Tag: Defining

  • Better Defining and Measuring Higher Ed’s Value

    Better Defining and Measuring Higher Ed’s Value

    News this month that a group of stakeholders convened by the U.S. Education Department agreed on a new federal approach to assessing colleges offered fresh evidence that we as a country have decided to judge the value of higher education based primarily on students’ economic outcomes.

    The mechanism approved by the federal negotiating panel will set minimum earnings thresholds for graduates of academic programs at all colleges and universities; programs that fail to hit the mark will lose federal loan access or even Pell Grant funds, depending on how widespread the failure is.

    Building a new government accountability scheme around postcollege economic outcomes makes sense: Ensuring that learners come out of their educational experience better off financially than they would have been otherwise is a logical minimum requirement.

    But it reflects a larger problem, which is that we don’t have good ways of defining, let alone measuring, what quality or success look like in postsecondary education. And those of us who believe in higher education have erred badly by letting politicians and critics judge it exclusively by a narrow economic outcome like postgraduation salary.

    Most importantly, we’ve never come close to being able to measure learning—how much students cognitively gain from a course of study or academic experience. What a game changer it would be if we could—we’d really know which institutions actually help their learners grow the most. (I suspect such a measurement would upend our thinking about which colleges and universities are “the best,” and that part of why we haven’t ever solved this problem is because it wouldn’t be in the interest of the institutions that are most esteemed now.)

    Instead we look for proxies, and as our ability to track people’s movements between education and work has improved, we’ve focused on postcollege economic outcomes as our primary (if not exclusive) way of judging whether institutions serve learners well.

    That’s logical in many ways:

    1. Most learners cite career success as their top reason for pursuing postsecondary education and training,
    2. Federal and state governments invest in higher education in large part because of the institutions’ economic contributions, and
    3. It’s comparatively easy. We can’t expect politicians with limited understanding and expertise to develop sophisticated accountability systems.

    But overdependence on postcollege economic outcomes to judge higher education’s success and value ignores the full range of benefits that colleges and universities purport to deliver for individuals and for society collectively. It also has a range of potential unintended consequences, including deterring students from entering fields that don’t pay well (and institutions from supporting those fields).

    Many academic leaders hoped that if they ignored calls for accountability, the demands would fade. But in that vacuum, we ended up with limited, flawed tools for assessing the industry’s performance.

    The resulting loss of public confidence has damaged higher education, and turning that tide won’t be easy. But it’s not too late—if college leaders take seriously their need to marshal proof (not just words) that their institutions are delivering on what they promise.

    What would that look like? College leaders need to collectively define for themselves and for the public how their institutions are willing to be held accountable for what they say they do for learners and for the public good.

    This needs to be a serious attempt to say (1) this is what we purport to provide to individuals and to society, (2) this is how we will gauge success in achieving those goals, and (3) we commit to publicly reporting on our progress.

    Pushback against this sort of measurement and accountability (excluding those who simply don’t believe colleges should have to prove themselves, who at this point must be ignored) tends to focus on two reasonable complications: (a) different types of institutions do different things and have differing missions, and (b) some of what colleges and universities do can be difficult (and perhaps impossible) to measure.

    On argument (a), it’s certainly true that any effort to compare the full contributions of major research universities and of community colleges, for example, would need to focus on different things. The research university indicators might account for how many inventions their scientists have developed and how many graduate students they train; the community college indicators might include reskilling of unemployed workers and ESL classes for new immigrants preparing to become citizens.

    But in their core functioning focused on undergraduate learners, most colleges do pretty much the same thing: try to help them achieve their educational goals, including a mix of the practical (developing knowledge, skills and preparation for work), the personal (intellectual and personal growth), and the collective (contributions to society, including being engaged participants in communities and society).

    And on critique (b), yes, it’s true that some of what colleges and universities say they do may be hard to measure. But have we really tried? There are lots of big brains on college and university campuses: Couldn’t a working group find ways to quantify whether or not participation in a postsecondary course of study produces people with greater intercultural understanding or empathy? Or that they are more likely to donate to charity or to vote in national elections?

    The goal of this initiative would be to develop (through the collective participation of a diverse group of institutional and other stakeholders, through an existing association or a new coalition of the willing created expressly for this purpose) a broadly framed but very specific menu of indicators that would present a fuller picture of whether colleges and universities are delivering on the promises they make to students and to society more broadly. Ideally we’d generate institution-level data that would scaffold up to an industrywide portrait.

    The information would almost certainly give college leaders fodder to make a better public case about what their institutions already do well. But it would just as likely also reveal areas where the institutions fall short of what they say in their mission statements and where they collectively need to improve, and provide a scorecard of sorts to show progress over time.

    At the core, it would give them a way of showing, to themselves and to their critics, that they are willing to look at their own performance and prove their value, rather than just asserting it as they have arrogantly done for a long time. Colleges and universities would get public credit for being willing to hold themselves accountable.

    What would we want to measure, and how would we do so? Smarter people than me would need to help answer those questions, but possible areas of exploration include the following, based on ground laid over the years by the Gates Foundation’s Postsecondary Value Commission, Lumina and Gallup in a 2023 report, and others.

    Economic indicators might include:

    • Lifetime earnings
    • Employment and unemployment rates/job placement in desired field
    • Return on investment (comparing learners’ spending on their education with their lifetime earnings)
    • Social mobility (Do colleges help people advance up the economic ladder? Can we update the 2017 Chetty data to become a regular part of the landscape?)
    • Debt repayment

    Noneconomic indicators might include:

    • Employer alignment (Do higher education programs help students develop the skills and knowledge employers demand—technical skills like AI readiness and “human skills” such as critical thinking, problem-solving and creativity?)
    • Civic and democratic engagement (voting rates, charitable contributions)
    • Empathy and social cohesion (Does going to college make us more empathetic? More inclined to understand those who are different? Less racist?)
    • Health and emotional well-being/happiness (Surely with all the health data out there, one might be able to document some correlation, if not causation?)
    • Intercultural/global understanding

    Most of the indicators above would gauge contributions to individuals, rather than to society as a whole (though obviously some accrue to society). Those who believe we’ve stopped viewing higher education as a public good might argue for trying to measure the contributions institutions make to local and national economies (through their research, role as employers. etc.), as community anchors (medically, culturally, spiritually), and the like.

    Higher education has serious work to do to earn back the American public’s trust and confidence. Argumentation won’t suffice. I recognize that it may be hard to find (or develop) tangible information to build a data-based case that colleges and universities do what they say they do in their mission statements and promotional brochures.

    But could it hurt to try? What we’re doing now isn’t working.

    Doug Lederman was editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed from 2004 through 2024. He is now principal of Lederman Advisory Services.

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  • Instead of defining Black children by their test scores, we should help them overcome academic barriers and pursue their dreams

    Instead of defining Black children by their test scores, we should help them overcome academic barriers and pursue their dreams

    by Nosakhere Griffin-EL, The Hechinger Report
    January 5, 2026

    Across the U.S., public school districts are panicking over test scores.

    The National Assessment of Educational Progress, or the Nation’s Report Card, as it is known, revealed that students are underperforming in reading, with the most recent scores being the lowest overall since the test was first given in 1992.

    The latest scores for Black children have been especially low. In Pittsburgh, for example, only 26 percent of Black third- through fifth-grade public school students are reading at advanced or proficient levels compared to 67 percent of white children.

    This opportunity gap should challenge us to think differently about how we educate Black children. Too often, Black children are labeled as needing “skills development.” The problem is that such labels lead to educational practices that dim their curiosity and enthusiasm for school — and overlook their capacity to actually enjoy learning.

    As a result, without that enjoyment and the encouragement that often accompanies it, too many Black students grow up never feeling supported in the pursuit of their dreams.

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

    Narrowly defining children based on their test scores is a big mistake. We, as educators, must see children as advanced dreamers who have the potential to overcome any academic barrier with our support and encouragement.

    As a co-founder of a bookstore, I believe there are many ways we can do better. I often use books and personal experiences to illustrate some of the pressing problems impacting Black children and families.

    One of my favorites is “Abdul’s Story” by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow.

    It tells the tale of a gifted young Black boy who is embarrassed by his messy handwriting and frequent misspellings, so much so that, in erasing his mistakes, he gouges a hole in his paper.

    He tries to hide it under his desk. Instead of chastening him, his teacher, Mr. Muhammad, does something powerful: He sits beside Abdul under the desk.

    Mr. Muhammad shows his own messy notebook to Abdul, who realizes “He’s messy just like me.”

    In that moment, Abdul learns that his dream of becoming a writer is possible; he just has to work in a way that suits his learning style. But he also needs an educator who supports him along the way.

    It is something I understand: In my own life, I have been both Abdul and Mr. Muhammad, and it was a teacher named Mrs. Lee who changed my life.

    One day after I got into a fight, she pulled me out of the classroom and said, “I am not going to let you fail.” At that point, I was consistently performing at or below basic in reading and writing, but she didn’t define me by my test scores.

    Instead, she asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

    I replied, “I want to be like Bryant Gumbel.”

    She asked why.

    “Because he’s smart and he always interviews famous people and presidents,” I said.

    Mrs. Lee explained that Mr. Gumbel was a journalist and encouraged me to start a school newspaper.

    So I did. I interviewed people and wrote articles, revising them until they were ready for publication. I did it because Mrs. Lee believed in me and saw me for who I wanted to be — not just my test scores.

    If more teachers across the country were like Mrs. Lee and Mr. Muhammad, more Black children would develop the confidence to pursue their dreams. Black children would realize that even if they have to work harder to acquire certain skills, doing so can help them accomplish their dreams.

    Related: Taking on racial bias in early math lessons

    Years ago, I organized a reading tour in four libraries across the city of Pittsburgh. At that time, I was a volunteer at the Carnegie Library, connecting book reading to children’s dreams.

    I remember working with a young Black boy who was playing video games on the computer with his friends. I asked him if he wanted to read, and he shook his head no.

    So I asked, “Who wants to build the city of the future?” and he raised his hand.

    He and I walked over to a table and began building with magnetic tiles. As we began building, I asked the same question Mrs. Lee had asked me: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

    “An architect,” he replied.

    I jumped up and grabbed a picture book about Frank Lloyd Wright. We began reading the book, and I noticed that he struggled to pronounce many of the words. I supported him, and we got through it. I later wrote about it.

    Each week after that experience, this young man would come up to me ready to read about his dream. He did so because I saw him just as Mr. Muhammad saw Abdul, and just like Mrs. Lee saw me — as an advanced dreamer.

    Consider that when inventor Lonnie Johnson was a kid, he took a test and the results declared that he could not be an engineer. Imagine if he’d accepted that fate. Kids around the world would not have the joy of playing with the Super Soaker water gun.

    When the architect Phil Freelon was a kid, he struggled with reading. If he had given up, the world would not have experienced the beauty and splendor of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

    When illustrator Jerry Pinkney was a kid, he struggled with reading just like Freelon. If he had defined himself as “basic” and “below average,” children across America would not have been inspired by his powerful picture book illustrations.

    Narrowly defining children based on their test scores is a big mistake.

    Each child is a solution to a problem in the world, whether it is big or small. So let us create conditions that inspire Black children to walk boldly in the pursuit of their dreams.

    Nosakhere Griffin-EL is the co-founder of The Young Dreamers’ Bookstore. He is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about Black children and education was produced byThe Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’sweekly newsletter.

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  • Defining quality is a thorny problem, but we shouldn’t shy away from the Government’s intention to make sure every student gets the best deal

    Defining quality is a thorny problem, but we shouldn’t shy away from the Government’s intention to make sure every student gets the best deal

    Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key questions.

    This blog is kindly authored by Meg Haskins, Policy Manager at the Russell Group.

    You can read HEPI’s other blog on the current OfS consultation here and here.

    Quality is one of the most frequently used, yet least clearly defined, concepts in higher education. For decades, debates have rumbled on about how best to measure it, and yet the term continues to be used liberally and often vaguely. From university marketing promising a “high-quality student experience” to political critiques of so-called “Mickey Mouse courses,” the term is everywhere – but its precise meaning remains elusive.

    Quality matters: to students making significant financial and personal investments; to staff who take pride in their teaching and research; to funders and policymakers; and to the UK’s global reputation. If we’re asking students to take out significant loans and trust that higher education will act as a springboard into their futures, we must not only deliver quality but also demonstrate it clearly, transparently and in ways that support ongoing improvement.

    The OfS consultation is the sector’s golden opportunity to define how this is done.

    The Russell Group supports a more integrated and streamlined quality assessment system – one that reduces duplication, improves clarity and actively supports efforts to enhance quality further. But integration must not come at the expense of flexibility within the model. The system needs to make space for narrative contextualisation rather than reductive judgements.

    Heavy reliance on benchmarking is particularly concerning. It risks disadvantaging institutions with a historically strong absolute performance and limiting meaningful differentiation. To ensure fairness, absolute values must carry greater weight, and there should be transparency on benchmark thresholds and definitions of “material” deviation, especially outcomes which will have regulatory and funding consequences.

    So far, ministers have been light on detail about what change they’re actually expecting to see on quality assurance. Ideas of linking quality measures to recruitment numbers or fee levels have caused concern, which is understandable given that the system for measuring quality is untested. But we shouldn’t fear greater scrutiny. Students, taxpayers and the public deserve clarity about what quality looks like in real terms – and reassurance that it is being delivered at a high level and consistently.

    Demonstrating quality is something Russell Group universities have always taken seriously, and is now under increasing public scrutiny in the face of rhetoric from certain political quarters about “rip-off degrees”. As such, our universities have taken steps to measure and robustly evidence the quality of our provision. Beyond regulatory metrics, graduate outcomes surveys, the TEF and professional body accreditations, our universities embed quality assurance through multiple levels of governance, including academic boards and senates, independent audits, annual and periodic module and programme reviews, and student feedback mechanisms. This has led to continuous improvement and enhancement of quality at our universities, reflected in the strength of their outcomes.

    Crucially, high quality is not about selectivity or league tables. The Secretary of State is rightly clear in her ambition for all young people to have a wide range of excellent options across different institutions, levels and qualification types. But this choice needs to go hand-in-hand with quality, which is why we need baseline expectations across all institutions and swift regulatory action where these standards aren’t met.

    If the sector embraces greater scrutiny in this way, then metrics must be robust, transparent and fair. Streamlining and clarifying processes should reduce duplication and burden, while maintaining a strong focus on enhancement.

    The regulator has both carrots and sticks at its disposal. While it is positive to see an intention to reward high-quality provision, benchmarking that obscures excellence could inadvertently punish those delivering the strongest outcomes – surely not the government’s intention.

    Particularly worrying is the idea that the OfS could start deriving overall ratings from a lower individual aspect rating. This compresses results and risks obscuring examples of high-quality provision, adding little value for students. Even more concerning is the proposal to reclassify the Bronze ratings as a trigger for regulatory intervention. This could redefine the baseline for compliance as a form of failure in quality, and blur the line between judgements of excellence and regulatory compliance – a muddled message for providers and confusing for students.

    Ultimately, the goal must be a more outward-facing quality model – one that strengthens public and ministerial trust, reinforces the UK’s global credibility, and upholds the reputation for excellence that underpins our higher education sector.

    By positioning higher tuition fees as one side of a “deal,” the Government is challenging the sector to demonstrate, clearly and confidently, that students are receiving both a high-quality experience and high-quality outcomes in return. That deal will only be credible if quality is defined fairly, measured transparently, and assessed in ways that support enhancement as well as accountability.

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  • A Defining Choice for Higher Ed (opinion)

    A Defining Choice for Higher Ed (opinion)

    Ask people at Columbia, Harvard or UCLA how things are going for higher education, and they might rightly say that things are quite dismal. Those places have been early targets in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to bring colleges and universities to heel.

    Funding cutoffs, intrusive demands for data and investigations have made life pretty difficult for those universities and some others. In addition, they have had to confront the excruciating choice of whether to defy the administration’s demands or try to reach a settlement.

    At Columbia, Harvard and UCLA, budgets have been squeezed. Uncomfortable adjustments have been made. Reputations and careers have been damaged or ruined.

    While some college presidents have publicly condemned what the administration has been doing, many other college and university leaders have tried to keep their heads down, to say nothing or do nothing to join with and support places that have been prominent on the administration’s hit list. But the days of duck and cover in American higher education may be coming to a close.

    On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the administration was considering a new strategy in its dealings with colleges and universities. The plan is to change the way the federal government awards research grants, “giving a competitive advantage to schools that pledge to adhere to the values and policies of the Trump administration on admissions, hiring and other matters.”

    Then, on Wednesday, the administration sent letters to nine universities asking them to sign a 10-page “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” In exchange for getting preferential treatment for federal funds, among other benefits, colleges would agree “to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender.” They also must, per The New York Times, “change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would ‘punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.’”

    The “Compact for Academic Excellence” seeks to get colleges and universities to sign onto President Trump’s priorities all at once. That means that the kinds of excruciating choices faced by a few colleges and universities will soon be coming to a campus near you.

    Higher education is now facing an unprecedented moment of truth, with institutions needing to decide whether to stick to their commitments to independence and academic freedom at the cost of their financial well-being and capacity to carry out research, or to show their loyalty to the administration at a cost to their integrity and mission.

    As I see it, there really is no choice. Colleges and universities must say no. They should do so now, when resistance might dissuade the administration from going any further with its plan.

    If colleges relent, they will forfeit whatever moral capital they have left and send the message that the pursuit of truth matters less than loyalty to a political agenda and that colleges and universities can be made to give up their independence if the price of freedom is high enough.

    I am enough of a realist not to take odds on what choices colleges and universities will make. And I know that resistance of the kind I am advocating may be very costly for students, faculty and staff, as well as the communities served by campuses that push back.

    But as journalist Nathan M. Greenfield explained in 2021, “Academic freedom is the sine qua non of universities in common law countries as well as those in Western Europe and, indeed, is central to the functioning of universities in all but those countries with repressive governments.” Yale Law School professor Robert Post explains that “academic freedom rests on a bargain between society and institutions of higher education. Universities are granted independence so they can produce two necessities of modern life: knowledge and education.”

    The very idea that the Trump administration is seeking to compel universities to adhere to the values and policies that it prefers suggests how little regard it has for either knowledge or education. Post gets it right when he says, “Democracy would become a farce, and the value of self-government meaningless, if the state could manipulate the knowledge available to its citizens.”

    In 1957, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter approvingly cited a statement that identified four conditions for higher education to thrive: universities must be free to determine who may teach, what can be taught, how it is taught and who will be admitted. “For society’s good,” Justice Frankfurter wrote, “inquiries into [academic and social] problems, speculations about them, stimulation in others of reflection upon them, must be left as unfettered as possible. Political power must abstain from intrusion into this activity of freedom, pursued in the interest of wise government and the people’s wellbeing.”

    The Trump administration is not displaying such restraint in dealing with all of American higher education. The Washington Post quotes Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, who said that the new policy is a frontal “assault … on institutional autonomy, on ideological diversity, on freedom of expression and academic freedom.”

    “Suddenly, to get a grant,” Mitchell continued, “you need to not demonstrate merit, but ideological fealty to a particular set of political viewpoints … I can’t imagine a university in America that would be supportive of this.”

    We may soon see whether he is right. But he may have framed the issue incorrectly.

    The question is not whether America’s colleges and universities will support a clearly unconstitutional overreach by the Trump administration. The question is whether they will go along with it by signing on to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

    The administration is asking colleges and universities, “’What are the things that you believe? What are your values?” Justice Frankfurter must be rolling over in his grave.

    We can only hope that the first nine universities asked to agree to the administration’s latest intrusion into higher education will follow his wisdom and refuse to do so. And other colleges and universities should make clear now that if they are asked to follow suit, they too will say no.

    Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

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  • Defining Leadership – CUPA-HR

    Defining Leadership – CUPA-HR

    CUPA-HR’s
    Definition of Leadership

    Defining Leadership

    In 2025, CUPA-HR has expanded its focus on leadership development. To better understand what we mean by this, CUPA-HR staff engaged in an inclusive and iterative process with over 200 CUPA-HR members across multiple programs, committees, boards and councils to explore different experiences of leadership. The result of this process is a definition that reflects a shared understanding of leadership as a practice rooted in relationships, purpose and impact. The definition is also reflective of CUPA-HR’s values and will guide leadership development efforts moving forward.

    Leadership is guiding others to achieve outcomes through collaborative relationships.

    Although the definition offers a holistic look at leadership, it is grounded in three distinct elements shaped by CUPA-HR member and staff input.

    • Leadership is “guiding others.” Through a range of styles, higher ed HR leaders support and inspire others to grow, contribute and succeed. This guidance is rooted in intentionality, influence, modeling behavior, building trust, and inspiring action toward shared goals. In higher ed HR, guiding can happen from any role, regardless of title.
    • Leadership is about “accomplishing outcomes” by aligning people’s work with institutional goals, building shared purpose, and driving meaningful progress through strategic action, accountability and a commitment to professional growth.
    • Leadership happens through “collaborative relationships” built on trust. These relationships create inclusive communities where individuals feel valued, supported and inspired to contribute toward common goals.

    This shared definition of leadership will serve as a foundation for CUPA-HR’s ongoing and future efforts. It will guide our multi-year leadership development strategy, inform the design of leadership development programs and resources, and shape how we communicate about leadership. From refining event tracks and storytelling in our communications, to supporting chapters and aligning with our Learning Framework, this definition will be a touchstone for our work, ensuring that leadership development remains grounded in the voices, values and aspirations of our community. See additional context for the leadership definition and questions for reflecting on how it applies to your work.

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  • Learning is the defining characteristic of modern leaders

    Learning is the defining characteristic of modern leaders

    Are leaders born to the role? Does one simply come into the world with the charisma, ability to inspire, take tough decisions and communicate well? Or, is it within the ken of any individual to develop themselves as a leader?

    Whether we believe the answer to be one or the other or a combination of both, the bottom line will always remain “learning.” Leadership is a complex business, requiring an equally complex set of skills and these can be developed and honed over time through continuous learning. Even those who are born blessed with the key leadership traits can only become true learning leaders if they are willing to become conscious of their experiences and practice.

    Definitions of leadership are wide and varied. Everyone, it seems, has some idea of what it is and what makes the best leaders. For our purposes we can draw on a simple, and perhaps profound, definition that I picked up from an Ethiopian cohort:

    If you think you are a leader and you don’t have any followers you are just taking a walk.

    And, given the world we are living in, it’s worth adding that true learning leaders will have willing followers, as opposed to those coerced into following whether through fear or manipulation – or even hierarchy for that matter.

    To ask what makes a good leader is therefore to think about the qualities that make someone “followable.” And without much doubt we are looking at the traits of authenticity, courage, empathy, vision and, most of all, someone who can “walk the talk” and follow through on their promises.

    Learning is life

    The Learning Leader course is a reflection of this philosophy; conceived and designed around leaders who want to learn and develop themselves. It is designed for people who are ready to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, but also to explore their own beliefs and values so that they are as consciously authentic as they can be. It takes as a maxim the view frequently attributed to Mark Twain that “continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”

    Learning Leaders is founded on four foundation pillars: learning; leadership; consciousness; change. And it is consciously focused on learning that keeps pace with change, drawing on the Reg Revins formula:

    Rate of learning > Rate of change = Life

    Rate of learning

    The course is intentionally more about facilitation than teaching. It is focused on learning “outputs” much more than teaching “inputs.” We provide frameworks to help participants make sense of the outputs, but these are deliberately simple – though not necessarily easy – and can be adopted at a personal and collective level. In other words they are much less culture bound than other (largely Western) theories and models.

    Most of all we use tools and techniques that create a safe and respectful environment wherein participants feel so comfortable with each other they not only exchange their own experiences and insights but also help each other to explore the deeper meaning of what it is to be a leader in today’s world.

    To have Learning Leaders as part of the Global Majority Mentoring Programme throws up other dimensions relating to culture and diversity. Participants are exclusively from Global Majority backgrounds and are more conscious than most of their diversity. It is interesting, too, that the dominant profile has been a female one.

    We could all readily agree that leadership in this modern, fast changing, complex world should always be open to learning, indeed, it is learning or the ability to learn in a conscious way that is a defining characteristic of the modern leader.

    Consciousness raising

    Over two days participants worked through multiple course elements including change framework, philosophical inquiry and practising disagreement, a “walk the talk” exercise and a reflection instrument. But a key collective “Aha!” moment arose from an exercise to explore individual learning leader styles. That was a moment where all of us, myself included, found a new way to look at diversity: not just as a “nice” thing to do but as an essential strengthening underpinning to all that we do.

    The assessment of learning leader styles begins with introducing a learning cycle model. We emphasise at this point that our world has become a place where “Plan-Do” is dominant and that this, more visible, element is what organisations like to encourage and reward. This has come at a cost to “Reflect-Think” and consequently to our ability to learn. This helps to frame where our focus will be and why. The participants will have a rare chance to really indulge in some quality individual and collective reflection and thinking.

    By segmenting the cycle into four quadrants we find that we have four different areas that accommodate or position leadership learning styles or preferences.

    • Body (between Plan and Do) – learning from experience and being aware of our behaviour.
    • Heart (between Do and Reflect) – learning from emotion and being aware of our instinctive intelligence.
    • Mind (between Think and Plan) – learning from knowledge and being aware of our ego.
    • Spirit (between Reflect and Think) – learning from wisdom and being aware of our beliefs.

    With the use of a short questionnaire, we are able to identify our leadership learning styles and the relative position on the cycle. This is a good visual to discuss further what having a particular approach might mean for an individual and to explore the consequences of our collective preferences. The below diagram illustrates where different people might position themselves on the various quadrants.

    Having someone in each quadrant gives us a more complete learning group. I like to see things get done offering practical insights. M and Z remind the group how important it is to be aware of our feelings and be open to creativity and new ideas. S and J require that questions are asked, and sense is made before rushing onto the next thing. Finally, we have N who also likes to make sense but who is unlikely to procrastinate too long and can help a group converge learning into a decision and way forward.

    Provided we become and remain conscious of this diversity it becomes a real strength in any group or team. Only when we are unconscious can differences lead to division, fragmentation and misunderstanding. Without this awareness learning is non-complimentary and will erode respect and trust.

    Having looked at our complimentary styles we applied this insight into all that we did for the rest of the two day course. For example, participants enhanced the effectiveness of the “walk the talk” exercise when they paired up with a complimentary style and experienced new perspectives, insights and ideas. But most of all we could see graphically how diversity is always a strength (especially in a leadership team) when we are conscious of ourselves and others’ approaches and preferences.

    That this is the real and positive message from any EDI initiative. With the consciousness of a Learning Leader we could never be divided! I am already looking forward to next year’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme cohorts and to enjoy the diversity and experience the profound insights that come out of this potent mix of leaders.

    This article is one of four exploring London Higher’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme – you can find the others here. Keith would like to extend special thanks to the University of Westminster and Dr. Randhir Auluck, Head of School, Organisations, Economy & Society at Westminster Business School without whose vision, not to mention organisational skills, this Learning Leaders course would not have seen the light of day.

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  • Defining the value of the UK’s international research partnerships

    Defining the value of the UK’s international research partnerships

    It might not be news that the UK research sector is strikingly international, but the scale of our global collaboration is striking – and it’s growing.

    Over 60 per cent of Russell Group academics’ publications involved an international co-author in 2023, 16 per cent higher than in 2019, and in 2022 this proportion was higher for UK academics than any of our global competitors. Pooling ideas and talent makes for better research and more innovation, so supporting them to do more matters deeply to researchers – as our universities are well aware, given their own longstanding global connections.

    International collaboration matters for the UK at large too, helping us tackle shared challenges and forming a large part of our global contribution. In a more uncertain world, protecting and growing research collaborations is becoming more important – complementing the government’s efforts to deepen links with the EU, protect ties with the US, and build relationships in India.

    These initiatives are bound up with both security and growth. This is no accident: a strong economy is the route to creating jobs and supporting public services. We have always argued that international university partnerships should be part of the wider offer to global investors and trade partners, but we need to find new ways to demonstrate their value.

    To that end, Jisc has done new analysis for the Russell Group looking at the scale and value of international research partnerships. Jisc’s unique data-matching analysis of UK, US and EU patent data held by the European Patents Office covers over 30 years of international collaboration in patent applications. The data identifies partnerships that UK institutions hold with both international companies and universities.

    It’s booming

    So what did we learn? Jisc’s analysis shows the proportion of patents co-filed by UK universities and an international partner grew from 12 per cent in 2000 to 22 per cent in 2022. It also found a remarkably high share of collaborations with international businesses, not just fellow academics: 43 per cent of co-filings since 2018 were with an overseas company and 36 per cent with a university abroad.

    Since 2018, the data shows UK universities filed over 100 EU, US and UK patents with international partners every year. The analysis also allows us to see individual patents, not just numbers, so we can understand how impactful this work is not just to academic excellence, but to society. For example:

    • the world’s first gene therapy for adults with severe haemophilia A, from pioneering research between University College London and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the US
    • a new type of gene therapy from Newcastle University and the University of Heidelberg in Germany, which can help to protect and strengthen muscles in people with muscular dystrophy
    • improvements to machine-learning models by the University of Edinburgh and University of Manchester with Toyota in Japan – refining the ability to interpret images, a step on the way to driverless cars.

    These projects, and many more of their kind, demonstrate the cutting-edge R&D that can underpin the government’s growth mission, industrial strategy and NHS ambitions. Jisc’s analysis therefore suggests that to make the most of universities’ strengths, and secure a global advantage for the UK, support for both home-grown innovation and high-value overseas collaborations will be crucial.

    Potential for even more

    This includes additional support for the work universities do with and for businesses, in sectors like clean energy and advanced manufacturing. Academics and innovators can do much of this themselves, but government can help by working with us to deliver a stable platform to build on including reliable funding streams, improved incentives for SME-university collaboration and a long-term strategy for industrial renewal.

    We also need a strategic focus on higher education’s financial sustainability, so universities can maximise the impact of the £86bn government is committing to R&D over the next few years and support plans for economic growth and public service improvement.

    It also means maintaining a supportive, stable and cost-effective visa system for staff and students – further expanding the commitments already made on building global talent pathways – so UK universities can attract and educate our future academics, innovators and collaborators, as well as securing important cross-subsidies for research and teaching. A strategic approach to skills and infrastructure across the UK would complement this, ensuring all nations and regions can benefit.

    Finally, building the right platform for international collaboration means backing stable, flexible routes for academics and innovators to work together. UKRI’s work to develop lead agency agreements with counterparts in other countries has been a positive and warmly-welcomed example. Above all, however, our relationship with the world’s largest international collaborative programme for R&D – Horizon Europe, and its successor Framework Programme 10 – will be vital.

    We’re currently awaiting the European Commission’s official “first draft” for FP10. We know it will be a standalone programme with a research and innovation focus, which is very reassuring. At the moment, Horizon Europe is providing more collaborative research opportunities than any one country can alone, as well as helping UK universities attract top researchers. Universities are working hard to boost Horizon participation, taking the lead in European Research Council Advanced Grant wins in 2024, and nurturing the encouraging green shoots in the collaborative Pillar II. Keeping this going is vital for global collaborations which contribute so much to our, and our partners’, economic and societal progress.

    Researchers need certainty so they can rely on a shared long-term framework when building collaborations. The more open FP10 is to like-minded countries, and the more positive the UK is about association early on, the more confidence academics can be in continuing – and indeed expanding – invaluable international partnerships.

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  • More states adopt laws defining ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ adding to Title IX divide

    More states adopt laws defining ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ adding to Title IX divide

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    Dive Brief:

    • More states are defining what it means to be a man and woman in state law, with Texas poised to become the 14th Republican-leaning state to do so since 2023. The state’s sex definition bill was approved last week and now awaits Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature. 
    • Two additional states — Nebraska and Indiana — regulate the definition of sex through state executive orders, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks legislation related to LGBTQ+ issues. 
    • While the impact of these laws may vary from state to state, they set the stage to prevent transgender students from accessing facilities and joining athletic teams aligning with their gender identities.

    Dive Insight:

    Proponents of sex definition legislation say it protects women and girls from sex discrimination based on “immutable biological differences” that can be seen before or at birth. Advocates have used the same argument in recent years to interpret Title IX, the federal civil rights law preventing sex discrimination in education programs, to separate transgender students from girls and women athletic teams and spaces.

    The Texas legislation, for example, says “biological differences between the sexes mean that only females are able to get pregnant, give birth, and breastfeed children” and that “males are, on average, bigger, stronger, and faster than females.” These differences, it says, “are enduring and may, in some circumstances, warrant the creation of separate social, educational, athletic, or other spaces in order to ensure individuals’ safety and allow members of each sex to succeed and thrive.”

    The language closely mirrors an executive order issued by President Donald Trump upon his return to the Oval Office in January. That order established that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” The order said “these sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” and that the concept of “gender identity” is “disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum.”

    The language was also reflected in a draft resolution agreement proposed to the Maine Department of Education by the U.S. Department of Education after a short, one-month investigation by the federal agency’s Office for Civil Rights found the state was violating Title IX in its policy allowing transgender students to participate in girls’ and women’s sports teams.

    The agreement, which Maine refused to sign, would have had the state department and public schools define “females” and “males” in their policies and require the state to publicize the definitions on its website.

    The Maine agency would have been required to notify schools that “there are only two sexes (female and male) because there are only two types of gametes (eggs and sperm); and the sex of a human — female or male — is determined genetically at conception (fertilization), observable before birth, and unchangeable.”

    “Gender” would be the same as “sex” under the agreement.

    The case is currently pending with the U.S. Department of Justice, which took over enforcement of the investigation and its findings after the state refused to sign the agreement.

    The agreement would have also required the state to change its records to erase transgender girls’ athletic accomplishments on girls’ sports teams, which is also a potential side effect of the legislation in 13 states defining sex.

    Those opposing recent sex definition laws say they are transphobic, as they don’t recognize transgender people’s gender identity. 

    “These laws could have dangerous implications for transgender people when it comes to bathrooms, identity documents, and other areas of law or policy,” MAP said, “but because these government gender regulation laws are often vaguely written, the actual impact of these laws remains to be seen in each state.”

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  • Article 45 Defining Maxwells Equation in terms of the physical properties of space time

    Article 45 Defining Maxwells Equation in terms of the physical properties of space time

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    Einstein’s Explanation of the Unexplainable

    In Maxwell’s mathematical formulation of electromagnetism, he defined light as a propagating electromagnetic wave created by the interaction of its electric and magnetic fields

    While Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity defined the forces associated with gravity in terms of a geometric curvature or spatial displacement in space-time caused by its energy density.

    Additionally, he showed that it was directed along the radius of the curvature in the two-dimensional plane that was parallel to it.

    Therefore, to explain how Maxwells equations can be defined in terms of a space-time environment one must show how both the observable and mathematical properties of an electromagnetic: such as why its wave properties are created by the interaction of its electric and magnetic fields and why polarized light has a perpendicular orientation in terms of the geometry of space time.

    Additionally, one must also show why its electrical and magnetic components are in phase, it’s the only form of energy that can move at the speed of light along with the defining the reason why it always appears as a photon when observed or interacts with its environment in terms of that same geometry.

    As was just mentioned gravity’s force vector is along the radius of one of dimensional plains of three-dimensional space.  However, that does not mean the other two plains of three-dimensional space cannot contribute to energy content of space.

    The fact that light is polarized supports that assumption because it allows one to understand the mechanism responsible for its perpendicular orientation in terms light waves moving on the different dimensional plains that are perpendicular to each other.

    However, one ALSO allow one to explain both the observations and Maxwell equations in terms of the dimensional prosperity of space if one assumes the electrical and magnetic are components of light are propagated by spatial displacements created by an energy wave moving on the surface of one of those two-dimensional plains.

    (This assumption is supported by Einstein suggestion that spatial displacements in one of the three-dimensional plains of three-dimensional space is responsible for gravitational energy.

    One can understand the mechanism responsible by using the analogy of how a wave on the two-dimensional surface of water causes a point on that surface to become displaced or rise above or below the equilibrium point that existed before the wave was present.

    The science of wave mechanics tells us a force would be developed by those displacements which would result in the elevated and depressed portions of the water moving towards or becoming “attracted” to each other and the surface of the water.

    Similarly, an energy wave on the “surface” on one of the two spatial dimensions that are perpendicular to the axis of gravitational forces would cause a point on that “surface” to become displaced or rise above and below the equilibrium point that existed before the wave was present.

    Therefore, classical wave mechanics, if extrapolated to the properties of two of the three spatial dimensions of our universe that are perpendicular the one responsible for gravity tells us a force will be developed by the differential displacements of energy wave which will result in its elevated and depressed portions moving towards or become “attracted” to each other as the wave moves through space.

    This would define the causality of the attractive electrical fields associated with an electromagnetic wave in terms of a force caused by the alternating displacements of a wave moving with respect to time on a “surface” of the two spatial dimensions which are perpendicular to the axis of gravitational forces.

    However, it also provides a classical mechanism for understanding why similar electrical fields repel each other.  This is because observations of waves show there is a direct relationship between the magnitude of a displacement in its “surface” to the magnitude of the force resisting that displacement.

    Similarly, the magnitude of multiple displacements in a “surface” of a two-dimensional plain in space-time will be greater than that caused by a single one.  Therefore, they will repel each other because the magnitude of the force resisting the displacement will be greater than it would be for a single one.

    One can also derive the magnetic component of an electromagnetic wave in terms of the horizontal force developed along the axis that is perpendicular to the displacement caused by its peaks and troughs associated with the electric fields.

    This would be analogous to how the perpendicular displacement of a mountain generates a horizontal force on the surface of the earth, which pulls matter horizontally towards the apex of that displacement.

    This also explain why the electrical and magnetic fields of an electromagnetic wave are in phase or maximum at the same time in terms of the geometric properties of space time defined by Einstein

    However, it also provides an explanation for why electromagnetic waves can transmit energy through space at the speed of light.

    The observations and the science of wave mechanics tell us waves move energy through water, causing it to move in a circular motion therefore it does not actually travel with waves.  In other words, waves transmit energy, not water, across the ocean and if not obstructed by anything, they have the potential to travel across an entire ocean basin.

    Similarly, an electromagnetic wave will cause the geometry of space time to move in a circular motion and therefore the geometric components of space Einstein associated with mass do not move with respect to its velocity vector.  Additionally, if not obstructed by anything, they have the potential to travel across an entire universe to the velocity of light.

    As was just shown the speed of a wave on water is defined in part by the rate at which its particles interact.

    Therefore, the speed of light would depend on the rate at which the electrical and magnetic components interact.

    Therefore, its velocity is constant in free space with no obstacles to its motion because the rate at which its electrical and magnetic components interact is constant.

    However, to understand how and why an electromagnetic wave evolves into photon one must connect its evolution to that environment.

    One can accomplish this by using the science of wave mechanics and the properties of space-time as define by Einstein.

    For example, an electromagnetic wave is observed to move continuously through space and time unless it is prevented from doing so by someone or something interacting with it.  This would result in its energy being confined to three-dimensional space.  The science of wave mechanics tells us the three-dimensional “walls” of this confinement will result in its energy being reflected back on itself thereby creating a resonant or standing wave in three-dimensional space.  This would cause its wave energy to be concentrated at the point in space were a particle would be found.

    Additionally, wave mechanics also tells us the energy of a resonant system, such as a standing wave can only take on the discrete or quantized values associated with its fundamental or a harmonic of its fundamental frequency.

    This explains why an electromagnetic wave if it is prevented from moving through space-time either by being observed or encountering an object is reduced or “Collapses” to a form a standing wave that would define the quantized energy Quantum Mechanics associates with a particle.

    However, this also provides a Classical mechanism in terms of Einstein theories for defining one of the core principals Quantum Mechanics in that when field properties light and all other forms of energy are prevented from moving through space either by being observed or encountering an object that energy will become quantized in the form of a particle.

    This shows how one can define all of the mathematical of Maxwells equation in terms of the physical properties of space time

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