When students of different years of study share a common class, their levels of experience and confidence differ. Students from lower years of study may hesitate to speak up in the presence of those in higher years, while more experienced students may contribute more freely. These dynamics are common and, if left unaddressed, can reinforce a power imbalance that discourages active learning.
The same challenge shows up at the start of a semester. When students meet a lecturer for the first time, the unfamiliarity often makes them cautious. Most hold back. It is not because they lack curiosity, but because they are unsure how their answers or questions will be received.
This hesitation can hold back meaningful participation. I have come to learn that all it takes is a simple, intentional tool to change the energy of a room and give every student the confidence to contribute.
One such tool that has had a lasting impact on my teaching is the “Parking Lot.”
Discovering the Parking Lot
The Parking Lot is a simple but powerful active-learning tool: a dedicated space, physical or digital, where students can “park” their questions, comments, or reflections for later discussion. This allows a session to keep its flow while assuring students that their contributions will be acknowledged.
I first encountered this tool during a two week professional development course on Competency-Based Education and Training (CBET) delivery organized by my university.
I left the training with many ideas for making my teaching more interactive, but the Parking Lot stayed with me as a practical, low-cost strategy I could implement immediately.
A few months later, in early September 2025, I have the privilege of leading an inaugural 40-Hour Mediation Training and Certification program, a capacity-building initiative for students and staff members.
As project lead, I handled admissions and could tell from the applications that we had a mix of students from different years and one staff member. I worried that students from lower years might hold back and that quieter voices might be lost. I wanted every participant to feel their questions, comments, and opinions mattered.
During the pre-training meeting, I asked the trainers if I could introduce the Parking Lot as a way to encourage engagement, and they graciously agreed.
Bringing the Parking Lot to Life
On the first day of the training, I wrote PARKING LOT on a manila sheet, taped it to the front wall near the exit, and placed sticky notes on each participant’s table. The trainers invited me to explain how it worked.
I explained the purpose of the parking lot and encouraged participants to write their questions on sticky notes at any point in the day, during sessions, breaks, or even early the next morning, if they were not ready to raise their hand.
The results were immediate and encouraging. By the end of the first day, the Parking Lot had several notes posted. The trainers reviewed and addressed them the following morning, and participants continued to engage with it throughout the week.
Some who started by writing anonymous notes eventually became confident enough to ask questions aloud. The trainers later confirmed that the Parking Lot had improved participation and enriched the discussions.
This success made me curious to see what would happen if I tried it in my regular semester classes, which were about to begin the following week.
Applying the Parking Lot in My Classes
It was my first class of the semester, and I wanted to set the tone for participation. I was teaching a fourth year second semester class on Alternative dispute Resolution.
This time, I didn’t use the Parking Lot just to collect questions — I used it to invite feedback and spark discussion.
The first question I asked was “What rules should govern our class this semester?” Students wrote their suggestions on sticky notes, and we created a “social contract” for the semester, another active learning technique I am experimenting with.
I read the suggestions aloud and asked students, “What does this rule mean for us as a class?” or “How might we apply this rule in practice?” Their answers led to rich discussion, and I saw the power of shared responsibility as play when we agreed on the class rules, their application and consequences for both the students and the teacher.
I then used the Parking Lot to ask questions to introduce the course I was teaching that semester: “What do you think is conflict?”, “What do you think is a dispute?”, “What is the difference?” Reading their answers helped me identify and gently correct misconceptions without putting anyone on the spot. The class became so interactive that students were surprised when time was up.
Motivated by the positive results, later that same day, I used the Parking Lot in my first-year, second-semester on Legal Research & Writing class.
I asked students to write down on the sticky notes why they chose to study law and what they hoped to do with their degree. I told them that their reasons could serve as a compass something to help them find direction, stay true to their path, and never lose sight of their reason for being in law school when the journey becomes challenging.
I read their answers aloud, offered encouragement, and connected their aspirations back to the course outcomes. For example, I reminded them that to become a defender of human rights, one must not only know how to find the correct law but also be capable of writing clearly and persuasively.
This exercise gave even the quietest students a voice and set a tone of openness and shared purpose for the rest of the semester.
Lessons Learned
In the three instances I have applied the Parking Lot with different groups of students, I have seen it:
Activate students’ thinking early as they process the material and reflect on what they are learning.
Open up discussion by creating a safe space where every student’s voice can be heard.
Reveal misconceptions and allow them to be addressed gently, without putting anyone on the spot.
Connect student contributions to learning outcomes, helping them see why what they wrote matters to the course.
Encourage students to take ownership of their learning, which builds confidence and keeps them engaged.
Create opportunities for mentorship, by affirming students’ ideas, encouraging them, and guiding them as they think about their future career paths.
Reflection
This experience brought me to the realization that innovation in teaching, even in public universities where resources are often limited, does not need complicated technology or big budgets.
A manila paper sheet, some sticky notes, and a willingness to listen can transform the classroom.
Most of all, this experience affirmed why I teach: to create spaces where every student, confident or quiet, can grow.
Seeing students engaged, sharing openly, and losing track of time because they are so absorbed in the conversation is one of the most rewarding experiences I can have as an educator.
What You Can Do Tomorrow
Bring a manila sheet and sticky notes to class, tape the sheet where students can see it as they leave, and invite them to post their questions, answers or reflections.
Review and address a few notes immediately or at the start of the next class. You may be surprised how quickly even the quietest students start to contribute.
J. Muthoni Mwangi, LL.B, PGDip Law, LL.M, is an Assistant Lecturer at JKUAT School of Law – Karen Campus, an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, an Associate Member of CIArb, and an Accredited Mediator with SDRC. She served as Project Lead for the inaugural JKUAT 40-Hour Mediation Training & Certification and is passionate about learner-cantered legal education, mentoring the next generation of mediators, and promoting access to justice.
As we learned from the former chief executive of UKRI, if you try to measure every single outcome, every pound spent, and direct every bit of the ecosystem toward something (whatever that something is) it’s possible to cause an enormous amount of damage. Get the input wrong, follow the wrong priority, or make a decision on a less than full picture amongst all of the complexities in an ecosystem and then enormous sums of money can be wasted.
The underlying assumption in the public theory of research is that directing research toward a clearer end is desirable, possible, and value for money. Intuitively this makes sense. The central feature of modern economic thought is that firms should specialise within a market. In doing so they develop expertise, market advantage, and the wider economy benefits from the most innovative and efficient firms. Market competition then dictates who gets to be the most profitable firms until new firms come along and old firms die through a process of creative destruction.
Advantages
In business R&D forms part of the critical advantage. In theory, the firms that can make the most use of the right R&D assets (tangible and intangible) should be the most innovative, secure the greatest market share, and then grow their profits. R&D spending has natural constraints within business. A defence firm is not going to spend money on research outside of defence any more than a carpenter is going to spend money on hypersonic missiles.
Universities do not face any such natural constraints. In fact, they have precisely the opposite incentive where to maximise income (not profitability) they should do as much research and research adjacent activity as possible. As long as a link between volume, income, and reputation exists, the rational seeking university should do as much as possible. As a secondary benefit is that it is also easier to tell staff, governments, funders, that universities will do more, not less.
The three major constraints in universities are capital, capacity (staff and facilities), and the direction of funding bodies. If the funding incentive is toward doing more then if the government wishes to introduce greater specialisation in the sector, as set out in the post-16 white paper, it must therefore introduce some new incentives. In particular, as purely from an incentive perspective, it makes very little difference to universities whether their research is economically useful or not.
The white paper sets out lots of things the government might do including moving teaching incentives through research, changing the REF, rewarding research potential, and encouraging universities to do fewer things better. Post white paper there have been two key research announcements that highlight the difficulty in setting out the right incentives. The funding allocations to UKRI which we will know more about in December and some mooted reforms of HEIF.
The reform of HEIF promises to introduce new accountability statements tied to a reform of the funding formula over the next few years. The first part of the reform is that universities will be expected to demonstrate how HEIF funding is contributing to economic growth amongst other goals. There is very little knowledge exchange activity where if you squint hard enough it does not contribute to economic growth. This isn’t a strong incentive but a useful nudge toward what universities should be doing. Over time, it is possible to see how the new methodology with a greater focus on causal links and inputs could lead to a different kind of HEIF.
Outcomes
If the HEIF is going to be “outcomes focussed” this implies that HEIF should be more actively driving university activity toward specialisation within a local, national, and regional context. This would align closely with the white paper but HEIf is only a small portion of the overall funding research mix. Should the government think there needs to be more economic-growth align university activity, and it thinks HEIF is a tool to do that, it should consider whether it can improve the HEIF incentives with greater funding.
The proof will be whether the changing accountability statements produce and new activity or whether universities simply account for their existing activity in a different way. Perhaps the more interesting reforms will come in 2027-28, at the earliest, where there will be a review to the funding formula to support contributions to economic growth.
It would be an error if this was carried out in isolation and not as part of a wider look at the incentives in research. HEIF cannot move the sector toward more useful economic research ends alone and nor will it change the underlying unit of resource which encourages universities to do everything all of a time. HEIF can be a message, a guide, a statement, but without shifting funding it will not be a bigger enough incentive to move the sector.
It would also be an error if HEIF’s accountability statements and any funding revisions flow to the same places to cover the same activity. Specialisation implies winners and losers but aggregate benefit across the sector and for the economy. The revision to funding formula could, for example, fund different kinds of economic activities differently, add regional multipliers, reward collaborations different, or any other number of useful economic objectives.
The challenge is that however the incentives are constructed they must be coherent with the wider direction of travel set out in the white paper. The opportunity is to use research funding to reward the places doing economically interesting things that aren’t always recognised in traditional research metrics.
When education leaders describe their institutions as being in “existential crisis” or on a “wartime footing,” you know that something important is happening.
A new report, “Securing educational excellence in higher education at a time of change,” from Wonkhe and Advance HE, based on roundtable discussions with 11 institutional leaders, 15 principal fellows of Advance HE, and three student representatives held in March 2025, explores institutional interpretation of and responses to change, and asks what measures should be taken to secure educational excellence for what could be quite a different future.
While institutions are understandably focused on managing their immediate pressures, with, in some cases, institutional survival at stake, sustainability means little without the long-term mission of inclusive, high-quality learning that prepares students for their future lives. While financial security would help, the changes higher education is navigating require a deeper consideration of how institutions make decisions, deploy expertise, and engage their communities.
The report maps four critical tensions that leaders are navigating across the political, economic, social and technological domains: public trust versus sector autonomy; public good versus private return on investment; traditional academic community versus new student models; pace of technological change versus institutional capacity. A fifth tension emerges from this complex environment: a need for distributed leadership that allows for a deep knowledge of the issues versus clear lines of accountability for decisions. These tensions play out daily in everything that higher education institutions do.
A wave of change
In the political dimension, higher education is implicated in broader losses of confidence in institutions. Though not technically public services, universities occupy a distinctive position in British civic life: historically connected to the state, still partly publicly funded, yet operating with considerable autonomy. That hybrid status leaves higher education uniquely vulnerable to simultaneous public and policymaker scrutiny.
Higher education institutions are not insulated from the broader political landscape. Student representatives in the research raised questions about institutional awareness: “Universities believe that students are exempt from the effects of public austerity…they believe we are creating a community of highly educated people, therefore they cannot fall for the tricks and stories that the media or certain political parties are trying to tell.”
The economic tension is similarly complex. Universities are expected to deliver public benefits without reliable public funding, creating what one participant called a “competing interest” space where higher education struggles for resources against health and compulsory education. Meanwhile, students increasingly question whether their investment yields genuine value. “Students are being taught how to meet learning objectives, but they’re not being taught how to transfer the skills that they get during their time at university, or sometimes it feels like they’re not even being taught the skills that they need just by meeting the learning objectives,” one student representative observed.
Principal fellows echoed some of this anxiety: “Students, particularly those from a widening participation background, can put generational money into getting an education which then doesn’t give them a job.” When the compact between investment and outcome seems to break down, trust may fracture, not just between students and institutions but also between society and the higher education project.
Socially, traditional higher education campus communities are under pressure, with students increasingly time-poor, working to afford their studies, and many commuting rather than living on campus. Participants observed that many students approach higher education more transactionally – not necessarily because they’re mercenary, but possibly because they’re exhausted. As one principal fellow observed, “student” seems to have shifted from being a core identity to something people do alongside other things.
Meanwhile, technology raises a host of strategic questions, not only in mustering the “right” response to generative AI but also in confronting how the pace of technological change reshapes the collective imaginary of how humans and machines interact in physical and digital spaces. This has implications for curriculum and pedagogy, equity and inclusion, and infrastructure and resources.
Staff communities appear to have fractured, too. Professional services are “somewhere else in the university,” quick informal conversations have disappeared, and academics feel “fed up and tired and exhausted.” One principal fellow described what they saw as a vicious cycle: “We do not have communities in our universities anymore, and that then impacts the students as well…we don’t have engagement from the students. But also we don’t have engagement from the academics, because they’re in a mood all the time.”
This fragmentation has strategic implications. When communities fragment, institutions may lose the collective capacity to sense problems, develop solutions, and sustain change. Everyone risks becoming reactive rather than proactive, protective rather than collaborative.
Change as a capability
Rather than seeking solutions or silver bullets, our conversations explored the institutional capabilities required to navigate these complex tensions and map out a sustainable way forward.
One key insight emerging was about the diversity and richness of knowledge and expertise held within institutions that may not be routinely accessed in efforts to think about the future. Small executive teams may struggle to retain a grip on every aspect of the changing landscape or simply become bogged down in maintaining the day-to-day flow of decisions that keep institutions running. Under this kind of pressure, it might not be surprising that, as one principal fellow put it, “Leaders often talk too much and listen too little.”
The report suggests leaders need to become curators of inclusive processes rather than authorities on every challenge. This would require the confidence to admit when situations are difficult and to seek help – a cultural shift that, if modelled from the top, could potentially reduce pressure on others to hide their struggles.
Student representatives echoed this sense that efforts to consult or engage, if not well conceived, can sometimes be more alienating than empowering. One student leader suggested involving students in shaping the collective understanding of problems from the beginning, at which their experience and knowledge are most likely to make a meaningful contribution, rather than asking student representatives to comment on pre-developed expert solutions. The same principle could apply to higher education staff and stakeholders.
There were also clear themes of the need for authenticity when professing an appetite for change and a pragmatic approach to resourcing it. Participants noted that institutions advertise for “innovators” and “change agents” but may not truly want them, or don’t adequately support them when they arrive. Change might require investment: stable contracts, professional development, and time for pedagogic innovation. “You can’t shift pedagogy if you don’t create time,” observed one principal fellow.
In the technological domain, where there may be a belief that the issues are fundamentally about resourcing and retaining technical expertise, part of the question has to be about how technology reshapes staff and student experience and sustains or fragments human connection. One principal fellow observed that higher education’s “killer service” might be personal connection, not consumer-grade content production in an attention economy. However, delivering that would require investing in people, not just platforms.
A question of purpose
Among education leaders, there was a real recognition that higher education staff are “the most precious resource,” as one put it. Yet the changing landscape for higher education seems to be broadening the range of possible purposes for higher education, along with the range of stakeholders who feel entitled to a view about what educational excellence looks like.
It is not hard to see how this changing dynamic can alienate academics working in disciplines who may perceive some of their core “knowledge stewardship” values and purposes as being under threat from political, economic, social, and technological changes in the external landscape driving different expectations of higher education.
With an unknowable future, the answer is less about seeking certainties to cling to as about finding collective ways to navigate uncertainty. That might open up some uncomfortable propositions: that higher education’s purpose itself may need rearticulating; that trade-offs between competing goods must be explicitly managed; that excellent pedagogy might require resource investment even when budgets are tight; and that sustainable change may emerge more from dialogue than from executive decision-making.
The full report repays careful reading, not just for its PEST analysis framework, which could help guide your own institutional conversations about change, but for the candour of participants grappling with genuine complexity. Higher education may face a “pivot point” – though the sector’s breadth, diversity, and expertise remain a considerable strength. Weathering the changes here right now and those on the horizon will depend to no small degree on institutional leadership capability to draw on that expertise to build a shared and collectively owned sense of educational excellence.
George Williams’ new essay surmises all the issues faced by the higher education sector. Picture: Newswire.
Universities are ‘friendless and alone’, Western Sydney University vice-chancellor George Williams explained in his new essay, that warns of the dangers of fading social license.
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Ian Oppermann is in charge of digital ID for the federal government and an Associate Industry Professor of engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney.
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Members of Gov. Josh Stein’s bipartisan Task Force on Child Care and Early Education got an update on licensed child care closures during their most recent meeting.
“Just in the month of August, we had more than twice as many programs close as open,” said Candace Witherspoon, director of the Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE).
Based on data provided by the N.C. Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) Council in partnership with DCDEE, EdNC previously found that North Carolina lost 5.8% of licensed child care programs during the five years when stabilization grants were used to supplement teacher wages.
That net loss has increased to 6.1% since the end of stabilization grants. Family child care homes (FCCHs) make up 97% of that net loss.
Trends among licensed centers and homes
Since February 2020, the last month of data before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of licensed FCCHs has decreased by 23%. The number of licensed child care centers has decreased by 0.3%.
The trend for licensed FCCHs since EdNC began tracking the data in June 2023 has been one of consistent net loss, decreasing each quarter.
Graphic by Katie Dukes/EdNC
There were 1,363 FCCHs in February 2020. That number was down to 1,096 in March 2025, the last data before the end of stabilization grants. Now there are 1,052 FCCHs across the state.
While licensed child care centers have also experienced a net loss since February 2020, the trend has been less linear.
Graphic by Katie Dukes/EdNC
There were 3,879 licensed centers in February 2020. When EdNC began tracking in June 2023, the number was slightly higher at 3,881. From then on it fluctuated, with net gains in some quarters and net losses in others. There are now 3,868 licensed centers statewide.
While the net loss of centers remains small, the effect of a single center closing is huge — especially in rural communities.
Families on Hatteras Island are learning this firsthand. The only licensed child care program on the island is scheduled to close at the end of the year. With no licensed FCCHs and no clear way to save the sole licensed center, families are trying to figure out how to keep their businesses open and remain in their communities without access to child care.
Access to high-quality, affordable early care and learning is crucial to child and family freedom and well-being. It enables parents to participate in the workforce or continue their education without concern for the safety of their children. It also puts North Carolina’s youngest residents on a path to future success.
Graphic by Lanie Sorrow
Trends among subgroups
In addition to monitoring overall licensed child care trends, EdNC zooms in on trends among three subgroups of counties each quarter.
In the counties that make up the area covered by the Dogwood Health Trust (Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, Transylvania, and Yancey), the number of licensed child care sites is 5% lower than before the pandemic. These counties had a net loss of eight programs from July through September 2025, the largest single-quarter decrease since EdNC began tracking.
In the majority-Black counties (Bertie, Edgecombe, Halifax, Hertford, Northampton, Vance, Warren, and Washington), the number of licensed child care sites remained relatively stable during and after the pandemic. But in the most recent quarter, these counties had a net loss of nine programs, putting them 4% lower than before the pandemic, a sudden and dramatic shift in circumstance. As with the Dogwood counties, this represents the largest single-quarter decrease since EdNC began tracking.
In Robeson and Swain, which both have large Indigenous populations, the number of licensed child care sites had also remained relatively stable during and after the pandemic. In the most recent quarter, for the first time since EdNC began tracking, the number of licensed child care programs in these counties has dipped just below pre-pandemic levels.
Editor’s note: The Dogwood Health Trust supports the work of EdNC.
His central charge is that I’m a misogynist. His evidence is that I use the word “hoeflation.” Using a term coined by others to describe a social trend does not mean I endorse it. Reporting or analyzing a phenomenon is not the same as condoning it.
In my essay, I wrote,
“And, unfortunately for men, dating algorithms concentrate attention on the top 10 percent—those deemed most attractive—rendering the majority effectively unseen. This imbalance has led young men to coin the term ‘hoeflation,’ the grind of chasing women they might barely fancy, but will date just to escape loneliness. (Young American men experience loneliness at rates far exceeding those of their counterparts across other developed countries.)”
This was an observation on what is being said among some young men. The term reflects a real cultural phenomenon: Many young men feel alienated from modern dating, seeing it as transactional, unequal or algorithmically stacked against them. It expresses their view that women’s expectations have risen out of reach.
Jared Gould is managing editor of Minding the Campus.
November 2, 2025, By Dean Hoke — When Sweet Briar College’s trustees voted to close in 2015, they framed the decision as a financial necessity. Alumnae mounted an extraordinary campaign—raising $28.5 million in 110 days—and, through a state-brokered settlement, the college reopened under new governance. By 2023, donors had contributed well over $133 million since the crisis. What looked like an inevitable failure became one of higher education’s most remarkable turnarounds.
Sweet Briar is not only a story of crisis response; it exposes a recurring miscalculation in today’s merger conversations: the assumption that boardroom consensus equals donor legitimacy. Trustees speak for donors in a fiduciary sense—they hold legal responsibility for institutional assets—but not in the communal sense that captures sentiment, legacy, and trust. When colleges announce merger talks, headlines dwell on enrollment curves and debt ratios. Yet behind every deal stands a quieter, decisive constituency: major donors, family foundations, and planned-giving benefactors whose confidence (or loss of it) can determine whether the combined institution thrives—or limps forward under the weight of broken relationships.
This article reframes mergers as philanthropic integration projects. The legal mechanics matter, but durable success is won in the design phase: early engagement with philanthropic stakeholders, explicit safeguards for identity and donor intent, transparent transition planning, and a mission-first case that invites continued—and new—investment. When leaders bring donors and alumni into the architecture of the merger rather than the press release, they convert anxiety into commitment and preserve the institutional DNA that constituents care about most.
We’ll see this principle in contrasting cases: mission-advancing acquisitions that attracted significant philanthropic support, integrations that prioritized identity and donor intent from the outset, and lessons from failed or contested processes. The throughline is simple: treat philanthropy as a core workstream—not an afterthought—and the odds of a credible, sustainable merger rise dramatically.
The stakes have never been higher. Survey data from Ruffalo Noel Levitz’s 2025 National Alumni Survey, which surveyed more than 50,000 alumni, reveals that donor relationships with higher education are already strained. While 81% of alumni report that being philanthropic is important to them personally and 77% make charitable donations, their connection to their alma mater has weakened dramatically. Only 31% of alumni who donate to any charity gave to their alma mater last year, dropping to just 19% among Millennials and 10% among Gen Z graduates.
Even more troubling: 59% of alumni who never donate to their alma mater actively support other causes, as do 83% of lapsed donors. They have not stopped giving—they have simply redirected their philanthropy elsewhere. This suggests that alumni disengagement reflects institutional failure rather than generational selfishness.
Satisfaction drives everything. Alumni who report being ‘very satisfied’ with their student experience are 18 times more likely to donate than neutral respondents and 73 times more likely than dissatisfied graduates. Yet only 42% of Gen Z alumni report feeling ‘very satisfied’ with their experience, compared to 72% of Silent Generation graduates.
Mergers test already-fragile relationships. When institutions announce consolidation, donors who felt lukewarm about their undergraduate experience see confirmation that their alma mater is failing. A merger framed solely as a financial necessity will not inspire them. But a merger presented as advancing mission-driven impact—expanding access, strengthening programs that address social challenges, or preserving an educational model under threat—can mobilize support from the very alumni who have drifted away.
As Millett (1976) noted, successful integrations often ‘show structure, not just sentiment’—for example, Case Western Reserve kept a distinct Case Institute identity, and Carnegie Mellon created a Carnegie Institute of Engineering and a Mellon Institute of Science to carry legacies forward.
A half-century ago, John D. Millett’s 1976 analysis of U.S. college mergers examined a range of cases—from research institutes to liberal arts colleges—and distilled lessons that remain strikingly current. Four observations deserve renewed attention today:
1. Endowments transfer; relationships do not. In many mergers, endowments and restricted funds move to successor institutions through standard legal pathways. The mechanics are manageable. The harder work is relational: ensuring donors can see how their original intent will be honored in the new configuration, and that the program or ethos they loved will not be erased.
2. Alumni skepticism is predictable—and manageable. Leaders should not assume alumni approval, especially when the smaller institution is absorbed. Visible steps to cultivate and retain legacy alumni—keeping familiar staff contacts for a transitional period, acknowledging a distinct identity, and offering tangible ways to shape the merged future—go a long way.
3. Governance approval is not donor legitimacy. Even when boards vote, state bodies concur, and presidents sign, philanthropic legitimacy remains a separate test. Communities expect to be consulted; they often oppose mergers if they learn about them too late. Participation must be planned early, not added later.
4. Language and structure matter more than sentiment. Labels and explanations—federation versus absorption, mission expansion versus rescue—shape how alumni and donors interpret the outcome. Leaders who explain clear educational benefits and who visibly protect identity through formal structures earn trust faster.
Historical Examples: Structure, Not Just Sentiment
After the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University merger, the successor Case Western Reserve University continued the designation of Case Institute of Technology as an organizational component. At Carnegie Mellon University, leaders created a Carnegie Institute of Engineering and a Mellon Institute of Science—formal structures that carried legacy identities forward within the new entity.
The Bellarmine-Ursuline (Louisville) merger (1968-1971) offers another instructive example. The combined institution briefly used the Bellarmine-Ursuline name before reverting to Bellarmine College in 1971, but Bellarmine has continued to honor Ursuline identity through durable structures—explicitly including Ursuline alumnae in alumni awards and honors and recognizing the Ursuline legacy through commemorations and alumni programming. These are structural signals that preserve identity even when the combined name does not persist.
Millett also notes that successor institutions often made special effort to cultivate and retain alumni of the absorbed college, including keeping an alumni-relations officer from the legacy institution and providing a special alumni designation or status—practical ways to keep traditions and community intact during transition.
Crisis-Reactive: What Not to Do
Planning is done privately, the announcement is abrupt, and donors are asked to accept a fait accompli. Mills College’s merger with Northeastern University proceeded despite alumni resistance, prompting legal challenges over donor intent. The Alumnae Association spent hundreds of thousands in legal fees opposing the merger, and a class action lawsuit resulted in a $1.25 million settlement. The litigation divided alumnae and consumed resources that could have been invested in the merged institution’s success.
Even when the legal mechanics are sound, the community verdict is that identity has been erased. The result: backlash, donor-intent disputes, and years of costly trust repair.
Compliance-Only: Necessary but Insufficient
Teams carefully inventory restricted funds, ensure transfers align with donor intent, and communicate the basics. This prevents disasters but rarely generates enthusiasm or new investment. Survey data reveals that 70% of alumni need to believe their gift amount matters, and 66% rate the ability to see how their gift is used as critical. When a college merges, donors worry their legacy has been erased—regardless of legal assurances that funds will be protected.
The compliance model maintains existing donors but does not mobilize new support for the merged institution’s expanded mission. The message is ‘We will comply,’ not ‘Here is a better future you can help build.’
Strategic Partnership: The Target State
Donors and foundations are treated as co-creators from Day 0. Leaders conduct quiet briefings with major benefactors pre-announcement, frame the merger as mission expansion, and embed structural commitments to legacy preservation. This model doesn’t eliminate hard feelings, but it channels energy toward shared outcomes.
Delaware State University–Wesley College (2020–21). DSU—an HBCU—acquired Wesley and framed the move as mission advancement, launching the Wesley College of Health & Behavioral Sciences to expand pathways in nursing and allied health for underserved students. Financing combined philanthropy and prudence: a $20M unrestricted gift from MacKenzie Scott (with a portion—reported as roughly one-third of the $15M total—applied to transition costs) and a $1M Longwood Foundation grant for the acquisition. The case shows how a mission-first narrative can catalyze major-donor and foundation support.
By tying dollars to a new health‑workforce pipeline—rather than balance‑sheet triage—leaders converted donor anxiety into visible, restricted impact.
Ursuline College–Gannon University (ongoing). From the outset, both institutions engaged stakeholders publicly and affirmed philanthropy principles: “Honoring donor intent is important to Gannon University,” and donors will be able to designate gifts to the Pepper Pike campus. Ursuline will retain its identity as the Ursuline College Campus of Gannon University after the transition, and the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland have voiced support for the merger—signals aimed at preserving community trust and legacy while the integration proceeds through 2026. These commitments, paired with the HLC’s Change-of-Control approval, frame the merger as continuity-minded rather than absorptive.
University of Tennessee Southern (formerly Martin Methodist College).
University of Tennessee Southern (formerly Martin Methodist College) When Martin Methodist joined the University of Tennessee System in 2021, leaders prioritized transparent, compassionate communication—“a liminal space” requiring a strong plan, as President Mark La Branche put it. They also set aside portions of the legacy endowment (via the Martin Methodist College Foundation) to protect signature programs, showing that integration need not erase institutional identity.
Public commitments to donor intent and the campus naming convention did early legitimacy work that legal filings can’t.
When a stronger institution absorbs a struggling one, leaders often assume donor concerns belong primarily to the acquired institution. This is a strategic error. The acquiring institution’s donors also have a stake in the outcome—and their continued support is essential to merger success.
Major donors to the acquiring institution may question why resources should be directed toward absorbing another college. They may worry that the acquired institution’s struggles will tarnish their alma mater’s reputation, or that merger costs will compete with planned campus improvements. These concerns are legitimate and require proactive engagement.
Frame the Merger as a Strategic Opportunity
The narrative for acquiring institution donors must emphasize strategic opportunity rather than charitable rescue. Several frames can be effective:
Geographic expansion: The merger creates a presence in a new market, expanding the institution’s reach and visibility.
Program complementarity: The acquired institution brings academic strengths that fill gaps in the acquiring institution’s portfolio.
Mission advancement: The merger expands capacity to serve students and fulfill the educational mission on a greater scale.
Competitive positioning: In an era of consolidation, the merger strengthens the institution’s competitive position and long-term sustainability.
Rather than waiting for resistance to emerge, acquiring institution leaders should brief major donors before public announcement. These confidential conversations acknowledge donors’ legitimate interest in institutional strategy, allow leaders to address concerns directly, and create opportunities for donors to become merger advocates.
Legal clarity: When restricted funds cannot be used as originally intended post‑merger, pursue a cy‑près modification early—advancement and counsel should partner on donor communication before any filing to preserve trust.
You can brief a small set of major donors pre‑announcement under strict NDAs without privileging them over faculty governance or regulators. Use a defined rubric for who is briefed (e.g., top 10% of lifetime commitments and active pledgors), disclose no nonpublic counterparties’ terms, and limit to mission rationale, identity safeguards, and timeline. Record each briefing in counsel’s log.
Before Announcement (Day 0 Work)
Philanthropic due diligence—parallel to financial. Inventory endowed and restricted funds, bequests in the pipeline, and active foundation grants. Identify potential cy-près risks and draft stewardship language now. Treat this as a distinct workstream with advancement, finance, and counsel at the table from the start.
Quiet briefings with top donors and foundations on both sides. Under confidentiality, preview the rationale, surface donor-intent questions, and invite advice. Ask for early champions willing to speak publicly when the time comes.
Identity protections by design, not promise. Prepare a naming plan (e.g., ‘[Legacy] College at [Acquirer]’), preserve scholarship and reporting lines, and keep alumni-relations continuity for 12-24 months. Publish a short ‘Identity & Intent’ brief on day one that shows, in plain language, how donor purposes are carried forward.
At Announcement
Mission-driven case for support. Lead with the educational value only possible together: new academic pathways, access expansions, regional partnerships, research synergies. Avoid rescue framing. Make the case specific and concrete, tied to programs and outcomes donors care about.
Dedicated ‘Legacy to Impact’ funds with challenge matches. Create visible vehicles that convert anxiety into investment—restricted funds for scholarships, program launches, and student success tied to the integrated entity.
Community-benefit specificity. Spell out local benefits and stakeholder wins (clinics, teacher pipelines, innovation hubs). When people can ‘see’ the upside, they are likelier to invest in it.
First 12-24 Months
Quarterly transparency. Report enrollment in merged programs, first scholarship cohorts, renewed or new foundation grants, and capital milestones. Transparency reduces rumors and builds credibility.
Recognition symmetry. Offer parity for legacy and acquirer donors—naming walls, digital honor rolls, endowed-fund dashboards, and joint stewardship events.
Two-sided cultivation. Brief the acquirer’s major donors so they see strategic growth rather than a charitable drain. Ask two or three to seed a matching pool restricted to merger priorities; matches signal confidence and reduce perceived risk.
Because reliable analytics on donor behavior in mergers are sparse, leaders should build their own lightweight evidence base. For each merger, track three years pre- and post-integration for: total private support; alumni participation (where available); number of $1M+ gifts; and the mix of restricted versus unrestricted giving.
Pair quantitative metrics with a qualitative log: Was identity preserved in naming? Did a Legacy Alumni structure exist? Were there donor-intent disputes? Did the acquirer launch dedicated legacy funds? How soon were KPIs reported?
Even a simple dashboard, updated quarterly, changes the conversation with trustees and donors. It shows momentum (or lack thereof), prompts targeted stewardship, and gives leaders permission to make mid-course corrections. It also validates the core claim of this article: philanthropy works best when it is built into planning, not bolted on after the fact.
The most fundamental error in merger planning is treating donors as communications targets rather than strategic partners. Donors are not merely sources of revenue to be managed; they are partners whose investments reflect belief in institutional mission and values.
Mergers that succeed treat donors, foundations, and alumni as planning inputs, not a downstream audience for PR. Millett’s 1976 study reminds us that while the legal mechanics of endowment transfers are straightforward, the human mechanics are not. Alumni skepticism is predictable; identity needs visible protection through formal structures, not just promises; language and framing carry unusual weight.
When leaders internalize those lessons—and create structures that honor donor intent, invite co-creation, and make the mission upside measurable—legacy becomes leverage rather than liability. Higher education’s financial pressures are real, but so is the reservoir of goodwill that donors and alumni hold for institutions that respect them.
The Sweet Briar alumnae who raised $133 million did not do so because they were told the college would comply with donor intent. They did so because they were invited to co-create a future worth investing in. That is the lesson for every merger: bring philanthropic stakeholders into the room early, build identity protections into the design, launch vehicles that convert anxiety into investment, and report steadily and transparently on what their support makes possible.
That is how two proud legacies become one stronger future—and how the ‘silent stakeholders’ find their voice in shaping it.
Sources (selected): institutional FAQs and press releases (Ursuline–Gannon; DSU–Wesley; UT Southern), RNL Alumni Giving Data 2025 (for participation/attitudes), and Millett, J.D. (1976) ED134105 on college mergers.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy. He formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). Dean has worked with higher education institutions worldwide. With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on colleges’ challenges and opportunities. Dean is the Executive Producer and co-host for the podcast series Small College America.
Dr. Christopher Reber, President of Hudson County Community College, with staff, faculty and students from his college.HACUThe Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) launched its 39th Annual Conference on Saturday, bringing together more than 1,600 education leaders, advocates, and students under the theme “Championing Hispanic Higher Education Success: Forging Transformational Leaders to Uplift Democracy and Prosperity.”
The three-day gathering in Aurora, Colorado, opened with a sense of urgency as attendees acknowledged both the progress made in Hispanic higher education and the mounting challenges facing students and institutions.
“The attacks on immigrants and higher education by the Trump administration is reason for why we need organizations like HACU to stand up for students like me,” said Maria Valasquez, 21, a college junior who attended the conference for the first time. “The threats are real and these are scary times for many first-generation college students.”
The conference began with four specialized pre-conference events on October 31 and November 1, drawing approximately 200 participants total. These included the 14th Annual Deans’ Forum, focused on “Shaping Visionary Leaders for a Thriving and Democratic Future”; the Third Women’s Leadership Symposium; the 24th Annual Latino Higher Education Leadership Institute, themed “Building Transformational Leaders at All Levels to Strengthen Democracy and Prosperity”; and the 11th Annual PreK-12/Higher Education Collaboration Symposium, addressing “Bridging Education for Lifelong Success: Innovation, Collaboration, and Life Readiness.”
The main conference kicked off with an Opening Plenary convened by Dr. Juan Sanchez Muñoz, HACU’s Governing Board chair and chancellor of the University of California, Merced. HACU Interim CEO Dr. John Moder delivered the Annual Address, followed by the induction of Dr. Félix V. Matos Rodriguez, chancellor of The City University of New York, into HACU’s Hall of Champions 2025.
Dr. Mordecai Brownlee, President of The Community College of Aurora, and Dr. Christopher Reber, President of Hudson County Community College at the HACU conference.Corporate and nonprofit partners reaffirmed their commitment to Hispanic student success. Maria Pia Tamburri, Dominion Energy’s vice president of intergovernmental affairs and economic development; Audrey Stewart, Google’s global head of impact and reporting; and Francesca Martinez, the American Heart Association’s national director of the Bernard J. Tyson Office of Health, delivered remarks on behalf of their organizations. Capital One was also recognized for its support.
A regional focus emerged through the Illinois Hispanic-Serving Institution Summit, also held November 1. After welcoming remarks from Moder and virtual comments from Illinois State Representative La Shawn Ford, a panel discussion addressed the midwestern region’s legislative agenda. The panel featured Dr. Susana Rivera-Mills, president of Aurora University; Dr. Lisa Freeman, president of Northern Illinois University; and Juan Salgado, chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago.
The summit provided a platform for discussing HACU’s policy and legislative priorities in Illinois, including the critical role college and university presidents play in advancing and sustaining Hispanic-Serving Institutions across the state. Participants shared promising practices and explored collaborative approaches to strengthen institutional capacity.
Seven honorees are being recognized throughout the conference for their contributions to improving opportunities for college students, with awards presented during various events over the three days.
“As a president of a Hispanic-Serving Institution and member of HACU’s Board of Directors, I witness firsthand how these colleges and universities transform lives, strengthen families, and fortify our economy,” said Dr. Mordecai I. Brownlee, President of The Community College of Aurora. “The mission of HACU is not a moment — it’s a movement. Despite the challenges of our times, our collective commitment to equity, opportunity, and excellence is just getting started.”
In an interview, Brownlee said that Hispanic-Serving Institutions are not just essential to higher education — they are essential to America’s economic growth and democratic future.
“By investing in HSIs, our nation invests in innovation, workforce readiness, and prosperity for all,” he said. “The mission of HACU is not simply about serving Hispanic students; it’s about strengthening the very foundation of America’s competitiveness and civic vitality.”
The conference continues through November 3, as higher education leaders work to chart a path forward for Hispanic student success amid an increasingly complex political landscape.
