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  • We are losing the basis of our civic discourse

    We are losing the basis of our civic discourse

    This essay was originally published in The Hill on Aug. 28, 2025.

    On the first day of every semester, I open each of my classes with a line that has never lost its punch: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

    That’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a senator, academic, public servant and one of America’s last great public intellectuals.

    In that now-famous line, he wasn’t saying other people had to agree with him. He was making an appeal to civic rationalism, or the idea that debate should be governed by logic and reason. It’s a compass point for civil discourse. Respect viewpoints, but insist on a shared reality. This is a guide for my teaching and an expectation for how my classes are conducted.

    But every time I repeat that saying, almost no one in the room has heard it before. Even fewer can name Moynihan. That’s not just generational drift. It’s evidence of a broader civic erosion. We are losing the everyday language that sustains a free society.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and NORC at the University of Chicago, previously the National Opinion Research Center, have just given us a rare and quantifiable glimpse of this shift. Their 2025 Free Speech Idioms Survey asked Americans about familiar expressions that once formed a shared civic lexicon.

    If we stop using the language of freedom, will we still defend the practice of it?

    The results are striking. Most Americans still recognize the old idioms. Far fewer actually use them. The gap between recognition and use is the story. We as Americans still know these phrases. We’ve just stopped saying them. This is not just linguistic drift. These phrases are compact moral codes. They carry with them the habits of tolerance, humility and pluralism.

    “It’s a free country” signals that disagreement is permissible. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” acknowledges dignity in dissent. “Sticks and stones” reminds us to meet speech with speech, not violence or censorship. Without such reminders, the civic muscle memory that protects a free society begins to atrophy. That last idiom in the table — “Address the argument, not the person” — may be the most telling of all. Only 30% of Americans even recognize it, and barely 1 in 10 say it often.

    This absence shows up everywhere: in the pile-ons of cancel culture, the readiness to attack a person’s character rather than engage their reasoning and in why viewpoint diversity is so hard to come by on many college campuses. If you never learn the habit of separating people from their ideas, disagreement becomes personal and dissenters become enemies to be silenced.

    And in their place? New slogans, often adversarial and absolutist. We hear “words are violence” or “speech is harm” far more than “defend to the death your right to say it.” The FIRE/NORC survey found that a quarter of Americans now say the “words are violence” framing describes their own view “mostly” or “completely.”

    Violence must never be a response to speech

    America must be an open society where we feel safe to share our ideas in the public square, not just from behind bulletproof glass and bulletproof vests.


    Read More

    Whatever the merits of critiquing certain speech, the wholesale abandonment of these older idioms suggests a deeper estrangement from the foundational norms they encode.

    If we stop using the language of freedom, will we still defend the practice of it? The decline of these expressions parallels other troubling trends: shrinking tolerance for opposing viewpoints on campus, partisan sorting in neighborhoods and workplaces, and the growing tendency to treat disagreement as an attack rather than a challenge.

    This is how a culture forgets how to live with difference. Not in one dramatic moment, but in the slow attrition of its everyday speech. The idioms are not simply disappearing, they’re being displaced by a different vocabulary of public life. In schools, workplaces, and activist spaces, the older language of tolerance and resilience is being crowded out by the vocabulary of fragility and offense.

    The shift is clear. Less emphasis on enduring disagreement, more appetite for narrowing the space in which it can occur.

    And this shift is reinforced by other cultural patterns.

    On campuses, surveys show declining tolerance for opposing viewpoints. In communities, Americans increasingly cluster among the politically like-minded. Online platforms reward outrage over persuasion. Disagreement increasingly feels like a personal attack rather than a normal feature of democratic life.

    The fix doesn’t require a federal program or sweeping reforms. It begins with restoration — small, intentional acts to keep this moral vocabulary alive. Educators can weave these idioms into their teaching, explaining their meaning and history so students understand that “address the argument, not the person” isn’t just a polite turn of phrase. It’s what makes genuine debate possible.

    Leaders in civic life, business and on campus can choose these expressions over more divisive catch-alls, knowing that the vocabulary we reward becomes the culture we inhabit. And at home, parents can keep the language in circulation at the dinner table, passing it naturally from one generation to the next.

    Repetition builds reflexes, and reflexes build habits — exactly what a free society needs to sustain itself. Moynihan understood that democracy is not self-executing. It depends on shared commitments, reinforced through culture and speech.

    That’s why I’ll keep starting my classes with his reminder about opinions and facts. It’s not nostalgia. It’s civic maintenance and I intend to always begin my teaching with such an idea. I am focused on this idea because when we stop saying what matters, we risk losing the ability to mean what we say. And if that happens, the loss won’t just be linguistic. It will be democratic and existential.

    If we want a sturdier civic future, we can start with something refreshingly small: speak like citizens again.

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  • Higher Education Leadership in Times of Crisis Part II – Edu Alliance Journal

    Higher Education Leadership in Times of Crisis Part II – Edu Alliance Journal

    By Dr. Barry Ryan, September 15, 2025 – In my August 11th article titled ‘Higher Education Leadership in Times of Crisis,” we established that higher education leadership today cannot be solitary work and that effective crisis response requires both internal and external counsel. Now that you’ve assembled (at least thought through) your cast of trusted advisors and recognized the unique leadership demands of your situation, the next critical step is understanding what you’re actually facing—and how to navigate it successfully. Once you recognize that your organization may be entering such a time, there are three key initial questions to ask:

    1. How long can a crisis be expected to last?
    2. What are the effects of crisis on my institution, on my team, on my loved ones, and on me?
    3. What are some healthy and effective ways I can lead during crisis?

    First, how long should I expect a “typical” crisis to last?

    At first blush, it might seem a little silly to ask how long a crisis lasts. After all, isn’t that inherently unpredictable?

    The answer is “yes” and “no.” It may seem a little flippant to say, but the reality is that the length of a crisis depends to a certain degree on how you and those in leadership alongside you respond to it. Your approach and actions may make it longer or shorter than it would have been. Here’s what I mean.

    Ignoring a crisis and hoping that it blows over is actually a potential strategy—although not one that I would recommend in most circumstances. But there are some built-in roadblocks in a university’s life cycle, which is divided largely into annual, semester, or quarter segments. These can act, on their own, as speed bumps or detours that might diminish or change the course of a crisis.  

    For example, a crisis that is being instigated or aggravated by certain individuals might be relieved to some degree on its own by their departure through retirement, transfer, and so on.  Or a financial crisis might be alleviated by the structural limits on certain types of debt that will be paid off, or the inception of certain grants or gifts that are within sight. But these are, unfortunately, uncommon scenarios, and the timing may be unpredictable.

    On a global scale, one might think of Winston Churchill trying to imagine how long World War II might last. As futile as such a task might have been, he did, indeed, play out various scenarios and their likely duration. Although it makes for a great quote and probably captures an important aspect of Churchill’s thinking, he likely did not say, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” But that’s a good reminder for anyone in crisis.

    To grossly generalize, I have found that most institutional crises last between six months and two years. Why is that? The more acute ones require quicker action, and the result is either a solution that addresses the issues promptly and efficiently, in, say, six months, and you can move on to other things. Or, failing to find a speedy solution may end with you moving on. (And I don’t mean this lightly, but the reality is that moving on is not the end of the world.)

    Why the two-year time frame, on the other end? Because I’ve found that to be about the maximum time frame that a board, or an accreditor, or a creditor, or even a faculty can endure before a solution is reached. Again, the conclusion of the crisis will either leave you in a happier and stronger position in your institution or leave you seeking happiness and a better position somewhere else. But somewhere between six months and two years is what I have found to be the rough lifespan of an intense crisis. (This is barring, of course, a truly existential crisis as a result of which the institution ceases to exist in its current form. But even that drastic of an outcome can easily take two years or more to unfold.)

    Second, what are some of the common effects, and how do you survive them?

    For the sake of argument, let’s say you become aware that you are entering a crisis period, whether or not it eventually proves to be an existential one. How do you survive in the intervening six months to two years?

    Let’s begin with the effects of a continuing crisis on a leader. The crisis can easily become an enormous distraction for someone who already has too much on their plate. The stress that comes with leadership increases in crisis times, with mental, emotional, and even physical effects. Exhaustion can become a daily (and nightly) companion.  Self-doubt creeps in and steals even more of the leader’s resources.

    It sounds trite, but when this happens, don’t forget to take a few deep breaths – physically and metaphorically. 

    Draw up a “non-crisis” item list, i.e., things that still need to be done, but aren’t necessarily at the crisis point. Now start divvying them up between and among your fellow leaders, and to their direct reports when possible. This could be an opportune time to help them grow and develop, as well as ease your load.

    Along with that, begin to excuse yourself from meetings at which your presence is not absolutely necessary. Only you really know which are and which aren’t. You may still need to attend to some that aren’t technically necessary, but that may prove helpful in crisis-related activities. Again, having trusted substitutes sit in for you for a while can be a growth opportunity for them, and also demonstrate that you trust and empower those with whom you work. When it comes to meetings, which can serve to drain you even more, perhaps adopt a practice of only making limited strategic appearances. Make your participation relevant enough and just long enough to establish your presence and help you – and your colleagues – feel like you’re staying in touch.

    Don’t forget to take some days off, or even vacations. Sad but true, don’t make them too long or too far away or somewhere too difficult for you to be reached. You’re probably not really going to relax completely anyway, but you should at least experience some benefit from a change in perspective and place. Frankly, you would do well to consider the health and happiness of your loved ones who’ve been going through this with you, and that they need a break, perhaps even more than you do. After all, you are able to face the crisis more directly, as well as possible enemies, while your loved ones have to suffer vicariously and without the same ability to engage.

    Third, how to lead during a crisis?

    There is no question that crises have deleterious effects on you, your friends and family, but also your colleagues. You undoubtedly have support and supporters (even though they may seem distant), so don’t neglect them. Their fidelity to the institution and its mission – and you – deserves appreciation and acknowledgement, even if only expressed privately. They’re worried about the institution, but also their livelihood and their colleagues as well. 

    When they see you, try not to be the deer in the headlights (a situation that doesn’t usually end well in the wild). Appearing indecisive is uninspiring. But so is being overbearing or angry.

    Try to be yourself as you were before the crisis. Remember to smile, relax the muscles of your face and neck, and ask them about their loved ones, their teaching, or their research. Be human. The thoughtful ones have an idea about what you’re feeling and going through, so it’s okay for them to see you as a human. You don’t have to adopt a fake effervescence, but you should avoid moping.

    Seek impartial counsel. That may, or may not, include colleagues. A small group of confidants is necessary. External friends who have the courage to be honest with you, and also keep complete confidence, can be your best resource to help you gain and keep perspective. They may have higher ed experience, but not necessarily. I have always found that the best counsel comes from folks who have had real challenges, real losses, survived real attacks, and still kept their heads about them. Ones that are “too perfect” are probably not what you need at this point.

    While there is a need for you to seek and obtain trustworthy counsel, you should at the same time try to avoid seeking too much counsel. Bottom line is that you’re a leader and you’re going to have to make difficult decisions. So you should accept counsel, but too much can be confusing and even overwhelming. 

    Look, you’re in a tough position and no matter what you do, some people (possibly including some people you respect and care about) are not going to be thrilled. Sad but true. And some of those feelings may change over time, as they come to a fuller perspective as well.

    My advice to leaders in crisis situations always includes two elements:

    Can you make a decision that allows you to look at yourself in the mirror? 

    Then do what you believe is right and let the chips fall where they may. Period.

    While you are a leader in a profession you may (or may not any longer) dearly love, there IS an “after.”  That may mean continuing in your post-crisis position in the same post-crisis institution, or it may mean more significant changes for you.  If so, take what you’ve learned along to whatever comes next.  Partings are rarely enjoyable, but I recall a very thoughtful young person we had to let go.  His response was remarkable.  “I want to learn from this experience and become better as a result.” When I saw him at another institution a year later, he came up to me and said that’s exactly what had transpired and that he was grateful.

    Your life, and your legacy, are much more than just this current time of crisis within this current institution. Be grateful to those who have earned that gratitude, and remember who you are.

    Dr. Barry Ryan is a seasoned higher education executive, legal scholar, and former president of five universities. He is a senior consultant for the Edu Alliance Group and a legal scholar. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, Dr. Ryan has served in numerous roles, including faculty member, department chair, dean, vice president, provost, and chief of staff at state, non-profit, and for-profit universities and law schools. His extensive accreditation experience includes two terms on the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), serving a maximum of six years. He is widely recognized for his expertise in governance, accreditation, crisis management, and institutional renewal.

    In addition to his academic career, Dr. Ryan ​ served as the Supreme Court Fellow in the chambers of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and is a​ member of numerous federal and state bars. He has contributed extensively to charitable organizations and is experienced in board leadership and large-scale fundraising. He remains a trusted advisor to universities and boards seeking strategic alignment and transformation.

    He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his J.D. from the University of​ California, Berkeley, and his Dipl.GB in international business from the University of Oxford.

    Edu Alliance Group, Inc. (EAG), founded in 2014, is an education consulting firm located in Bloomington, Indiana, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. We assist higher education institutions worldwide on a variety of mission-critical projects. Our consultants are accomplished leaders who use their experience to diagnose and solve challenges.

    EAG has provided consulting and executive search services for over 40 higher education institutions in Australia, Egypt, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

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  • Born on Third Base | HESA

    Born on Third Base | HESA

    Cast your minds back to January of 2024, when the federal government suddenly decided that housing was an issue, international students were the problem and implemented a complicated and irritating-to-implement set of caps that were 35% lower nationally than for 2023 (and in Ontario significantly more than that). Then, in 2025 came another set of changes including a 10% cut in the national limit. And then, on top of that, a set of new conditions on post-graduate work visas were imposed which were specifically designed to depress demand for certain types of education.

    To the extent that the world outside post-secondary education absorbed this news and didn’t dismiss it outright because Ontario colleges in particular “deserved it” for pouring gasoline onto a housing shortage bonfire, the reaction to all this was: “boy, losing nearly half your international students is really going to lead to a financial pinch”. But this reaction was wrong in two ways. First, that 50-percent was an average – in most cases, institutions either saw drops that were either significantly higher or significantly lower than that. Partly, this was because the federal government designed the cap drop to hit provinces unequally (Ontario to the max and Quebec not at all, for instance) and part of it had to do with the fact that some provinces distributed the cap hit in some peculiar ways (see back here for an earlier blog on this).

    But second, and most importantly, not many institutions actually even met these significantly-lowered quotas. Talk to folks in institutions these days and they will tell you that it’s not that the caps are too low, but that demand for Canadian post-secondary has simply dried up: no one wants to come to Canada anymore. I believe this. Former Immigration Minister Marc Miller did a serious number on the reputation of Canada’s post-secondary. If you go around accusing institutions of fraud and deceit and imposing clampdowns on student visas (it wasn’t just the caps – visa processing times are up and visa refusal rates are rising too), foreign students might get the idea that the country doesn’t want them, and so they never apply in the first place. I am sure Marc Miller would deny ever wanting to dry up demand, but it is exactly what his ham-fisted, Attila-the-Hun in a China shop approach to student visas managed to achieve.

    (And still, so many bien-pensant people think Liberals are the good guys on higher education. Or think more federal involvement in the higher education file would be a good thing. God Save Us All.)

    Anyways, as a result of this, universities and colleges are in a funk and wondering if and when international students will come back and (partially) save their bacon, financially speaking. But what is shocking, to me at least, is how unbelievably passive the sector is. They are waiting for students to come. Just waiting. ‘Why don’t they come?’ people ask. ‘It’s that darn Marc Miller! Nothing we can do about it’.

    You see the problem with the international student industry in Canada is that institutions themselves never grew an overseas recruitment game the way UK and Australian institutions did. By the time Canadian institutions started thinking about the whole international-students-as-revenue thing, the feds had already created the student-to-permanent immigration pathway via our post-graduate work visas and the like. And then, when things got hotter, aggregators like ApplyBoard came along and made it so easy to attract students that a lot of Canadian institutions just never upped their ground game on student recruitment.

    You see, despite Canadian institutions’ tendency to congratulate themselves on their “international outlook” and their ability to attract international students, very few of them ever bothered to go deep either on recruitment tactics (spending time abroad, juicing the recruitment pipeline) or on paying attention to the international student experience on campus. Some did, of course, but I can count the number who would be considered on par with the top institutions in the anglosphere on one hand.

    When it comes to internationalization, Canada is the kid who was born on third base and thinks they hit a triple. So many unearned advantages. And so, when Attila-the-Minister came along and took away most of those unearned advantages, people did not know what to do. The simple answer – UP YOUR GROUND GAME IN A FEW KEY TARGET MARKETS FOR GOD’S SAKE – seems not to have been considered very widely.

    I suspect one of the reasons for this is a deeply unsexy one: internal funding formulas for non-academic units. You see, under the enshittification model that is widely prevalent in Canadian institutions (more so in universities than colleges, but the latter aren’t immune from it), when a budget crunch happens, everyone needs to cut back. And so, international units, far from being given more money to go fight for students in overseas markets, sometimes have to scale back their activities (or at least not increase them as they should). The idea that it takes money to make money does not fit easily with a budget model that bases this year’s budget on what you got last year plus or minus a percentage point or two.

    This is bananas, of course. Self-destructive, even. But even if you gave international offices more money, they wouldn’t necessarily know how to spend it. The born-on-third-base thing meant we never needed to fight that hard for international students – they just kind of showed up. The situation Canadian institutions are in right now requires a lot more bodies on the ground overseas, understanding individual city markets, developing relationships with schools and agents, and attending more fairs, in more cities and more countries. This is how Australia and the UK developed their international markets. We managed to skip a lot of that in the ‘10s. We are going to have to learn it now.

    The shock, pain and impact of both the visa caps and Marc Miller setting fire to the country’s reputation are all real. Never forgive, never forget (but also: never again wish for the federal government to be more active in post-secondary education). But institutions are not without agency here. My feeling is that in too many cases they are just throwing up their hands, either because they prefer not to spend on recruitment or are insufficiently skilled at doing so in the absence of a cuddly national image or an absurdly favorable visa system.  

    You want markets? Invest in them. Fight for them. If Canadian post-secondary education is as good as everyone claims it is, students will come. Passiveness helps no one.

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  • English Path establishes its presence in Saudi Arabia

    English Path establishes its presence in Saudi Arabia

    Unveiled at the UK-Saudi Arabia GREAT Futures Leadership Summit in London, the announcement reflects the summit’s mission to drive cooperation across business, education, and innovation.

    EP, part of the GEDU group, has already established campuses across the UK, Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Australia and now aims to support Saudi Arabia in fulfilling its future visions.

    As EP operates under the Global Institute of Entrepreneurship Training Institute (GIE), which is licensed by Saudi Arabia’s Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC), this new venture will deliver internationally accredited English language programs with a focus on outstanding teaching and student support.

    EP’s Riyadh campus offers a wide range of programs, from Classic English courses for adults and teens to more intensive study options designed to accelerate progress. The portfolio also includes business management and leadership training, IELTS preparation, classes that focus on speaking, and weekend clubs for younger learners.

    Tom Buckley, CEO of EP, described the move as a pivotal milestone for the organisation, as it establishes EP in what is a high-growth global market.

    “EP empowers learners with world-class language education, and we’re thrilled to be bringing this offering to Saudi Arabia”
    Tom Buckley, English Path

    “EP empowers learners with world-class language education, and we’re thrilled to be bringing this offering to Saudi Arabia,” said Buckley.

    Buckley stressed that the Kingdom represents one of the world’s rapidly growing education markets, highlighting the role of private sector investment in supporting the government’s 2030 Vision strategy, which places a strong emphasis on developing education and student mobility.

    “We at EP and GEDU are also proud to be collaborating with leading Saudi private and government organisations, strengthening our mission to empower learners and contribute to the Vision 2030 goals. Vision 2030 places a strong emphasis on education, and we share this ambition to make Saudi Arabia a magnet for education at all levels, and global student mobility.”

    “The strong collaboration we have seen at the UK-Saudi Arabia GREAT Futures Leadership Summit is critical to future developments across key sectors, and will bring mutual benefits to both the UK and the Kingdom in both the short and long term,” explained Buckley.

    “Our ambition as a group extends beyond just ourselves – we want to partner with other institutions to help them bring their education offerings to the Kingdom, and offer pathway programmes to other universities around the world.”

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  • Truth as Therapy for Higher Education

    Truth as Therapy for Higher Education

    Anosognosia is the inability to recognize one’s own illness or disability. In higher education, it describes the chronic denial of a system in crisis—one that refuses to admit its own collapse.

    For decades, U.S. higher education has been sold as the great equalizer. The story was simple: borrow, study, graduate, succeed. But the data show the opposite. What we are witnessing is a long college meltdown, masked by denial at the highest levels of government, university administrations, and Wall Street.

    The Debt Trap

    • Outstanding student loan debt now exceeds $1.77 trillion, burdening more than 43 million Americans.

    • Nearly 20 percent of borrowers are in default or serious delinquency.

    • Black borrowers, especially Black women, carry the heaviest burdens and are least likely to see upward mobility from their degrees.

    • Many in income-driven repayment programs will never pay off principal, living in a permanent state of debt peonage.

    Universities and policymakers insist debt is an “investment.” But for millions, it is a generational shackle.

    The Exploited Faculty

    • More than 70 percent of college instructors are contingent.

    • Adjuncts often earn less than $3,500 per course, with no healthcare, no retirement, and no security.

    • Roughly one in four adjuncts relies on public assistance.

    Universities still market themselves as communities of scholars. In reality, they operate on the same exploitative labor practices as Uber or Amazon.

    The Employment Mismatch

    • Four in ten recent grads work in jobs that don’t require a degree.

    • One-third of graduates say their work is unrelated to their major.

    • Median real wages for college graduates have been flat for 25 years.

    Still, higher ed pushes “lifelong learning” credentials, turning underemployment into a new revenue stream.

    Prestige as Denial

    • At Ivy League universities, 40 percent of students come from the top 5 percent of households.

    • Fewer than 5 percent come from the bottom fifth.

    • Endowments soar—Harvard’s sits at $50 billion—but tuition relief and faculty wages barely budge.

    This is not mobility. It is a hereditary elite cloaked in the language of meritocracy.

    Climate Contradictions

    • Universities promote sustainability but invest billions in fossil fuels.

    • Campus expansion and luxury amenities drive up emissions, water use, and labor exploitation.

    Even here, anosognosia reigns: branding over reality.

    The Meltdown Denied

    The college meltdown has been unfolding for more than a decade:

    • Small liberal arts colleges shuttering.

    • Regional publics bleeding enrollments.

    • For-profits morphing into “nonprofits” while still funneling money to investors.

    • State funding eroded, shifting the cost to students and families.

    But instead of confronting the collapse, higher ed leaders rely on rhetoric: “innovation,” “resilience,” “access.” Like anosognosia, denial itself becomes survival.

    The Human Cost

    The denial is not harmless. It is measured in:

    • The indebted graduate delaying family formation and homeownership.

    • The adjunct commuting across counties to string together courses while living below the poverty line.

    • The working-class family betting their savings on a degree that will not deliver mobility.

    The meltdown is here. Higher education’s inability—or refusal—to admit it ensures the damage will deepen.

    Truth and Healing 

    Anosognosia prevents healing because it prevents recognition of the problem. U.S. higher education cannot admit its own disease, so it cannot begin recovery. Until it does, students, families, and workers will bear the costs of a system in denial.

    Sources

    • Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit (2025)

    • National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Digest of Education Statistics (2023)

    • American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession (2024)

    • Pew Research Center, The Rising Cost of Not Going to College (2023 update)

    • The Century Foundation, Adjunct Project (2022)

    • Chetty et al., Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility (2017, with updates)

    • IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System), U.S. Department of Education

    • Harvard Management Company, Endowment Report (2024)

    • Higher Education Inquirer, College Meltdown archive (2018–2025)

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  • A Disenchanted Provost Discusses Why He Ditched the Job

    A Disenchanted Provost Discusses Why He Ditched the Job

    Throughout his 20-year career in higher education, Julian Vasquez Heilig has steadily climbed the career ladder, moving from assistant to associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin; into a full professorship at California State University, Sacramento; and then to a dean position at the University of Kentucky’s College of Education, Human Development and Sport Science. Being dean was rewarding, he said. The wins were visible, the feedback loop was short and he was well supported. Hoping to expand his impact, Heilig stepped onto the next career-ladder rung and became provost at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. But as provost, he didn’t feel emboldened to make change, he said; he felt isolated and exposed.

    After two years, he stepped down, and he now serves as a professor of educational leadership, research and technology at Western Michigan. His frustrations with the provost role had less to do with Western Michigan and more to do with how the job is designed, he explained. “Each person sees the provost a little differently. The faculty see the provost as administration, although, honestly, around the table at the cabinet, the provost is probably the only faculty member,” Heilig said. “The trustees—they see the provost as a middle manager below the president, and the president sees [the provost] as a buffer from issues that are arising.”

    Inside Higher Ed sat down with Heilig to talk about the provost job and all he’s learned about the role through years of education leadership research, conversations with colleagues and his own experience.

    The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    Q: You stepped down from the provost role at Western Michigan in January, two years after taking the position. What tipped you off that the position wasn’t for you?

    A: In general, provosts are judged on student success, retention, faculty hiring and academic quality, and yet the purse strings of those things often truly sit with the president or the chief financial officer. That split means the provost really answers for outcomes without the levers to fund them. The job really asks you, as a leader, to redesign programs and diversify pipelines while working with multiple stakeholders—trustees, donors and faculty. If you push too hard on innovation, you face backlash. If you move too slowly and the role becomes ceremonial, then that might violate your own personal mission and beliefs. I’m not specifically talking about Western Michigan—all institutions have to decide whether they value transformation or whether they want tranquil optics.

    For most provosts, the average tenure is three years, based on the research I’ve seen. But durable change, sustainable change could take five, seven, 10 years. A lot of the things that [provosts] initiate outlive the job—it’s difficult to be around to see your agenda finished.

    Q: You’ve described the provost role as being “structurally exposed.” What does that mean, exactly?

    A: The relationship between presidents and provosts can be—especially at research universities—really fraught. One of the ways that it can be helped is by, from the outset, sitting down with your president to talk about how you’re going to make decisions, what the expectations are for resource commitments and joint accountability for decisions. A lot of times provosts are enforcing decisions and policies they didn’t make, but they’re held accountable to those policies, and having a compact [with the president] would be a better foundation.

    Leaders need to be able to have buffers to take smart risks without constant political whiplash. Those could look like multiyear resource agreements or protocols for handling disputes among vice presidents. That is super important—insulation is not isolation; it’s a structure that enables courage among leaders. Higher education is always the first to call for change and the last to make it because we have to align authority with responsibility. We have to be committed to change. We can’t avoid crises because there are some people that aren’t interested in making change and are completely satisfied with the status quo.

    Q: Did pushback to your equity work factor into your decision to ultimately step down?

    A: When controversy hits, the easiest release valve is the provost … It’s important for institutions to see the provost role not as disposable if they expect the provost to be bold stewards of academic affairs.

    Someone told me on LinkedIn that the provost role is not actually the chief officer of academic affairs; they’re actually the associate dean of academic affairs. Because pressure comes at the provost from the side from other vice presidents, from above you from the president and from below you from the deans, without the opportunity to respond to all those stakeholders in all the ways you would like. If you reallocate resources and challenge the institution’s sacred cows, then you’re going to take immediate fire. A lot of provosts will last many, many years in the job because caretaking is much safer than transforming under the current norms of higher education. So we need to think about how you reward measured disruption in the provost role and protect those who are doing the hard work of solving problems.

    There’s a high burnout cost to this job because you have nonstop negotiation between all these different stakeholder groups and competing demands. Each of these stakeholder groups want something different. Emotional labor mounts for you as a provost because the wins are very diffused … and if something goes wrong with accreditation or something else, the blame is very concentrated. So without structural support from each of those stakeholder groups, even the best leaders get drained.

    A lot of people go right from dean to president nowadays; they don’t want to get sidelined by the provost role. They just decide that this type of leadership is not worth it. That means that institutions are losing people who would build in this role, who would innovate in this role, and are rewarding people who just simply want to manage and caretake. Instead of hiring leaders, they’re just going to hire a manager.

    Q: You’ve written that provosts are almost always destined for a falling-out with their president. How do you think those roles are pitted against each other?

    A: If you’re thinking about becoming a provost, you have to take the measure of the person you’re working for. You’ve got to figure out: How is this hard decision going to be made? How are resources going to be committed? How is there going to be joint accountability for decisions that the president wants you to make? Will there be shared goals and shared power, rather than performative communications and performative statements? A real relationship and a real compact is the foundation for success for a partnership like this.

    Deans operate in a bounded area of things with very visible outcomes and very tight feedback loops, but the provost has a very diffuse set of responsibilities and is responsible for not just one but [many] colleges. The clarity that deans have really fuels that work. Vice president of academic affairs is a title that suggests influence, but its insulation and authority are very thin. Visibility is high, but when things go wrong, they go very wrong. We’ve got to pair the prestige of that position with clear powers and clear protections, because, again, each of the stakeholder groups has different interests, and so they see you either as their friend or their enemy.

    Q: Is there anything in particular that you would like to see from presidents in general to better support their provosts?

    A: [Provosts] can’t be seen as expendable by design. So when a controversy hits—and you have controversies day after day after day—the main job of the provost is to fix things, hard problems that weren’t fixed before they got to your desk. And so when things go really wrong, from what I hear from my colleagues, the easiest release valve is the provost.

    As you look across campuses, people are saying provost is the hardest job. And there’s a reason why they say that.

    Q: Inside Higher Ed with Hanover Research is releasing its annual survey of provosts tomorrow, and one of the things we found is that 86 percent of respondents said they enjoyed being provost, but only 29 percent of them felt that they consistently have the resources they need to implement initiatives. Do you feel like your experience aligned with that?

    A: Yeah, I think it’s particularly difficult when you come in as a vice president rather than as an executive vice president. When you’re on the same level with other VPs, it creates a Game of Thrones in terms of resources. The finance people want money for building, and the VP of research wants money for research, and so one of the challenges when you come into the provost role is you need to have more flexibility, especially around equity. When equity moves from emails and speeches to actual budget shifts, you get resistance. Leaders who are expected to redirect resources to close gaps, they become targets.

    Q: Also in our survey, more than half of provosts said their job was more about fixing problems than planning ahead. Would you agree that the role is like playing crisis manager?

    A: Part of the challenge is that provosts are having to deal with decisions that other people made. And so you have to deal with decisions that faculty made that may be problematic. You’ve got to implement decisions that the president made. You have a cabinet wanting to implement their decisions for academic affairs, and some of those things go wrong. So you’ve got to work with your team to fix all the different things, and sometimes you can’t fix it fast enough.

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  • Strategies for Personalized Learning in AI Age (opinion)

    Strategies for Personalized Learning in AI Age (opinion)

    How do we teach effectively—and humanly—in this age of AI?

    New advances in artificial intelligence break news at such a rapid pace that many of us have difficulties keeping up. Dinuka Gunaratne gave a detailed summary of many different AI tools in his “Carpe Careers” article published in July; yet more tools will likely appear in the next months and years in an exponential explosion. How do we, as educators (new and established Ph.D.s) design curriculum and classes with these new AI tools being released every few weeks? How do we design effective assignments that teach critical analysis and logical thought while knowing that our students, too, have access to these tools?

    Many existing AI tools can be used to assist with course design. However, I will provide some insight on methods of pedagogy that emphasize personalized learning regardless of what new technology becomes available.

    Some questions educators are now thinking about include:

    1. How do I design an assignment so the student cannot just prompt an AI tool to complete it?
    2. How do I design the course so that the student can choose whether or not to use AI tools—and how do I assess these two groups of students?

    Below, I outline some wise teaching practices with an eye toward helping students develop core skills including critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, creativity and—the most essential skill of all—curiosity.

    Making the Most Out of Class Time

    An effective course utilizes a combination of teaching strategies. I outline three here.

    1. Make sure that your class is generative so that when you give an assignment, it reaches as far back as day one. A generative learning model is one in which each week is built upon the previous one, and in which a student is assessed on the knowledge they have cumulatively accrued.
    1. Hold interactive in-person activities in each class, building upon the previous assignments and content.
    2. Flip the classroom so that class time is used for discussion and not a monologue presentation from you. If you can assign videos or reading assignments for students to view or read prior to class, then you can use class time to discuss the content or reinforce the learning with group activities.

    Here is an example of combining these tools in the buildup to a presentation from one of my classes.

    • Week 1: Each student writes and brings a one-page summary of their research so that peers can provide feedback. I provide feedback training in class before the peer readings take place.
    • Week 2: Using the peer feedback of the summary, each student creates one slide summarizing their research for a three-minute thesis (3MT) and brings the slide to class to receive peer feedback.
    • Week 3: Students practice presentation skills through an activity called “slide karaoke,” in which a student has one minute to present a simple slide they have never seen before. They are then given feedback by peers and the instructor on general presentation skills. I provide peer feedback training before the presentations.
    • Week 4: Students implement the general feedback from slide karaoke and give practice 3MT presentations to receive specific peer and mentor feedback on the content. These mentors are usually students from the year before who revisit the class.
    • Week 5: Students give the final 3MT in front of judges and peers for evaluation.
    • Week 6: Students write a summary of what was learned from the entire generative experience.

    This sequence of assignments is personalized so that the final report can only be about the student’s individual experience. While students might want to use AI tools to edit or organize their ideas, ChatGPT or other AI tools cannot possibly know what happened in the classroom—only the student can write about it.

    For larger classes in which a presentation from each student may not be possible, here is another example.

    • Week 1: A video or reading assigned to students to view/read before class discusses the basics of DNA and inheritance. An in-class assignment involves a group discussion on Mendelian inheritance problem sets.
    • Week 2: Before class, students read an article on how DNA is packaged; the in-class discussion focuses on the molecules involved in chromatin structure.
    • The next classes all have either prereads or videos, which students discuss in class, and the content builds up to a more complex genetic mechanism, such as elucidating the gene for a disease. The final report could be “summarize how one could find a gene responsible for a certain disease using the discussion points we had in class.” In this scenario as well, the student is taking the personalized class experience and incorporating the ideas into the final report, something that cannot be wholly outsourced to any AI tool.

    If you decide to embrace AI tools in the classroom, you can still teach critical thinking and creativity by asking the students to use AI to write a report on a topic discussed in class—and then in part two of the assignment, ask them to assess the AI-generated report, cite the proper references and correct any mistakes, content or grammar-wise.

    I sometimes show an example of this in class to demonstrate to students that AI makes mistakes, rather than giving it as an assignment. But it is something you might want to try making an optional method for an assignment. Students can declare whether they used AI or not on their submission. As an instructor, you will need to design two rubrics for these different groups. Group one will have a rubric based on content, grammar, references, logical thought and organization, and clarity. Group two (those who use AI) will have a rubric consisting of the same components in addition to an evaluation of how well the student found the AI mistakes.

    Applying for Teaching Positions

    If you are applying for a teaching position, you should address AI in your teaching dossier and how you may or may not incorporate it—but at the very least, discuss its effects on higher education. Many articles and books on this topic exist, including Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning, by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson (Johns Hopkins Press, 2024); Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Joseph E. Aoun (MIT Press, 2017); and Generative AI in Higher Education, by Cecilia Ka Yuk Chan and Tom Colloton (Routledge, 2024).

    Yet even as we consider how to integrate AI in our teaching, we must not forget the human experience at work in all that we do. We can emphasize things like 1) encouraging students to meet with us in person or even for a walk as opposed to a virtual meeting and 2) assessing what emotions students bring to the meeting or class and how that may affect the dynamics. We as educators should harness the human side of teaching, including the classroom experience and the in-class group work, so that the “final” assessments build directly out of these personalized learnings.

    For those venturing into a career that involves teaching or mentoring, develop teaching strategies and tools that center the human experience and include them in your teaching dossier. Your application will shine.

    Nana Lee is the director of professional development and mentorship, special adviser to the dean of medicine for graduate education, and associate professor, teaching stream, at the University of Toronto. She is also a member and regional director of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

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  • Recognising the Value of Teaching-Focused Academics in Developing Student Skills

    Recognising the Value of Teaching-Focused Academics in Developing Student Skills

    This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Chris Featherstone, Hillary Briffa, Madeleine Le Bourdon, Jeremy Moulton, Louise Pears, Anna Plunkett, Sudhir Selvaraj and Jillian Terry. 

    Amid the UK’s ongoing cost of living crisis and wider economic instability, equipping students with the skills they need to enter the workforce is more urgent than ever. The recent HEPI Policy Note 10 trends that will change higher education encapsulates this focus on skills development, arguing that skills development will be the foremost area of value for students, preparing them for modern employment. Employability has become a central concern, not only for students but also for universities, incentivised through league tables and recruitment strategies to demonstrate clear outcomes for graduates. 

    One under-recognised but vital resource in meeting this challenge is the growing group of teaching-focused academics, those appointed on education-centred or ‘teaching and scholarship’ contracts. In Politics and International Relations (IR), this group has expanded significantly over the past two decades. A recent British Academy report found that around 20% of new academic posts in Politics and IR are now teaching track roles. 

    These colleagues are often at the forefront of pedagogic innovation, transforming assessment design, refining marking practices, and integrating technology in ways that directly enhance student learning. Their work is central to helping students develop the transferable, applied skills that employers demand. 

    Innovating for Employability 

    One key area of innovation is the diversification of assessment formats. By moving beyond traditional essays and exams, students are given the opportunity to experiment with different ways of communicating ideas, developing critical skills aligned with real-world careers. This diversification of assessment formats also addresses the diversity of the student body in contemporary HE. There is no longer a typical student, and as such we need to increase the range of typical assessments.  

    At the University of York, Jeremy Moulton and Chris Featherstone offer ‘optionality in assessment’. Jeremy gives students the choice between writing a traditional essay or a policy report, bridging academic and applied outputs. Similarly, Chris enables students to choose between blogs or policy reports, allowing them to explore formats akin to journalism or content creation. This element of student choice encourages self-reflection and strategic skill development. Some students choose to strengthen familiar skills, while others test themselves in unfamiliar formats. 

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key challenge for universities, students and employers alike. With reports that 4 out of 5 students admit to using AI in their studies, this is a huge area for higher education. Addressing the challenge that AI has levelled at the sector, Jillian Terry will be one of the first cohort of LSE AI and Education Fellows, developing a strategy for embedding and fully integrating generative AI tools into students’ experiences of learning, researching, and collaborating in the sector-leading interdisciplinary module LSE100. 

    Meanwhile, at King’s College London, Dr Hillary Briffa has worked to reform how diverse assessment types are marked. As a ‘rubric champion’ within the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy, she is helping to design assessment criteria that accommodate non-traditional outputs, such as podcasts and policy briefs, while maintaining academic rigour.  

    Enhancing Teaching Through Research 

    Teaching and scholarship (T&S) staff are not only innovating in assessment but also contributing to the scholarship of teaching and learning itself. At the University of Leeds, Dr Madeleine Le Bourdon and Dr Louise Pears have conducted research on the role of social media in teaching Politics. Their findings have shaped teaching practices within the School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), and they have also led workshops to share insights with colleagues across the discipline. Dr Le Bourdon is also leading international research into ethical approaches to global university partnerships, further demonstrating the leadership roles T&S staff are increasingly taking on.  

    The ASPIRE Network 

    To promote and connect these efforts, we established the ASPIRE Network—a community for teaching-focused academics in Politics and IR. We believe that the teaching track makes a vital contribution to educational excellence, enhancing student experience, attainment, and graduate outcomes. 

    ASPIRE exists to share best practices, support professional development, and advocate for the recognition of teaching and scholarship colleagues across UK higher education. But we also seek to go further, calling for structural changes in how universities support and promote teaching track staff, and urging policymakers to better value the contributions these colleagues make to student success and institutional performance. 

    Empowering the Teaching Track 

    Despite their growing presence and impact, teaching track academics often face structural barriers to progression, limited access to research funding, and a lack of visibility in institutional decision-making. If universities are serious about improving student outcomes, enhancing graduate employability, and delivering high-quality teaching, they must do more than simply acknowledge these contributions. They must actively empower teaching-focused staff. This includes creating clear promotion pathways, offering equal recognition in strategic planning, and ensuring that reward structures value pedagogic innovation on par with research achievements. The ASPIRE network is working to address this need, advocating for improvements in progression, recognition, and reward for ‘teaching track’ academics in Politics and IR, but more is needed sector-wide. Empowering the teaching track is not just a matter of fairness; it is essential for sustaining excellence in UK higher education. 

    Conclusion 

    In a sector facing financial pressures, political uncertainty, and heightened expectations around graduate employability, we cannot afford to overlook the contributions of teaching-focused academics. Their work is not peripheral, it is central to ensuring that students leave university not just with knowledge, but with the skills, confidence, and flexibility they need to thrive. 

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  • The push to expand school choice should not diminish civic education

    The push to expand school choice should not diminish civic education

    From Texas to Florida to Arizona, school voucher policies are reshaping the landscape of American education. The Trump administration champions federal support for voucher expansion, and many state-level leaders are advancing school choice programs. Billions of public dollars are now flowing to private schools, church networks and microeducation platforms.  

    The push to expand school choice is not just reallocating public funds to private institutions. It is reorganizing the very purpose of schooling. And in that shift, something essential is being lost — the public mission of education as a foundation of democracy. 

    Civic education is becoming fragmented, underfunded and institutionally weak.  

    In this moment of sweeping change, as public dollars shift from common institutions to private and alternative schools, the shared civic entities that once supported democratic learning are being diminished or lost entirely — traditional structures like public schools, libraries and community colleges are no longer guaranteed common spaces. 

    The result is a disjointed system in which students may gain academic content or career preparation but receive little support in learning how to lead with integrity, think across differences or sustain democratic institutions. The very idea of public life is at risk, especially in places where shared experience has been replaced by polarization. We need civic education more than ever. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.  

    If we want students who can lead a multiracial democracy, we need schools of every type to take civic formation seriously. That includes religious schools, charter schools and homeschooling networks. The responsibility cannot fall on public schools alone. Civic formation is not an ideological project. It is a democratic one, involving the long-term work of building the skills, habits and values that prepare people to work across differences and take responsibility for shared democratic life. 

    What we need now is a civic education strategy that matches the scale of the changes reshaping American schooling. This will mean fostering coordinated investment, institutional partnerships and recognition that the stakes are not just academic, they are also democratic. 

    Americans overwhelmingly support civic instruction. According to a 2020 survey in Texas by the Center of Women in Politics and Public Policy and iCivics, just 49 percent of teachers statewide believed that enough time was being devoted to teaching civics knowledge, and just 23 percent said the same about participatory-democracy skills. This gap is not unique to Texas, but there is little agreement on how civics should be taught, and even less structural support for the schools trying to do it. 

    Without serious investment, civic formation will remain an afterthought — a patchwork effort disconnected from the design of most educational systems. 

    This is not an argument against vouchers in principle. Families should have options. But in the move to decentralize education, we risk hollowing out its civic core. A democratic society cannot survive on academic content alone. It requires citizens — not just in the legal sense, but in the civic one. 

    A democratic society needs people who can deliberate, organize, collaborate and build a shared future with others who do not think or live like they do. 

    And that’s why we are building a framework in Texas that others can adopt and adapt to their own civic mission. 

    The pioneering Democracy Schools model, to which I contribute, supports civic formation across a range of public and private schools, colleges, community organizations and professional networks.  

    Civic infrastructure is the term we use to describe our approach: the design of relationships, institutions and systems that hold democracy together. Just as engineers build physical infrastructure, educators and civic leaders must build civic infrastructure by working with communities, not for or on them. 

    We start from a democratic tradition rooted in the Black freedom struggle. Freedom, in this view, is not just protection from domination. It is the capacity to act, build and see oneself reflected in the world. This view of citizenship demands more than voice. It calls for the ability to shape institutions, policies and public narratives from the ground up. 

    Related: STUDENT VOICE: My generation knows less about civics than my parents’ generation did, yet we need it more than ever 

    The model speaks to a national crisis: the erosion of shared civic space in education. It must be practiced and must be supported by institutions that understand their role in building public life. Historically Black colleges and universities like Huston-Tillotson University offer a powerful example. They are not elite pipelines disconnected from everyday life. They are rooted in community, oriented toward public leadership and shaped by a history of democratic struggle. They show what it looks like to educate for civic capacity — not just for upward mobility. They remind us that education is not only about what students know, but about who they become and what kind of world they are prepared to help shape. 

    Our national future depends on how well we prepare young people to take responsibility for shared institutions and pluralistic public life. This cannot be accomplished through content standards alone. It requires civic ecosystems designed to cultivate public authorship. 

    We have an enormous stake in preparing the next generation for the demands of democratic life. What kind of society are we preparing young people to lead? The answer will not come from any single institution. It will come from partnerships across sectors, aligned in purpose even if diverse in approach. 

    We are eager to collaborate with any organization — public, private or faith-based — committed to building the civic infrastructure that sustains our democracy. Wherever education takes place, civic formation must remain a central concern. 

    Robert Ceresa is the founding director of the Politics Lab of the James L. Farmer House, Huston-Tillotson University. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].  

    This story about civic education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • How We Think, How We Teach: Five Ways to Think About AI in Faculty Work – Faculty Focus

    How We Think, How We Teach: Five Ways to Think About AI in Faculty Work – Faculty Focus

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