizing well-being and balance set a powerful example for colleagues and students. These shifts can foster a culture that values mental health and personal fulfillment as much as professional achievement. Over time, tailored slow-living principles could encourage academic institutions to reimagine success metrics, emphasizing sustainability, collaboration and community impact.
From Individual Change to Institutional Transformation
Slow living can’t flourish in a vacuum. For women of color faculty to thrive, institutions must provide meaningful support. Structural changes can transform individual efforts into a sustainable culture shift—and, honestly, wouldn’t academia be better off for it?
Institutions can enhance the well-being and retention of women of color faculty through several structural changes. Implementing flexible work policies, such as remote teaching and flexible hours, helps faculty manage their professional and personal lives. A holistic approach to tenure and promotion that values work-life balance, teaching quality, mentorship and community impact fosters inclusivity. Mentorship programs and employee affinity groups provide essential support and collaboration. Additionally, dedicated mental health resources help mitigate burnout. Programs like the Advancing Faculty Diversity initiative at the University of California celebrate (and fund) faculty DEI contributions. Finally, incentivizing collaborative work can shift success metrics to prioritize impactful contributions, benefiting faculty and institutions.
A Paradigm Shift Worth Embracing
After years of pushing myself to the limit, I realized it was time for a change. While moving to a peaceful countryside cottage wasn’t possible, I discovered that small daily habits could transform my busy life. I started by walking: Each morning, I would take a 10-minute walk through my neighborhood, paying attention to the rhythm of my steps and allowing myself to immerse in the present moment fully. I also began typing slower, breathing mindfully and speaking intentionally. These simple changes introduced mindfulness, making me feel less frantic about productivity and helping me prioritize quality family time.
Embracing slow living in my professional life has been a game-changer. It’s helped me focus on well-being and redefine success as living better rather than just doing more. As academics, we should celebrate lifelong learning and incorporate slow living into our lives. After all, if we’re too busy to care for ourselves, what are we truly working for?
So here’s my challenge to you, dear reader: Take a deep breath. Walk a little slower. Break away from the chime of an email sitting in your inbox. Speak with intention. Let’s rewrite the script that tells us we must hustle to the point of harm. Our careers, families and, most importantly, we are worth it.
Kenyatta Y. Dawson is a program director and faculty member at Texas Woman’s University. She specializes in diversity, equity, inclusion, student success and professional development in higher education. Her research focuses on mentoring adult learners, career satisfaction and equity-driven leadership. Grateful to Texas Woman’s University’s Women’s Thought Leadership Program for advancing underrepresented voices, Dawson embraces the Write to Change the World mission for inclusivity and social impact.
Nick Gilbert, Chief Information Officer of the London School of Economics and Political Science, shares perspectives on how institutional leaders can work together to deliver strategic change in challenging times.
We in universities face well-reported challenges that have brought long-standing strategic imperatives into sharper focus. While the sector has always needed to evolve and transform, today’s operational and financial pressures have added fresh urgency.
For many, this creates a perceived choice between investing in long-term change and delivering immediate improvements. However, this isn’t an either/or proposition. The priority has to be on today and tomorrow. We cannot afford to focus exclusively on building solutions that will only deliver results in five or fifteen years. Planning for both requires careful navigation from institutional leadership, with the entire leadership team aligned on where we’re going and how we’ll get there.
Leading strategic change together
At the heart of these considerations lies the fundamental purpose of universities: the advancement of knowledge and its dissemination. We must constantly evolve to remain institutions of quality, delivering value to students, fostering impactful research, and building capabilities for the future. This multifaceted purpose shapes how leadership teams approach transformation.
We can no longer afford to simply implement new systems or processes. If our investments aren’t vital to the changes that our organisations need to make to survive and thrive now, we really must be questioning why we’re doing them. These aren’t just operational decisions – they’re strategic choices that require alignment across the leadership team.
Consider student retention, where challenge and opportunity intersect. We need both immediate interventions and long-term solutions. Many of the 6.4% of students who withdrew last year had not changed their goals. But, rather, they were struggling with a particular issue at a particular time. Identifying these crucial moments in a consistent and systematic manner requires sophisticated infrastructure and processes that many institutions are still considering how to build. Supporting our students with the maturity and capability they deserve demands that our academic and professional services leaders work in concert – and shows up in the right conversation at the right time with the right person.
Data as a foundation for change
Data is the cornerstone of the modern university. The development of institutional data capabilities illustrates how organisations can balance immediate value with longer-term transformation. Most universities recognise that they need sophisticated ways to understand and act upon their data – from student engagement patterns to research impact measures. However, achieving this requires careful consideration.
Building comprehensive data capabilities is an undertaking that every institution needs to consider, and the challenge lies in structuring this work to deliver tangible benefits throughout the journey. Success requires the entire leadership team to understand that while the full vision may take years to realise, we can and must deliver meaningful improvements at regular intervals.
“Planning digital transformation is like planning a long car journey. You need to know your destination but also need to plan your stops carefully.”
This approach reflects proven change management principles: begin with well-defined challenges, demonstrate value quickly, and build incrementally with clear institutional support. The institutions making real progress in this space share a common approach. They identify specific challenges – perhaps understanding patterns in student engagement or tracking research collaboration opportunities – and address these systematically. Each solution helps their communities immediately while contributing to more comprehensive capabilities.
At LSE, I work with colleagues across the institution to ensure this balanced approach delivers results. Like many institutions, we’re exploring how emerging capabilities around data and analytics will reshape research and education. The key is ensuring these forward-looking initiatives also address current needs. When we improve our understanding of student engagement patterns, for instance, we’re simultaneously helping today’s students while building the foundation for more sophisticated support in the future.
Strategic choices in resource-conscious times
Institutions have always faced decisions about what capabilities to develop internally versus where to collaborate or buy solutions. One question I see leadership teams grappling with every day is what makes us distinct, and therefore where we should focus our innovation efforts. While these considerations aren’t new, they take on added significance when resources require careful stewardship.
This calibration extends to decisions about technology investment and development. Whether considering research management systems, student engagement platforms, or data analytics capabilities, institutions must weigh up where to invest in distinctive capabilities versus where to adopt sector-standard approaches. Making the wrong choice doesn’t just affect current operations – it can impact an institution’s transformation journey for years and affect trust between different parts of the organisation. Success requires clear strategic alignment on where distinctive capability matters most.
Aligning the journey with the destination
We need to identify our goals, our destination, but that is not enough. I like to think of planning digital transformation like planning a long car journey. You need to know your destination but also need to plan your stops carefully. Each stop should serve multiple purposes – refuelling, rest, perhaps some strategic sightseeing. What you want to avoid is driving for eight hours straight only to realise you’re headed in the wrong direction. And we certainly don’t want to have to keep everyone in the car interested and excited in the journey for eight full hours without seeing any progress. We must start from where we are, end at our final destination, and, crucially, lay out our way markers.
This means being intentional about both immediate improvements and long-term transformation. As universities, we have a responsibility to push boundaries while ensuring we deliver value to our students and society today. This balance between innovation and operational excellence is something every institution must navigate. Going on that journey as connected leadership teams and being collectively clear where we will see value along the way is vital if we are to be successful.
While the current environment may add complexity to this task, the fundamental approach remains sound: start from where you are, deliver value as you go, and keep your destination clearly in sight. What matters most is taking that first step together, with a shared understanding of both immediate priorities and long-term ambitions.
Nick Gilbert will be speaking at Kortext LIVE in London on 29January 2025. Join Nick and other education and technology expert speakers at a series of three events for HE leaders hosted at Microsoft’s offices in London, Edinburgh and Manchester during late January and early February. Find out more and register your free place here.
Feelings of belonging have a significant positive impact on academic success and progression, but we know that creating belonging isn’t as simple as putting up a welcome sign.
Belonging is not something that can be automatically created by an institution, regardless of its commitment to access and inclusion. To make students feel they belong in a higher education environment, having the power to shape and co-create the environments in which they participate is essential.
For students in higher education, liminal digital spaces (those informal areas of interaction that sit between formal academic environments and students’ broader social contexts) offer unique opportunities for students to lead, collaborate, learn and foster a sense of belonging, and the freedom to shape their learning environment and exercise agency in ways that may not be available within more formal institutional frameworks. They also offer opportunities for institutions to create places that nurture academic success without assuming responsibility for the development and delivery of all support.
But squaring the ownership, credibility and safeguarding triangle is complex, so how can universities do this while also embracing digital tools?
Taking ownership for learning
Focusing on digital spaces allows institutions to expand the space their students feel comfortable inhabiting and learning in, without limiting engagement from those who may not be free to meet at a specific time or be able to meet in person.
Digital learning resources can help students connect to their peers, further strengthening their sense of place within the institution. These spaces could act as connectors between university resource and student-driven exploration and learning in a way that more formal mechanisms sometimes fail to. At Manchester, resources such as My Learning Essentials (a blended skills support programme) can be used by the students within the spaces (via online resources) and signposted and recommended by peers (for scheduled support sessions).
Although this model exists elsewhere, at Manchester it is enhanced by the CATE-awarded Library Student Team, a group of current students who appreciate and often inhabit these spaces themselves. The combination of always available online, expert-led sessions and peer-led support means there is a multiplicity of avenues in the support. This allows the University to partner with, for example, its Students’ Union, and work alongside students and the wider institution by hosting these digital spaces, acting as mediators or facilitators, and ensuring the right balance of autonomy and support.
Keeping learning credible
Wider institutional support like My Learning Essentials already takes advantage of digital spaces by delivering both asynchronous online support and scheduled online sessions, and it can be easily integrated, signposted and shaped by the students using it.
These spaces need to be connected to the institution in such a way as to feel relevant and powerful. “Leaving” students to lead in spaces, giving them leadership responsibility without institutional support or backing, sets both them and these spaces up for failure.
Universities can work alongside students to help them define collective community values and principles, much like the community guidelines found in spaces like MYFest, a community-focused annual development event. Doing so ensures these liminal spaces are inclusive and responsive to the needs of all participants. Such spaces can also help students transition ‘out’ of the university environment and support others to build skills that they have already developed, such as by mentoring a student in a year below.
Safeguarding in a digital world
Universities should also allow students to follow the beat of their own drum and embrace digital outside of university spaces to further their learning.
Kai Prince, a PhD candidate in Maths at The University of Manchester, who runs a popular Discord server for fellow students, notes:
If the servers are led by a diverse group of students, I find that they’re also perfect for building a sense of belonging as students feel more comfortable in sharing their difficulties pseudo-anonymously and receiving peer-support, either by being informed on solutions or having their experiences, such as impostor syndrome, acknowledged.
Spaces like Discord allow students to engage in peer-led learning, but universities can enhance the quality of that learning by making available and investing in (as is done with My Learning Essentials) high-quality online materials, clear paths to wider support services and formal connections with societies or other academic groups. These mechanisms also help to keep the space within a student’s university experience, with all the expectations for behaviour and collegiality that entails.
The higher education sector is a complex and diverse space, welcoming new members to its communities each year. But it is often mired in a struggle to effectively engage and include each individual as a true part of the whole.
Work to address this needs to incorporate the students in spaces where the balance of power is tilted, by design, in their favour. Recognising the potential for digital spaces, for accessibility, support and familiarity for students as they enter higher education means that universities can put their efforts towards connecting, but not dictating, the direction of students and helping them forge their own learning journeys as part of the wider university community.
This week on the podcast Jim, Mack and team are on a bus around the Visegrad countries where they’ve been exploring student experience, representation and rights, discounted dorms and a set of countries where students have been leading change.
Plus Disabled Students UK has its access insights survey out, and we discuss changes to the Renter’s Rights Bill.
With Katie Jackson, Faculty of Humanities Officer at the University of Manchester SU, Seán Keaney, Academic Officer at University of Limerick Student Life, Gary Hughes, CEO at Durham SU, Mack Marshall, Community and Policy Officer at Wonkhe and presented by Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.
