Tag: isnt

  • Duty of care isn’t about mental health, it’s about preventing harm

    Duty of care isn’t about mental health, it’s about preventing harm

    When people talk about a “duty of care” in higher education, the conversation almost always circles back to mental health – to counselling services, wellbeing strategies, or suicide prevention.

    It’s understandable. Those are visible, urgent needs. But the phrase “duty of care” carries far more weight than any one policy or pastoral initiative.

    It reaches into every space where universities hold power over students’ lives, and every context where harm is foreseeable and preventable.

    That misunderstanding has shaped national policy, too. When over 128,000 people petitioned Parliament for a statutory duty of care in 2023, the Government’s response was to establish the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce – a body focused on mental health and suicide prevention.

    Its four objectives spoke volumes – boosting University Mental Health Charter sign-ups, expanding data analytics to flag students in distress, promoting “compassionate communications” to guide staff interactions with students and, where appropriate, with families, and overseeing a National Review of Higher Education Student Suicides.

    These were not bad aims – but they did not speak to the duty that had been demanded. None addressed the legal, structural, or preventative responsibilities that underpin a real duty of care.

    The Taskforce has tackled symptoms, not systems – outcomes, not obligations. By focusing on “student mental health,” the issue became more comfortable – easier to manage within existing policy frameworks and reputational boundaries.

    It allowed the sector to appear to act, while sidestepping the harder questions of legal clarity, parity, and the accountability owed to those who were harmed, failed, or lost.

    In a 2023 Wonkhe article, Sunday Blake made this point with striking clarity. “Duty of care,” she wrote, “is not just about suicide prevention.”

    Nor, by extension, is duty of care just about mental health. Universities shape students’ experiences through housing, assessment, social structures, disciplinary systems, placement arrangements, and daily communications.

    They wield influence that can support, endanger, empower or neglect. If the phrase “duty of care” is to mean anything, it must cover the full spectrum of foreseeable harm – not only the moments of crisis but the conditions that allow harm to build unseen.

    Importantly, this broader understanding of duty of care is not confined to campaigners or bereaved families. The British Medical Association has also recently called for a statutory duty of care across higher education, after hundreds of medical students reported sexual misconduct, harassment, and institutional neglect in a UK-wide survey.

    Drawing on evidence from its Medical Students Committee, the BMA argued that universities hold both knowledge and control, and therefore must bear legal responsibility for preventing foreseeable harm. Crucially, the BMA understands duty of care as a legal obligation – not a wellbeing initiative. Their intervention shows that this is not a niche debate about mental health, but a structural failure across the entire higher-education sector.

    That wider perspective is not a theoretical question. It has been tested – violently, publicly, and avoidably – in real life.

    The stabbing

    In October 2009, Katherine Rosen was a third-year pre-med student at UCLA, one of America’s leading public universities. She was attending a routine chemistry class – an ordinary academic setting – when another student, Damon Thompson, approached her from behind and stabbed her in the neck and chest with a kitchen knife. He nearly killed her.

    It was sudden. It was unprovoked. But it was not unexpected.

    Thompson had a long, documented history of paranoid delusions. University psychiatrists had diagnosed him with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. He reported hearing voices and believed classmates were plotting against him.

    He had been expelled from university housing after multiple altercations. He told staff he was thinking about hurting others. He had specifically named Katherine in a complaint – claiming she had called him “stupid” during lab work.

    Staff knew. Multiple professionals were aware of his condition – and the risks he posed. Just one day before the attack, he was discussed at a campus risk assessment meeting. And yet – no action was taken. No warning was issued, no protection was offered, and no safeguarding plan was put in place.

    Katherine was left completely unaware. Because the university chose to do nothing.

    The legal battle

    After surviving the attack, Katherine took an action that would shape the future of student safety law in the United States – she sued her university.

    Her claim was simple but profound. UCLA, she argued, had a special relationship with her as a student. That relationship – based on enrolment, proximity, institutional control, and expectation of care – created a legal duty to protect her from foreseeable harm. And that duty, she said, had been breached.

    She wasn’t demanding perfection or suggesting universities could prevent every imaginable harm. She asked a basic question – if a student has been clearly identified as a threat, and the university knows it, doesn’t it have a legal responsibility to act before someone gets seriously hurt – or killed?

    UCLA’s response? No. The university claimed it had no legal duty to protect adult students from the criminal acts of others – even when it was aware of a risk. This wasn’t their responsibility, they said. Universities weren’t guardians, and students weren’t children. No duty, no breach, no liability.

    Their argument rested on a key principle of common law, shared by both the US and UK – that legal duties of care only arise in specific, established situations. Traditionally, adult-to-adult relationships – like those between a university and its students – did not automatically create such duties. Courts are cautious – they don’t want to impose sweeping responsibilities on institutions that may be unreasonable or unmanageable. But that argument ignores a crucial reality – the power imbalance, the structure, and the unique environment of university life.

    The judgment

    Katherine’s case wound its way through the California courts for almost ten years. At every level, the same question remained – does a university owe a duty of care to its students in classroom settings, especially when it is aware of a specific risk?

    Finally, in 2018, the California Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling in her favour.

    The Court held – by a clear majority – that yes, universities do owe such a duty. Not universally, not in every context – but during curricular activities, and particularly when risks are foreseeable, they must take reasonable protective measures.

    The judgment clarified that a “special relationship” exists between universities and their students, based on the student’s dependence on the university for a “safe environment.” That relationship created not just moral expectations but legal ones.

    In the Court’s own words:

    Phrased at the appropriate level of generality, then, the question here is not whether UCLA could predict that Damon Thompson would stab Katherine Rosen in the chemistry lab. It is whether a reasonable university could foresee that its negligent failure to control a potentially violent student, or to warn students who were foreseeable targets of his ire, could result in harm to one of those students.

    That emphasis on warning mattered. The Court was clear that the duty it recognised did not demand extraordinary measures or perfect foresight. The minimum reasonable step UCLA could have taken — and failed to take — was to warn Katherine or put in place basic protective actions once staff knew she was a potential target. It was this failure at the most elementary level of safeguarding that brought the duty sharply into focus.

    And again:

    Colleges [universities] provide academic courses in exchange for a fee, but a college is far more to its students than a business. Residential colleges provide living spaces, but they are more than mere landlords. Along with educational services, colleges provide students social, athletic, and cultural opportunities. Regardless of the campus layout, colleges provide a discrete community for their students. For many students, college is the first time they have lived away from home. Although college students may no longer be minors under the law, they may still be learning how to navigate the world as adults. They are dependent on their college communities to provide structure, guidance, and a safe learning environment.

    This ruling was a seismic moment. It wasn’t just about Katherine – it was about thousands of other students, across hundreds of other classrooms, who could now expect, not merely hope, that their university would act when danger loomed.

    The precedent was narrow but profound

    This victory came at a cost. It took nearly a decade of litigation, immense emotional strength, and personal resilience. And even in success, the ruling was carefully limited in scope:

    … that universities owe a duty to protect students from foreseeable violence during curricular activities.

    The duty applied only to harm that was:

    • Foreseeable,
    • Tied to curricular activities, and
    • Within the university’s ability to prevent.

    It did not impose a sweeping obligation on universities to protect students in all circumstances – nor should it. But it decisively rejected the idea that universities have no duty to protect.

    This distinction – between the impossible and the reasonable – is crucial. The court did not ask universities to do the impossible. It simply expected them to act reasonably when aware of a real and specific risk to student safety. That principle sets a clear floor, not an unreachable ceiling, for institutional responsibility.

    It also highlights a broader truth – duty of care in higher education is not a binary. It is not all or nothing. A range of duties may arise depending on the setting – academic, residential, or social – or the nature of the risk. The more control a university exercises, and the more vulnerable the student, the greater the duty it may owe.

    This is not about creating impossible expectations – it is about recognising that responsibility must follow power.

    That same logic – and the emerging recognition of limited but enforceable duties – has begun to surface in UK courts. In Feder and McCamish v The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, a County Court held that higher education institutions have a duty of care to carry out reasonable investigations when they receive allegations of sexual assault:

    …by taking reasonable protective, supportive, investigatory and, when appropriate, disciplinary steps and in associated communications.

    Again, where institutions have knowledge and control, the law expects a proportionate response.

    But it is important to recognise just how narrow the duty was in Feder & McCamish. The College already had safeguarding procedures in place, and liability arose only because it failed to follow the process it had voluntarily adopted when students reported serious sexual assault.

    The court did not recognise any general duty to protect student welfare – it simply enforced the College’s own promises. It illustrates the limits of UK law – duties arise only in piecemeal, procedural ways, leaving large gaps in protection whenever an institution has not explicitly committed itself to a particular process, or chooses not to follow it.

    Why this story matters now

    The Rosen judgment exposes a truth that too many still miss. Duty of care in higher education is not about expanding counselling teams or implementing wellbeing charters. It’s about the structure of responsibility itself – who knows what, who can act, and who must act when risk is foreseeable.

    In Katherine Rosen’s case, mental health support for Damon Thompson already existed. What failed was the system around him – communication, coordination, and the willingness to protect others. The danger was known, the mechanisms to prevent it were available, and the decision to use them was not taken.

    That is why framing “duty of care” as a question of mental health provision misses the point. Whether the risk is psychological, physical, financial, or reputational, the same principle applies – when institutions hold both knowledge and control, they owe a duty to act with care.

    From assaults in halls to exploitation on placements, from harassment ignored to risks left unmonitored, the duty of care spans far more than mental health. It is about foreseeable harm in any form. It is about accountability that matches authority. It is about creating a culture in which doing nothing or ignoring what you know is no longer an option.

    As Parliament prepares to debate the issue once again, the Rosen case stands as a reminder that this conversation cannot stop at wellbeing. The question is not whether universities should care about students’ mental health – of course they should. The question is whether they will take responsibility for the predictable consequences of their own systems, structures, and decisions.

    Katherine Rosen’s survival – and her long legal struggle – gave the world a clearer definition of that responsibility. It showed that duty of care is not about offering sympathy after the fact, but about preventing foreseeable harm before it happens. That is the real meaning of duty of care in higher education – and it is the clarity the UK still urgently lacks.

    Source link

  • Helping students to make good choices isn’t about more faulty search filters

    Helping students to make good choices isn’t about more faulty search filters

    A YouTube video about Spotify popped into my feed this weekend, and it’s been rattling around my head ever since.

    Partly because it’s about music streaming, but mostly because it’s all about what’s wrong with how we think about student choice in higher education.

    The premise runs like this. A guy decides to do “No Stream November” – a month without Spotify, using only physical media instead.

    His argument, backed by Barry Schwartz’s paradox of choice research and a raft of behavioural economics, is that unlimited access to millions of songs has made us less satisfied, not more.

    We skip tracks every 20 to 30 seconds. We never reach the guitar solo. We’re treating music like a discount buffet – trying a bit of everything but never really savouring anything. And then going back to the playlists we created earlier.

    The video’s conclusion is that scarcity creates satisfaction. Ritual and effort (opening the album, dropping the needle, sitting down to actually listen) make music meaningful.

    Six carefully chosen options produce more satisfaction than 24, let alone millions. It’s the IKEA effect applied to music – we value what we labour over.

    I’m interested in choice. Notwithstanding the debate over what a “course” is, Unistats data shows that there were 36,421 of them on offer in 2015/16. This year that figure is 30,801.

    That still feels like a lot, given that the University of Helsinki only offers 34 bachelor’s degree programmes.

    Of course a lot of the entries on DiscoverUni separately list “with a foundation year” and there’s plenty of subject combinations.

    But nevertheless, the UK’s bewildering range of programmes must be quite a nightmare for applicants to pick through – it’s just that once they’re on them, job cuts and switches to block teaching are delivering increasingly less choice in elective pathways than they used to.

    We appear to have a system that combines overwhelming choice at the point of least knowledge (age 17, alongside A-levels, with imperfect information) with rigid narrowness at the point of most knowledge (once enrolled, when students actually understand what they want to study and why). It’s the worst of both worlds.

    What the white paper promises

    The government’s vision for improving student choice runs to a couple of paragraphs in the Skills White Paper, and it’s worth quoting in full:

    We will work with UCAS, the Office for Students and the sector to improve the quality of information for individuals, informed by the best evidence on the factors that influence the choices people make as they consider their higher education options. Providing applicants with high-quality, impartial, personalised and timely information is essential to ensuring they can make informed decisions when choosing what to study. Recent UCAS reforms aimed at increasing transparency and improving student choice include historic entry grades data, allowing students, along with their teachers and advisers, to see both offer rates and the historic grades of previous successful applicants admitted to a particular course, in addition to the entry requirements published by universities and colleges.

    As we see more students motivated by career prospects, we will work with UCAS and Universities UK to ensure that graduate outcomes information spanning employment rates, earnings and the design and nature of work (currently available on Discover Uni) are available on the UCAS website. We will also work with the Office for Students to ensure their new approach to assessing quality produces clear ratings which will help prospective students understand the quality of the courses on offer, including clear information on how many students successfully complete their courses.”

    The implicit theory of change is straightforward – if we just give students more data about each of the courses, they’ll make better choices, and everyone wins. It’s the same logic that says if Spotify added more metadata to every track (BPM, lyrical themes, engineer credits), you’d finally find the perfect song. I doubt it.

    Pump up the Jam

    If the Department for Education (DfE) was serious about deploying the best evidence on the factors that influence the choices people make, it would know about the research showing that more information doesn’t solve choice overload, because choice overload is a cognitive capacity problem, not an information quality problem.

    Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper’s foundational 2000 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that when students faced 30 essay topic options versus six options, completion rates dropped from 74 per cent to 60 per cent, and essay quality declined significantly on both content and form measures. That’s a 14 percentage point completion drop from excessive choice alone, and objectively worse work from those who did complete.

    A study on Jam showed customers were ten times more likely to buy when presented with six flavours rather than 24, despite 60 per cent more people initially stopping at the extensive display. More choice is simultaneously more appealing and more demotivating. That’s the paradox.

    CFE Research’s 2018 study for the Office for Students (back when providing useful research for the sector was something it did) laid this all out explicitly for higher education contexts.

    Decision making about HE is challenging because the system is complex and there are lots of alternatives and attributes to consider. Those considering HE are making decisions in conditions of uncertainty, and in these circumstances, individuals tend to rely on convenient but flawed mental shortcuts rather than solely rational criteria. There’s no “one size fits all” information solution, nor is there a shortlist of criteria that those considering HE use.

    The study found that students rely heavily on family, friends, and university visits, and many choices ultimately come down to whether a decision “feels right” rather than rational analysis of data. When asked to explain their decisions retrospectively, students’ explanations differ from their actual decision-making processes – we’re not reliable informants about why we made certain choices.

    A 2015 meta-analysis by Chernev, Böckenholt, and Goodman in the Journal of Consumer Psychology identified the conditions under which choice overload occurs – it’s moderated by choice set complexity, decision task difficulty, and individual differences in decision-making style. Working memory capacity limits humans to processing approximately seven items simultaneously. When options exceed this cognitive threshold, students experience decision paralysis.

    Maximiser students (those seeking the absolute best option) make objectively better decisions but feel significantly worse about them. They selected jobs with 20 per cent higher salaries yet felt less satisfied, more stressed, frustrated, anxious, and regretful than satisficers (those accepting “good enough”). For UK applicants facing tens of thousands of courses, maximisers face a nearly impossible optimisation problem, leading to chronic second-guessing and regret.

    The equality dimension is especially stark. Bailey, Jaggars, and Jenkins’s research found that students in “cafeteria college” systems with abundant disconnected choices “often have difficulty navigating these choices and end up making poor decisions about what programme to enter, what courses to take, and when to seek help.” Only 30 per cent completed three-year degrees within three years.

    First-generation students, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and students of colour are systematically disadvantaged by overwhelming choice because they lack the cultural capital and family knowledge to navigate it effectively.

    The problem once in

    But if unlimited choice at entry is a cognitive overload problem, what happens once students enrol should balance that with flexibility and breadth. Students gain expertise, develop clearer goals, and should have more autonomy to explore and specialise as they progress.

    Except that’s not what’s happening. Financial pressures across the sector are driving institutions to reduce module offerings – exactly when research suggests students need more flexibility, not less.

    The Benefits of Hindsight research on graduate regret says it all. A sizeable share of applicants later wish they’d chosen differently – not usually to avoid higher education, but to pick a different subject or provider. The regret grows once graduates hit the labour market.

    Many students who felt mismatched would have liked to change course or university once enrolled – about three in five undergraduates and nearly two in three graduates among those expressing regret – but didn’t, often because they didn’t know how, thought it was too late, or feared the cost and disruption.

    The report argues there’s “inherent rigidity” in UK provision – a presumption that the initial choice should stick despite evolving interests, new information, and labour-market realities. Students described courses being less practical or less aligned to work than expected, or modules being withdrawn as finances tightened. That dynamic narrows options precisely when students are learning what they do and don’t want.

    Career options become the dominant reason graduates cite for wishing they’d chosen differently. But that’s not because they lacked earnings data at 17. It’s because their interests evolved, they discovered new fields, labour market signals changed, and the rigid structure gave them no way to pivot without starting again.

    The Competition and Markets Authority now explicitly identifies as misleading actions “where an HE provider gives a misleading impression about the number of optional modules that will be available.” Students have contractual rights to the module catalogue promised during recruitment. Yet redundancy rounds repeatedly reduce the size and scope of optional module catalogues for students who remain.

    There’s also an emerging consensus from the research on what actually works for module choice. An LSE analysis found that adding core modules within the home department was associated with higher satisfaction, whereas mandatory modules outside the home department depressed it. Students want depth and coherence in their chosen subject. They also value autonomous choice over breadth options.

    Research repeatedly shows that elective modules are evaluated more positively than required ones (autonomy effects), and interdisciplinary breadth is associated with stronger cross-disciplinary skills and higher post-HE earnings when it’s purposeful and scaffolded.

    What would actually work

    So what does this all suggest?

    As I’ve discussed on the site before, at the University of Helsinki – Finland’s flagship institution with 40,000 students – there’s 32 undergraduate programmes. Within each programme, students must take 90 ECTS credits in their major subject, but the other 75 ECTS credits must come from other programmes’ modules. That’s 42 per cent of the degree as mandatory breadth, but students choose which modules from clear disciplinary categories.

    The structure is simple – six five-credit introductory courses in your subject, then 60 credits of intermediate study with substantial module choice, including proseminars, thesis work, and electives. Add 15 credits for general studies (study planning, digital skills, communication), and you’ve got a degree. The two “modules” (what we’d call stages) get a single grade each on a one-to-five scale, producing a simple, legible transcript.

    Helsinki runs this on a 22.2 to one staff-student ratio, significantly worse than the UK average, after Finland faced €500 million in higher education cuts. It’s not lavishly resourced – it’s structurally efficient.

    Maynooth University in Ireland reduced CAO (their UCAS) entry routes from about 50 to roughly 20 specifically to “ease choice and deflate points inflation.” Students can start with up to four subjects in year one, then move to single major, double major, or major with minor. Switching options are kept open through first year. It’s progressive specialisation – broad exploration early when students have least context, increasing focus as they develop expertise.

    Also elsewhere on the site, Técnico in Lisbon – the engineering and technology faculty of the University of Lisbon – rationalised to 18 undergraduate courses following a student-led reform process. Those 18 courses contain hundreds of what the UK system would call “courses” via module combinations, but without the administrative overhead. They require nine ECTS credits (of 180) in social sciences and humanities for all engineering programmes because “engineers need to be equipped not just to build systems, but to understand the societies they shape.”

    Crucially, students themselves pushed for this structure. They conducted structured interviews, staged debates, and developed reform positions. They wanted shared first years, fewer concurrent modules to reduce cognitive load, more active learning methods, and more curricular flexibility including free electives and minors.

    The University of Vilnius allows up to 25 per cent of the degree as “individual studies” – but it’s structured into clear categories – minors (30 to 60 credits in a secondary field, potentially leading to double diploma), languages (20-plus options with specific registration windows), interdisciplinary modules (curated themes), and cross-institution courses (formal cooperation with arts and music academies). Not unlimited chaos, just structured exploration within categorical choices.

    What all these models share is a recognition that you can have both depth and breadth, structure and flexibility, coherence and exploration – if you design programmes properly. You need roughly 60 to 70 per cent core pathway in the major for depth and satisfaction, 20 to 30 per cent guided electives organised into three to five clear categories per decision point, and maybe 10 to 15 per cent completely free electives.

    The UK’s subject benchmark statements, if properly refreshed (and consolidated down a bit) could provide the regulatory infrastructure for it all. Australia undertook a version of this in 2010 through their Learning and Teaching Academic Standards project, which defined threshold learning outcomes for major discipline groupings through extensive sector consultation (over 420 meetings with more than 6,100 attendees). Those TLOs now underpin TEQSA’s quality regime and enable programme-level approval while protecting autonomy.

    Bigger programmes, better choice

    The white paper’s information provision agenda isn’t wrong – it’s just addressing the wrong problem at the wrong end of the process. Publishing earnings data doesn’t solve cognitive overload from tens of thousands of courses, quality ratings don’t help students whose interests evolve and who need flexibility to pivot, and historic entry grades don’t fix the rigidity that manufactures regret.

    What would actually help is structural reform that the international evidence consistently supports – consolidation to roughly 20 to 40 programmes per institution (aligned with subject benchmark statement areas), with substantial protected module choice within those programmes, organised into clear categories like minors, languages, and interdisciplinary options.

    Some of those groups of individual modules might struggle to recruit if they were whole courses – think music and languages. They may well (and across Europe, do) sustain research-active academics if they could exist in broader structures. Fewer, clearer programmes at entry when students have least context, and more, structured flexibility during the degree when students have expertise to choose wisely.

    The efficiency argument is real – maintaining thousands of separate course codes, each with approval processes, quality assurance, marketing materials, and UCAS coordination is absurd overhead for what’s often just different permutations of the same modules. See also hundreds of “programme leaders” each having to be chased to fill a form in.

    Fewer programme directors with more module convenors beneath them is far more rational. And crucially, modules serve multiple student populations (what other systems would call majors and minors, and students taking breadth from elsewhere), making specialist provision viable even with smaller cohorts.

    The equality case is compelling – guided pathways with structured choice demonstrably improve outcomes for first-in-family students, students of colour, and low-income students, populations that regulators are charged with protecting. If current choice architecture systematically disadvantages exactly these students, that’s not pedagogical preference – it’s a regulatory failure.

    And the evidence on what students actually want once enrolled validates it all – they value depth in their chosen subject, they want autonomous choice over breadth options (not forced generic modules), they benefit from interdisciplinary exposure when it’s purposeful, and they need flexibility to correct course when their goals evolve.

    The white paper could have engaged with any of this. Instead, we get promises to publish more data on UCAS. It’s more Spotify features when what students need is a curated record collection and the freedom to build their own mixtape once they know what they actually like.

    What little reform is coming is informed by the assumption that if students just had better search filters, unlimited streaming would finally work. It won’t.

    Source link

  • Why Isn’t RSS More Popular By Now? – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Why Isn’t RSS More Popular By Now? – Teaching in Higher Ed

    It was a bit of a relief to have well-traveled terrain as the today’s topic in Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery workshop: Aggregators and RSS.

    While I still want to drop everything going on in my life right now and dive deep into the topic from two days ago (the Cynefin Framework), that just isn’t realistic. This PKMastery workshop has been a wonderful blend of ideas that challenge me, coupled with topics that I always enjoy learning more about, but am not starting from scratch with…

    RSS – Not-So-Popular

    It seems RSS could really have used some help from Galinda in the musical, Wicked, in terms of getting popular. I wish aggregators and RSS were something that the vast majority of people knew about and had incorporated into their lifelong learning and sense-making. It’s strange to me that RSS has been around such a long time, yet still isn’t very common in organizations at all.

    In case the terms (RSS and aggregators) are new to you, Common Craft’s RSS in Plain English from 18 years ago still checks out:

    The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

    I’ve got some good news for you, some bad news, and some real ugly news.

    The good: There’s a ton of information on the internet, which has the potential to be transformative for us, as sense-making human beings.

    The bad: We can’t keep up and the quantity of information just keeps on growing, yet not enough of us know ways to harness the possibilities.

    The ugly: Some of us give up on thinking we’ll never be able to have a way of seeking, sensing, and sharing, so we resolve to just search for things at the exact moment we realize we have a specific question about something (a gap in our knowledge that we are aware of in that moment).

    What gets missed here in “the ugly” (among other things) are the questions we don’t even realize that we have… The unknown unknowns… Not to mention misinformation/disinformation, etc.

    Getting to Know RSS

    Here are some RSS-related articles that I’ve saved on my digital bookmarking tool of choice: Raindrop:

    Next, let’s take a look at how I’ve set things up to be a tap away from a world of possibilities for sense-making…

    My RSS + Aggregation Tools

    I use Inoreader as my RSS aggregator. That means that when I discover a source (news site, blog, newsletter, YouTube channel, etc.) that I discern will serve me up potentially useful information, I add it to Inoreader inside my existing folders (e.g. News, Technology, Business, Digital Pedagogy, Higher Ed, Thinkers). Each time one of those sources (called feeds in RSS nomenclature) posts something new, it automatically shows up as an unread item on Inoreader.

    Screenshot of the Inoreader RSS website with folders on the left (AI, YouTube, News, Personal, etc.) and images/headlines on the right.

    Thats where some people stop.

    They download Inoreader’s app(s) and read their feeds on their computers or smart phones and they’re off to the races. Inoreader is both an RSS aggregator (keeping track of what feeds the user subscribes to, as well as which stories they have read/not read).

    However, I’m picky about my reading experience and have gotten particular about being able to read via my iPad and navigate everything with just one thumb.

     

    "Who has two thumgs and can operate Unread with just one of them? this guy (and me)" Guy wearing a medical coat and a stethoscope puts both his thumbs up, which then point back at him.

     

    This is where you insert a joke about “who has two thumbs and can set up RSS aggregators and tools? ME.” Except that in my case, it actually only takes one thumb, using my preferred RSS reader.

    Unread = The Best RSS Reader I’ve Ever Experienced

    Those who read on iPads would be hard pressed to find a better RSS reader than Unread, especially if you want to be able to skim and scroll through headlines (you can set up Unread to automatically mark the items as read, as you scroll through them, making the navigation even easier).

    Inoreader does the work behind the scenes of keeping track of all my subscriptions and what is read/unread. The Unread app then presents me with a “window” into all that “stuff” Inoreader is keeping track of in the background. Unread “syncs” with Inoreader. I don’t have much use of an RSS reader on my Mac, preferring to do most of my RSS consumption via my iPad, but I wanted to mention that even if you had a different app/service you preferred to use on your computer, Inoreader (and other RSS aggregators) are able to keep track across different RSS readers what you’ve read/unread.

    Something Very Cool

    Harold Jarche suggested that those of us who already have an aggregator / RSS workflow to share tips. I’ve kind of done that, already, above. But I will say that through his materials, I was delighted to discover that I can set up feeds for Mastodon #hashtags.

    From Harold:

    You can also subscribe to any Mastodon feed by adding .rss to the address, e.g. mastodon.social/@harold.rss

    You can subscribe to #hashtags by appending .rss — e.g. https://mastodon.social/tags/pkmastery.rss

    The PKMastery workshop is the gift that just keeps on giving. I’m looking forward to giving that a try this weekend. So cool.

    Source link

  • Your .Edu Website Isn’t Converting — Should You Rebuild or Refine?

    Your .Edu Website Isn’t Converting — Should You Rebuild or Refine?

    Your website is one of your institution’s most valuable assets, and also one of its more expensive and labor-intensive. It serves as the front door for prospective students, a resource hub for current ones, and a critical platform for driving enrollment.

    But when performance drops — conversions are low, traffic is declining, or user experience feels outdated — many institutions assume a full redesign is the only solution.

    Before you make that call, take a step back. A complete rebuild isn’t always the smartest or most cost-effective path. Sometimes, targeted improvements to your existing site can deliver significant results without the high price tag.

    So how do you decide if it’s time to rebuild or if your current site simply needs smarter strategy and support?

    Let’s walk through what to look for.

    Spot the red flags early

    When a site isn’t performing, you need to pinpoint why. These common red flags often indicate underlying issues that should prompt a deeper evaluation:

    • Low conversion rates on key actions like inquiries or application starts.
    • Declining keyword rankings that limit visibility and discovery of your programs.
    • Shallow engagement signals (short sessions, low scroll depth, minimal interaction) suggesting content isn’t meeting visitor needs.
    • Slow load times that frustrate prospective students and drag down SEO performance.
    • Critical details hidden or unclear (tuition, admissions, deadlines) due to weak information architecture, vague content, or content bloat.
    • Sprawling pages with little to no traffic, indicating wasted effort, an inflated site footprint, and diluted authority.

    To be clear, none of these should be considered death sentences for your website. But they’re strong signals that further evaluation should take place.

    Start with a strategic assessment

    A clear-eyed look at your site’s current state can help determine whether optimization or a rebuild makes more sense. Start here:

    • Is your foundation strong? Review your CMS, CRM, analytics, integrations, and subdomains. Make sure data is flowing between systems and nothing is falling through the cracks.
    • How is your performance? Look at conversion metrics and user flows. Are visitors finding what they need? Are all programs and forms being tracked—or are subdomains masking key performance data?
    • Is your content working for users and AI? Evaluate content from both a human and machine perspective. Does it speak directly to prospective students? Is it structured and search-optimized to surface in AI-powered tools?
    • Are you ready for AI and personalization? Assess your schema markup and structured data. These elements are foundational for enabling personalized user experiences and AI-fueled engagement strategies.
    • How strong is your governance? Review how your site is managed on a day-to-day basis. Do you have the right people, tools, and workflows to keep content accurate, accessible, and up to date.

    Price your options strategically

    If your site’s foundation is sound, targeted improvements may deliver high ROI at a lower cost. But if technical debt, poor UX, or fragmented infrastructure are holding you back, a rebuild could be the better investment.

    Keep these ballpark figures in mind:

    • A good rule of thumb today is to allocate 6–12% of your total marketing budget to website management and optimization each year.
    • For institutions with a $1 million marketing spend, that’s $60,000–$120,000 annually.
    • A comprehensive redesign can range from $100,000 to $500,000, depending on complexity, number of pages, and integrations.

    Also consider the hidden costs of delay — missed inquiries, lower conversions, and outdated experiences that don’t meet student expectations.

    A side-by-side cost-benefit analysis, grounded in performance data and institutional goals, is the best way to determine your path forward.

    Partner with experts who know higher ed

    Deciding between a website refresh or a rebuild is a big decision, and it shouldn’t be made in isolation. A strategic partner with deep higher ed expertise can help you evaluate your current digital ecosystem, identify gaps, and recommend the most cost-effective solution.

    At Collegis, we work with colleges and universities to optimize digital experiences that convert. Whether you’re refining an existing platform or building from the ground up, our web strategy team can help you create a future-ready site aligned with student needs and institutional goals.

    Let’s talk about how to get your website working smarter.

    Innovation Starts Here

    Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

    Jessica Summers is Director of Website Strategy at Collegis Education, where she leads initiatives to elevate digital experience, search visibility, and website performance for higher education institutions. She combines strategic and creative insight with emerging AI-driven approaches to build and optimize websites that perform as true marketing and user experience engines. Her work helps prospective students find what they need and take action. With extensive experience guiding web strategy for universities and agencies, Jessica aligns content, design, and technology while strengthening the structured content, technical optimization, and data governance behind the scenes that make websites effective and sustainable.

    Source link

  • Mindfulness is Gaining Traction in American Schools, But It Isn’t Clear What Students Are Learning – The 74

    Mindfulness is Gaining Traction in American Schools, But It Isn’t Clear What Students Are Learning – The 74

    In the past 20 years in the U.S., mindfulness transitioned from being a new-age curiosity to becoming a more mainstream part of American culture, as people learned more about how mindfulness can reduce their stress and improve their well-being.

    Researchers estimate that over 1 million children in the U.S. have been exposed to mindfulness in their schools, mostly at the elementary level, often taught by classroom teachers or school counselors.

    I have been researching mindfulness in K-12 American schools for 15 years. I have investigated the impact of mindfulness on students, explored the experiences of teachers who teach mindfulness in K-12 schools, and examined the challenges and benefits of implementing mindfulness in these settings.

    I have noticed that mindfulness programs vary in what particular mindfulness skills are taught and what lesson objectives are. This makes it difficult to compare across studies and draw conclusions about how mindfulness helps students in schools.

    What is mindfulness?

    Different definitions of mindfulness exist.

    Some people might think mindfulness means simply practicing breathing, for example.

    A common definition from Jon Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulness expert who helped popularize mindfulness in Western countries, says mindfulness is about “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, nonjudgmentally, in the present moment.”

    Essentially, mindfulness is a way of being. It is a person’s approach to each moment and their orientation to both inner and outer experience, the pleasant and the unpleasant. Fundamental to mindfulness is how a person chooses to direct their attention.

    In practice, mindfulness can involve different practices, including guided meditations, mindful movement and breathing. Mindfulness programs can also help people develop a variety of skills, including openness to experiences and more focused attention.

    Practicing mindfulness at schools

    A few years ago, I decided to investigate school mindfulness programs themselves and consider what it means for children to learn mindfulness at schools. What do the programs actually teach?

    I believe that understanding this information can help educators, parents and policymakers make more informed decisions about whether mindfulness belongs in their schools.

    In 2023, my colleagues and I conducted a deep dive into 12 readily available mindfulness curricula for K-12 students to investigate what the programs contained. Across programs, we found no consistency of content, teaching practices or time commitment.

    For example, some mindfulness programs in K-12 schools incorporate a lot of movement, with some specifically teaching yoga poses. Others emphasize interpersonal skills such as practicing acts of kindness, while others focus mostly on self-oriented skills such as focused attention, which may occur by focusing on one’s breath.

    We also found that some programs have students do a lot of mindfulness practices, such as mindful movement or mindful listening, while others teach about mindfulness, such as learning how the brain functions.

    Finally, the number of lessons in a curriculum ranged from five to 44, meaning some programs occurred over just a few weeks and some required an entire school year.

    Despite indications that mindfulness has some positive impacts for school-age children, the evidence is also not consistent, as shown by other research.

    One of the largest recent studies of mindfulness in schools found in 2022 no change in students who received mindfulness instruction.

    Some experts believe, though, that the lack of results in this 2022 study on mindfulness was partially due to a curriculum that might have been too advanced for middle school-age children.

    The connection between mindfulness and education

    Since attention is critical for students’ success in school, it is not surprising that mindfulness appeals to many educators.

    Research on student engagement and executive functioning supports the claim that any student’s ability to filter out distractions and prioritize the objects of their thoughts improves their academic success.

    Mindfulness programs have been shown to improve students’ mental health and decrease students’ and teachers’ stress levels.

    Mindfulness has also been shown to help children emotionally regulate.

    Even before social media, teachers perennially struggled to get students to pay attention. Reviews of multiple studies have shown some positive effects of mindfulness on outcomes, including improvements in academic achievement and school adjustment.

    A 2023 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites mindfulness as one of six evidence-based strategies K-12 schools should use to promote students’ mental health and well-being.

    A relatively new trend

    Knowing what is in the mindfulness curriculum, how it is taught and how long the student spends on mindfulness matters. Students may be learning very different skills with significantly different amounts of time to reinforce those skills.

    Researchers suggest, for example, that mindfulness programs most likely to improve academic or mental health outcomes of children offer activities geared toward their developmental level, such as shorter mindfulness practices and more repetition.

    In other words, mindfulness programs for children cannot just be watered down versions of adult programs.

    Mindfulness research in school settings is still relatively new, though there is encouraging data that mindfulness can sharpen skills necessary for students’ academic success and promote their mental health.

    In addition to the need for more research on the outcomes of mindfulness, it is important for educators, parents, policymakers and researchers to look closely at the curriculum to understand what the students are actually doing.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Source link

  • Fixing Michigan’s Teacher Shortage Isn’t Just About Getting More Recruits – The 74

    Fixing Michigan’s Teacher Shortage Isn’t Just About Getting More Recruits – The 74

    The number of vacancies is likely an undercount, because this number does not include substitutes or unqualified teachers who may have been hired to fill gaps.

    Local news reports and job boards suggest that at least some Michigan districts are still struggling to fill open positions for the fall of 2025.

    The teacher shortage is a nationwide problem, but it is especially acute in Michigan, where the number of teachers leaving teaching and the overall teacher shortage both exceed the national average. This shortage is particularly severe in urban and rural communities, which have the most underresourced schools, and in specialization areas such as science, mathematics and special education.

    For more than two decades, my work at Michigan State University has centered on designing and leading effective teacher preparation programs. My research focuses on ways to attract people to teaching and keep them in the profession by helping them grow into effective classroom leaders.

    Low pay and lack of support

    Teacher shortages are the result of a combination of factors, especially low salaries, heavy workloads and a lack of ongoing professional support.

    A report released last year, for example, found that Michigan teachers and teachers nationwide make about 20% less compared to those in other careers that also require a college education.

    From my experience working with teachers and district leadership across the state, I know that beginning teachers – especially those in districts which have severe shortages – are often given the most challenging teaching loads. And in some districts, teachers have been forced to work without the benefit of any kind of planning time in their daily schedule.

    The shortage was made much worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led many educators to leave the profession. Yet another culprit is the many teachers who, in Michigan as well as nationally, were hired during the 1960s and early ’70s, when school enrollments saw a massive increase, and who in the past decade have been retiring in large numbers.

    Creating pathways to certification

    One recent strategy to address the teacher shortage in Michigan has been to create nontraditional routes to teacher certification.

    The idea is to prepare educators more quickly and inexpensively. A variety of agencies – from the Michigan Department of Education, state-level grants programs such as the Future Proud Michigan Educator program, as well as private foundations and businesses – have helped these programs along financially.

    Even some school districts, including the Detroit Public Schools Community District, have adopted this strategy in order to certify teachers and fill vacant positions.

    Other similar programs are the product of partnerships between Michigan’s intermediate school districts, community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. One example is Grand Valley State University’s Western Michigan Teacher Collaborative, which targets interested students of college age. Another is MSU’s Community Teacher Initiative, designed to attract students into teaching while they are still in high school.

    Perhaps even more visible are national programs such as Teachers of Tomorrow and Teach for America. Candidates in such programs often work as full-time teachers while completing teacher training coursework with minimal oversight or support.

    ‘Stuffing the pipeline’ is not the solution

    But simply “stuffing the pipeline” with new recruits is not enough to solve the teacher-shortage problem in Michigan.

    The loss of teachers is significantly higher among individuals in nontraditional training programs and for teachers of color. This starts while they are preparing to be certified and continues for several years after certification.

    The primary reasons for the higher attrition rates include a lack of awareness of the complexity of schools and schooling, the lack of effective mentoring during the certification period, and the absence of instructional and other professional guidance in the early years of teaching.

    How to repair the leaky faucet

    So how can teachers be encouraged to stay in the profession?

    Here are a few of the things scholars have learned to improve outcomes in traditional and nontraditional preparation programs:

    Temper expectations. Teaching is a critically important career, but leading individuals to believe that they can repair the damage done by a complex set of socioeconomic issues – including multigenerational poverty and lack of access to healthy and affordable food, housing, drinking water and health care – puts beginning teachers on a short road to early burnout and departure.

    Give student teachers strong mentors. Working in schools helps student teachers deepen their knowledge not only of teaching but also of how schools, families and communities work together. But these experiences are useful only if they are overseen and supported by an experienced and caring educator and supported by the organization’s leadership.

    Recognize the limits of online learning. Online teacher preparation programs are convenient and have their place but don’t provide student teachers with real-world experience and opportunities for guided discussion about what they see, hear and feel when working with students.

    Respect the process of “becoming.” Professional support should not end when a new teacher is officially certified. Teachers, like other professionals such as nurses, doctors and lawyers, need time to develop skills throughout their careers.

    Providing this support sends a powerful message: that teachers are valued members of the community. Knowing that helps them stay in their jobs.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Source link

  • From where student governors sit, Dundee isn’t the only institution with governance challenges

    From where student governors sit, Dundee isn’t the only institution with governance challenges

    There are a couple of typical ways to “read” Pamela Gillies’ investigation report into financial oversight and decision making at the University of Dundee.

    One is to imagine that the issues in it are fairly unique to that university – that a particular set of people and circumstances were somehow not picked up properly by a governing body apparently oblivious to what was happening below the surface.

    In that extreme, the key failing was not doing all the Scottish Code for Good Higher Education Governance asks its governors to do.

    Another is to wonder whether, even with a clean bill of “good governance” health, it could happen elsewhere.

    One of the things that is fascinating about organisational failure is the way in which governance tends to be picked up as a problem – because it can lead to the conclusion that because organisational failure is not widespread, the governance issues must be local.

    If you position governance exclusively as scrutiny, it could of course be the case that the culture of governance is weak across the board – it’s just that most senior teams in universities don’t make the mistakes that were evidently made at Dundee, and thus we’d never know.

    After all, nobody questions governance when things are going well, when funding is flowing and when student numbers are on the up. If anything, in that positioning, the danger is in complacency – because governance needs to come into its own to avoid mistakes and catch issues before they become catastrophes.

    When Gillies’ report was published, I couldn’t avoid recalling countless conversations I’ve had over the years with student members of governing bodies about everything from the lateness of papers to the culture of decision making.

    So to test the waters, I pulled out 14 governance issues from the investigation and put a brief (anonymous) survey out to students’ union officers who are members of their Board, Council or Court.

    I can’t claim that 41 responses (captured in the second half of June and the first half of July) are representative of the whole sector, and nor are they representative of the whole of the governing bodies on which respondents have sat.

    But there is enough material in there to cause us concern about how universities around the UK are governed.

    A culture of control

    One issue that Pam Gillies picked up was leadership dominance, where the vice chancellor and chair were found to have “behaved like they have everything under control” while governing bodies failed to provide adequate challenge.

    When we asked whether student governors had experienced leadership that “routinely dominates discussions, controls narratives to present overly positive pictures, or makes it difficult for governors to raise concerns,” 68 per cent said they’d experienced this “a lot”. Another 27 per cent said “a little.”

    That’s 95 per cent of respondents experiencing some level of what one might generously call “narrative management” by their senior teams.

    The comments flesh out what this looks like in practice. One student governor observed:

    You are told at the start that your job is to manage the VC and the SMT but they manage the governors. The Chair and the VC behave like they have everything under control. The room just does not seem interested in education or the student experience, more whether it is running as a business.

    Another captured the emotional impact:

    Whenever I have asked a question or said something even questioning let alone critical about UEG it’s like I have suggested burning down their office. They are allowed to be both over-defensive and over-reassuring rather than treat contributions from me and some of the other more vocal governors as contributions to thinking. It makes the whole thing quite pointless.

    It’s not just about dominance – it’s also about active silencing. Gillies found that dissenting voices were marginalised and that “critical challenge was not welcomed.” Our survey bears this out.

    When asked about governors being “shut down, spoken over, dismissed as ‘obstructive,’ or otherwise discouraged when trying to challenge decisions,” 51 per cent reported experiencing this “a lot”. Another 37 per cent said “a little”.

    The mechanisms are subtle but effective. One respondent noted being warned at the start of their term that the previous student president had not been “constructive” and that to get things done, they needed to be “constructive” instead. The implied threat was clear – play nice or be frozen out.

    It was made very clear to me at the start that the previous President had not been ‘constructive’ and that if I wanted to get things done I needed to be ‘constructive’. All year I have felt torn – other governors would regularly ask me at the meal what was ‘really going on’ but I never felt like I could be critical in the actual meeting because of the ‘partnership’. I feel like the VC was under a lot of pressure to perform for the governors, and that makes it impossible to say anything about what you think is going wrong.

    Another described the choreography of exclusion:

    The power dynamics are fascinating if you’re into that sort of thing. Watch who the Chair makes eye contact with, whose contributions get minuted vs. ‘noted’, who gets interrupted vs. who can ramble for 10 minutes unchecked. I never got the premium treatment – I feel that the Chair needs some feedback on whose thoughts they obviously value.

    That isolation extends beyond meetings. Multiple respondents noted deliberate strategies to separate them from support:

    One tendency we picked up on a lot was to isolate me from support, I wasn’t allowed to discuss the papers with my CEO or have my CEO in the room. It’s only student on the board. They say that’s for confidentiality, but everyone else in the room is clearly discussing their issues with people who can put everything into a context. I think it should be the law that two students are on the board.

    The theatre of governance

    Gillies found that important decisions at Dundee were made outside formal governance structures, with a “small inner circle” controlling key outcomes. Our survey question on decision-making transparency suggests this is far from unique.

    When asked whether “important decisions are made by a small inner circle before reaching the governing body,” 51 per cent said this happened “a lot”, with another 44 per cent saying “a little”.

    The comments reveal how that manifests. One student governor described discovering a shadow governance structure:

    I think there’s a huge element of culture at my institution which prevents effective governance but it’s also the structure. There’s a meeting which isn’t included in the governance structure but everything goes to it before it can go anywhere else and it’s restricted to senior managers at the university. If it isn’t approved there, it won’t happen, even if things like rent negotiations have taken place in the ‘proper’ meetings, they can just scrap it and say ‘no, this is what needs to happen’ and then we’re just told. It feels like secret meeting which secretly governs everything and every other meeting is a rubber stamp for decisions made there.

    Another put it more bluntly:

    The meetings are very odd places, we don’t have any input at all on anything. Everything that comes to the Court is finished, and our job seems to be to politely probe what is in front of us (always once, follow ups frowned upon). Eye-opening but completely pointless.

    Gillies highlighted how late papers and missing documentation hampered effective governance at Dundee – the control of information emerges as a critical tool in maintaining this system across the sector. Over half (54 per cent) of respondents in our survey reported experiencing late papers, missing documentation, or “critical updates given verbally rather than in writing” frequently.

    But it goes deeper than administrative incompetence. When asked about financial information quality – an area Gillies found particularly problematic at Dundee – 37 per cent said they’d frequently received reports that “were unclear, seemed to obscure the true position, contained unexplained anomalies, or lacked integrated information.”

    One respondent shared a particularly telling anecdote:

    Training – our old CFO was a dick. He said that he wouldn’t train student members of Council in the finances because we ‘wouldn’t understand it’ which, in my mind, seems like something to a) find out and b) entirely irrelevant to a governor asking to see financial information.

    The systematic exclusion of student perspectives from board papers then compounds it:

    Many of the budget requests and department updates did not reflect the student experience accurately whether it was missing data from specific feedback routes or lacking in student perspective entirely, it made approvals difficult for me and difficult for the board as I would then be asked for the data and even though I can share some of the issues I know of I cannot represent the entire student body. With only 48hrs notice.

    The message seems to be that knowledge is power – and student governors aren’t meant to have it.

    Living in fantasy land

    Gillies found that Dundee’s governing body had been presented with “overly positive pictures” that obscured institutional reality. Quite striking in our survey is the disconnect between the institution presented in governance meetings and the one students actually experience.

    Multiple respondents described sitting through presentations that bore no resemblance to reality:

    The university that gets presented isn’t the university I was at as a student.

    Another elaborated:

    It feels a lot like a fantasy world in there but they really don’t know how the university actually works, and the questions they ask are so weird, like they are desperate for the university to be as good as they imagine it is when there are really a lot of problems with how it runs especially at school level.

    This fantasy is then maintained through what we might call the tyranny of positivity. When asked whether they’d felt “pressure to maintain positive messaging even when you have legitimate worries,” 61 per cent said they’d experienced this “a lot”.

    The enforcement mechanisms vary. Some are explicit:

    They love talking about ‘student voice’ in the abstract but hate it when we actually speak. I raised concerns about library hours during exams and the DVC literally rolled his eyes. Later the Chair pulled me aside and said I should ‘pick my battles more carefully’ and focus on ‘strategic matters’.

    Others are more subtle. Multiple respondents described being praised for contributions that never led to change:

    I was often praised in the minutes. ‘Thoughtful contribution from the student member.’ But praise without change feels hollow – a polite pat on the head.

    This disconnect between fantasy and reality is exacerbated by what several respondents identified as an unhealthy fixation on rankings:

    A lot of the meetings were really interested in what I had to say, but the obsession with league tables is bizarre. We spent easily an hour at the last meeting discussing how to game NSS metrics but when I suggested actually fixing the issues students raise – timetabling chaos, inconsistent feedback, broken IT systems – I got blank stares. One governor literally said ‘can’t we just manage student expectations better?’ What’s the point?

    Another observed:

    There are about sixteen of us in theory but really there are six people who speak at every meeting, and it is always about whether we are beating other universities. I don’t think the governors have any way to judge how well the university is doing other than by thinking about other universities. It is very weird.

    This comparative obsession substitutes for genuine evaluation of institutional health – where things become filtered through the lens of institutional positioning rather than student experience.

    The survey responses also reveal how regulatory compliance has become another distorting filter. Several respondents noted how the Office for Students has inadvertently created perverse incentives:

    It is very weird to me that whenever I’ve talked about student issues they are responded to with things like ‘that would not be an issue for the OfS’, like we are only supposed to worry about the student experience if OfS are doing a visit.

    It suggests that governing bodies are more concerned with regulatory perception than addressing underlying problems – a dangerous conflation of compliance with quality.

    The impossible position

    A particularly Byzantine aspect of student perceptions of governance emerges in the contradictions around representation. Multiple respondents noted being told explicitly that they were “not a representative” of students, only to have governors constantly ask them about student views:

    At the start of the year it is drilled into you that you are not a representative, and then at every meeting someone has asked me what students think, what students are saying, how students would react, and so on. It really is ridiculous.

    It creates an impossible position – student governors are simultaneously expected to embody the student voice whilst being forbidden from claiming to represent it, and are consulted when convenient but dismissed when challenging.

    The tokenism extends to how “the student experience” is conceptualised:

    There is a pressure not to rock the boat too much or the SU funding will be under threat. One other thing is that the other governors see ‘the student experience’ as one homogeneous thing. I represent 30,000 students – disabled students, commuters, mature students, international students, care leavers – but I get 5 minutes at the end of every meeting to cover ‘student matters.’ When I highlight different needs across student groups, eyes glaze over.

    One response powerfully captured another dimension of the problem:

    Too many decisions are made by white upper-middle class men who have no real understanding of student demographics or experiences and the effects that rushed, ill informed decisions can have on the student body.

    This homogeneity problem compounds all the others – if governance doesn’t reflect the communities it serves, how can it possibly understand their needs?

    Throughout the responses runs a theme of performative partnership that masks fundamental power imbalances. Student governors describe being valued for their “input” on predetermined decisions whilst being told their contributions are “premature” on anything still under genuine consideration:

    Two types of agenda items, ones where student input is ‘valued’ (anything they’ve already decided) and those where student input is ‘premature’ (anything they haven’t decided yet). Its never the right time for meaningful student contribution.

    The contrast between public and private behaviour is also revealing:

    I feel that the UET are like Jekyll and Hyde, they have listened to me outside of the meetings but when I have asked about things during Board meetings they react very defensively. I’m not supposed to be a rep for students but nobody else ever talks about students unless we count recruiting students.

    When push comes to shove

    Gillies found that committees at Dundee operated as “rubber stamping exercises” rather than providing genuine oversight. Our survey revealed similar patterns, with 46 per cent reporting committees feeling like “rubber stamping exercises.”

    Even when committees try to assert themselves, the resistance is telling:

    We had an issue with the auditors and the closest I’ve seen us come to blows as a Council was when the exec tried to treat the issue as annoying but closed and move on but Council had to say ‘actually, no, we’d like an audit of our auditors to work out how [confidential] was missed.’

    The fundamental problem, as one respondent observed, may be structural:

    I honestly think that the huge number of things the council are expected to know about and make decisions on are beyond them. They don’t meet often enough and they really do not understand their responsibilities.

    Gillies documented how Dundee’s governance processes were abandoned during crisis periods. Our survey asked about governance during “difficult periods,” and of those who didn’t say “N/A”, 51 per cent reported seeing “normal governance processes abandoned, informal advisory groups bypass committee structures, or key oversight bodies become inactive when they’re most needed.”

    It suggests that whatever thin veneer of good governance exists in normal times rapidly dissolves under pressure – precisely when robust governance is most essential:

    Student input in governance is at a real risk of just becoming a box ticking exercise as I have sat in meetings where the student experience is discussed by everyone but the students in the room. Once decisions need to be made at speed all thought for student and staff is ignored and it is often because of their own burdensome governance structures that inhibit the agility needed for such a volatile time in HE.”

    The human cost

    The emotional toll shouldn’t be underestimated. Multiple respondents described feeling “out of place,” “invalidated,” or like they were “betraying everyone” simply by asking questions.

    One particularly poignant comment came from a sabbatical officer who left their role early:

    It was a really tough experience as I had students relying on me. I wish that I could’ve stayed in my role for longer but the lack of transparency and wish to subdue the view for students contradicted my individual beliefs and leadership style. I was supportive and I wanted students to know what I was doing. This wasn’t always possible.

    And the lack of institutional learning is telling:

    It is telling that they spent so much time with me at the start but haven’t spent any time with me to get my feedback at the end. I feel that they should do exit interviews to learn about how intimidating the atmosphere can be.

    Perhaps most damning is the response to our final question. When asked whether they “feel confident that your governing body would identify and respond appropriately to serious institutional risks,” only 32 per cent expressed confidence.

    That means 68 per cent of student governors – governors who usually have the most intimate knowledge of how their institutions actually operate – doubt their governing body’s ability to spot and address serious problems.

    One captured the fundamental dysfunction:

    If I compare it to being on my union board I think the governors is a joke. If I ask why or how in the union we have a decent conversation. If I do it at governors the atmosphere is like I’ve betrayed everyone. And if I say something isn’t clear that is turned into something I’ve not done or read. We’re not governors. We’re an audience.

    Another summed up the experience with clarity:

    I feel that the whole thing is engineered to make the vice chancellor and her team to look good rather than gather our input or ideas, I would have side conversations with some of the community governors who shared my view but there just is not any part of any meeting where ‘input’ is welcome.

    We’re not governors. We’re an audience

    Some of the most problematic critiques came in respondents’ final reflections on what governance actually means in practice:

    What frustrates me most is the wasted potential. These are genuinely smart, accomplished people who could transform this place. But they’re trapped in this weird bubble where everything’s fine and any criticism is disloyalty. I know I’m not the only one.

    The sense of governance as performance came through repeatedly:

    In the January meeting I was invited to do a presentation before the formal meeting on what student life is like and I got a lot of praise from the Chair about how eye-opening it was. But about half of the governors were not there and the PVC-E went off on one about how the university’s surveys contradicted some of the things we were saying. I feel that the whole body just doesn’t have a clue about students or staff and what it is like to be a student in 2025.

    One respondent captured the Kafkaesque nature of their experience:

    The whole ‘critical friend’ thing is such a con. We’re meant to be critical but every time I challenge something I get ‘well, Council can only advise, we cannot instruct the executive.’ So we’re legally responsible for decisions we can only ‘advise’ on? The Vice Chancellor keeps saying Council is ‘not a court’ whenever we try to hold them accountable. I’ve started asking ‘what CAN Council actually do?’ because honestly I’m not sure anymore.

    The broader implications were spelled out starkly:

    The big, big, BIG thing for us as student leaders has been ‘what Council is and is not for’. Often, when we’ve brought issues for discussion or ‘airing’ at Council, I have had every variation of ‘Council is not a court’ ‘Council can only advise the exec, it cannot instruct it’ ‘Council is for critical challenge but cannot dictate’ some of which is absolutely at odds with then being legally responsible for the decisions you have only ‘advised on’ and ‘cannot dictate’.

    And perhaps most damningly:

    As a new Sabbatical officer, I felt extremely out of place with the culture of Court meetings, as if I wasn’t supposed to be or welcome there. It made my input feel invalidated and overlooked. Structurally, important decisions are already decided upon within committees before reaching court.

    What next?

    It’s important to set what I’ve gathered in context. Student governors have a particular perspective and a specific set of confidence and cultural capital asymmetries that are bound to make being on a body of the “great and good” a difficult experience.

    41 responses is not the whole sector (and may not even be from 41 universities), and it was a self-selecting survey. But we should be worried.

    Out of the back of the Dundee episode, both Graeme Day and the Scottish Funding Council have committed to exploring ways to strengthen governance to avoid a repeat.

    Universities Scotland has committed to collective reflection on Gilles’ findings and the lessons it shares to give “robust assurance” of financial management and good governance to funders, regulators, supporters and all who depend on universities.

    It has also said it will “connect” to Universities UK’s work to consider the leadership and governance skills required in the sector in times of transformation and challenge.

    As such, the same issue that students see in governing bodies is playing out nationally – there are questions that suggest a loss of autonomy, and reassurance about “performance” designed to retain it.

    There is therefore a real danger that the processes will conclude what these sorts of things always conclude – that with the right “skills” and adherence to a given Code, all will be well.

    But the experiences from students suggest that neither “getting the right skills” nor calls for better codes will solve the fundamental problems. The issue isn’t just about getting the “right” people around the table or training them better – it’s about reconsidering what we’re asking governance to do.

    Vertical or horizontal?

    As I noted here and here, the Dutch experience offers an alternative. Following a series of governance scandals in the early 2000s, the Netherlands rejected both excessive state control and unfettered institutional autonomy. Their 2016 Education Governance Strengthening Act created a “third way” – creating multi-level democratic participation from program to institutional level.

    Rather than imposing rigid rules, the framework promoted “horizontal dialogue” where students, staff, management, and supervisors engage in ongoing conversations about their university.

    A 2021 evaluation found meaningful channels for student and staff input had been created, with improved dialogue quality between stakeholder groups. If there’s enough of them, staff and students have turned out to be better at scrutiny than skilled lay members or someone from the funding council sat in the corner.

    It’s also partly about what is discussed. Most boards operate primarily in fiduciary mode (overseeing budgets, ensuring compliance) or strategic mode (setting priorities, deploying resources). While essential, these modes often crowd out what governance scholars call the “generative mode” – critical thinking, questioning assumptions, and framing problems in insightful ways.

    Generative governance asks probing questions: “What is our fundamental purpose?” and “How does this decision align with our core values?” It involves scenario planning, delving into root causes rather than symptoms, and actively considering ethical implications beyond legal compliance. And it allows senior staff to participate, rather than perform – a culture that then improves scrutiny in fiduciary mode.

    It is where staff, student, and community governors could add most value – yet it’s often where their contributions are most dismissed as inappropriate or “operational.” The standard line that governors should be “concerned with the university rather than as representatives” misses the point that understanding the lived experience of those working and studying there is essential to good governance, and actually improves fiduciary scrutiny.

    Put another way, maybe better fiduciary mode scrutiny could have probed more on the Nigerian students focussed business plan at Dundee. But it’s more likely that better generative mode governance could have explained what was starting to happen to the currency in Nigeria, how tough students were funding it to pay their fees, and what families were going through as the Naira went into collapse.

    It’s also partly about what we think “effectiveness” means. Universities facing unprecedented challenges – financial pressures, technological disruption, legitimacy crises – need governance capable of navigating complexity, not just ticking out risk registers. They need what the Dutch reforms sought – genuine accountability to the communities they serve, not just reassuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

    Universities at their best are spaces where different forms of knowledge encounter each other, and where democratic values are modeled and sustained. Their governance should reflect this reality.

    As such, we need to ensure we’re solving the right problem. The issue isn’t governors who need better training or institutions that need tighter control. It’s a governance model designed for a different era and different types of organisation, struggling to cope with contemporary complexity while excluding the voices that could help navigate it.

    What we do next requires courage to move beyond the false choice between corporatisation and collegial nostalgia. A third way is possible – one that takes seriously both institutional sustainability and democratic participation, that values both expertise and lived experience, that reconciles the university interest with the interests of those who study and work there rather than separating them or elevating one of them, and that governs for the public good rather than just institutional survival.

    The students sitting in those boardrooms, feeling like audiences rather than governors, deserve better. So do the staff, the communities universities serve, and democracy itself.

    Source link

  • Sharing is good, except when it isn’t

    Sharing is good, except when it isn’t

    In the wake of the floods in the U.S. state of Texas earlier this month news circulated on social media of two girls being rescued. One of the first posts sharing the story included a screenshot of a post to social media that read:

    Rescuers find 2 girls in tree, 30-feet up, near Comfort

    The dramatic rescue occurred closer to Comfort, which is in Kendall County, witnesses said. The girls were found in the tree during ongoing search operations for victims of Friday’s catastrophic flooding that has killed 59 people across Kerr County.

    A Facebook search of the post’s keywords returned dozens of identical or similarly-worded posts retelling the harrowing rescue. Other versions of the story were also shared across social media platforms like Instagram Threads, as well as in now-deleted articles across various news outlets. 

    But the story was fabricated. 

    It was a prime example of a type of misinformation known as “copypasta.” 

    Inciting fear

    Social media posts that utilize copypasta — a portmanteau of “copy” and “paste” — are often used to incite fear or evoke emotions, prompting users to like and share the content. These posts are used for various reasons, whether to polarize different political groups further or to attract a broader audience and spread misinformation. 

    Alex Kasprak is an investigative journalist who reported for the digital fact-checking website Snopes for nearly a decade. In his experience, Kasprak says copypasta plays a central role in online misinformation. (For more on Snopes’ take on copypasta, head to this link.) 

    “The simplest way to put it, is that copypasta is a text that you see that is identical or nearly identical posted either with somebody’s name as an author or without it in an identical form on multiple posts such that it’s clear that whoever is posting it copied it from somewhere else,” said Kasprak. 

    “What you end up getting in that sort of phenomenon is a game of telephone.”  

    Copypasta serves as a new-age version of chainmail, seen in the early days of email, which promised good luck for forwarding a message or foretold misinformation if you let the email sit in an inbox. 

    Lacking credibility

    In the case of copypasta, social media users are encouraged to comment, share or tag their friends in a post to boost engagement. Such emotion-evoking messages can serve as an entry point into more polarizing content, which is often rife with false information. 

    To identify copypasta, look for signs of vague or generic information that lacks a credible source or call to action. The way a post is written can also serve as an indication that it may be a copy-and-paste text. 

    “With copypasta, everything generally kind of travels forward, including errors in grammar or mistranslations,” Kasprak said. “If there are weird sentences that just kind of end or don’t fully make grammatical sense, that is an indicator that the tone of the message doesn’t match.”

    If the post is shared by someone that you know on your feed, but the tone is different than how they usually post or talk, the content likely originated from another source — credible or not, Kasprak said. 

    In addition to spreading false information, copypasta can be used as part of bigger campaigns to push particular sentiments or ideologies. For example, back in 2017, U.S. government officials found evidence that Russian “trolls” took to social media and also deployed social media campaigns to connect certain users to various organizations or movements.

    Danger to the infosphere

    During these online campaigns, nefarious actors meddled in the election by posting emotional content to get users to engage, gradually bringing them down a digital rabbit hole of more polarizing issues.

    Kasprak adds that copypasta content also harms the “infosphere,” or public knowledge otherwise rooted in fact. When copypasta becomes widespread and is presented as a “pseudofact,” people begin to cite it as common knowledge. A commonly held belief that many people cite as fact, for example, is that a mother bird will abandon its offspring if a human touches it. Experts agree that this notion is not true. 

    Another tactic behind those who post copypasta is to poison AI models in a similar way that fake news websites do. When enough content on the internet makes a particular claim, AI technologies may focus on this noise and refer to it as fact. In this way, AI programs are “trained” to focus and “believe” those posts over other sources of information.

    Emotion-evoking posts may also fall into the copypasta category if they are not rooted in unbiased facts. If emotional language used in the post immediately sparks anger, sadness or another strong emotion, it may be a fake post. 

    “In general, the big thing to watch out for is if something fits perfectly into your notion of how the world works,” said Kasprak. Posts that validate a person’s view of the world or evoke strong emotions in a positive or negative way are more likely to be a red flag. 

    Kasprak advises users to check their biases when reading potential copypasta content; if something makes you angry or sad, double-check its source and legitimacy. 

    “Pause if you feel strongly about wanting to share something, because those posts are the ones where the risk of copypasta is higher,” said Kasprak. When he comes across a post he believes to be copypasta, Kasprak says that he tries to “tear apart” the argument, primarily if it supports his beliefs, until it dissolves. 

    “Check your blind spots and be vigilant in checking your work,” said Kasprak. 

    When in doubt, don’t share.

     

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is meant by “copypasta”?

    2. How can something false become part of commonly believed?

    3. Can you remember the last thing you reposted on social media? What kind of things do you share with your network?

     

    Source link

  • Creative higher education isn’t a skills pipeline, it’s a cultural force

    Creative higher education isn’t a skills pipeline, it’s a cultural force

    Creative education is not a conveyor belt. It’s a crucible.

    In the UK’s industrial strategy, the creative industries are rightly recognised as a pillar of national growth. But this recognition comes with a familiar risk: that education will be seen merely as a supplier of skills, a passive pipeline feeding talent into pre-existing systems.

    This is a pervasive attitude, which so strongly influences the possibilities for students, they can be anxious about being “industry ready” before they’ve had the chance to explore or define fully what kind of practitioners they want to become. This is a reductive view and one we must resist. Creative higher education is not a service department for industry. It is a cultural force, a site of disruption, a collaborator and a generator of futures not yet imagined.

    Partners not pipelines

    Creative education does not simply serve industry – it co-shapes it. Our job is not just to deliver talent into predefined roles, but to challenge the boundaries of those roles altogether. We cultivate new forms of knowledge, artistic practice, and cultural leadership. As Michael Salmon has noted, HE’s relationship with the industrial strategy needs rethinking – we think especially in fields where “skills” are not easily reduced to training targets or labour force projections. Education is not just about plugging gaps; it’s about opening space for new kinds of thinking.

    Christa van Raalte and Richard Wallis have called for “a better quality of conversation” about the skills agenda in screen and creative sectors. Their point that simplistic, linear approaches to “skills gaps” are not fit for purpose should land hard within our own walls too. We need a better quality of conversation around the creative skills agenda. Narrow, supply-side thinking is not only reductive, it risks cutting off the very dynamism on which the industry depends.

    Our graduates don’t only “enter” the creative industries. They redefine them. They found new companies, invent new formats, challenge power structures, and expand what stories get told and who gets to tell them. To conceive of specialist creative HE as mainly a workforce provider is to misunderstand its essence. Our institutions are where risk-taking is possible, where experimentation is protected, and where the creative freedoms that industry often cannot afford are made viable.

    Resistance from within

    The danger isn’t just external. It’s internal too. Even within our own institutions, we sometimes absorb the language and logic of the pipeline. We begin to measure our worth by the requirement to report on short-term employability statistics. We are encouraged by the landscape to shape curricula around perceived “gaps” rather more than emerging possibilities. The pressure of metrics, league table and reputation help us to believe that our highest purpose is to serve, rather than to shape.

    This internalisation is subtle and corrosive. It narrows our vision. It makes us reactive instead of generative. And it risks turning spaces of radical creativity into echo chambers of industry demand. It is a recipe for sameness and status quo, a situation many call to change.

    We must be vigilant. We must ask ourselves: are we designing education for the world as it is, or for the world as it could be? Are we opening access, nurturing the disruptors, the visionaries, the cultural architects — or only the job-ready?

    When creative institutions start to measure their value predominantly through short-term employability metrics, or shape curriculum mainly around perceived industry gaps, we lose the distinctiveness that makes us valuable in the first place.

    We risk:

    • Designing education around current norms, not future needs
    • Prioritising technical proficiency over critical inquiry
    • Favouring students most likely to succeed within existing structures, rather than supporting those most likely to change them

    If we define our purpose only in terms of industry demand, we abandon much responsibility.

    From pipeline to ecosystem

    What we need is a new compact: not “education as service provider,” but “education as ecosystem partner.” A pipeline feeds. An ecosystem nurtures, nourishes and grows.

    This approach:

    • Recognises specialist creative HE as a site of research, innovation and values-driven practice
    • Treats industry as a collaborator, not a master – collaboration is especially present in research activity and creative projects led by industry professionals
    • Encourages co-creation of skills agendas, not top-down imposition
    • Embraces long-term thinking about sector health, sustainability, and inclusion – not just short-term workforce readiness

    The creative economy cannot thrive without imagination, critical thinking, inclusion, and cultural complexity; all things specialist institutions are powerfully placed to nurture. But this can only happen if we reject limiting narratives about our role. The industrial strategy may frame education as an economic lever to support the growth in the creative industries, but we must resist being reduced to a lever alone. Meeting the opportunities in the strategy is both an invitation to engage with sector needs, help shape the future and a challenge to the cultures of training, pedagogy and research whose long roots exercise power in specialist HE.

    If we want to protect and evolve the value of creative higher education, we must speak with greater clarity and confidence to government, to industry, and to ourselves. This is not about resisting relevance or rejecting partnership. It’s about ensuring that our contribution is understood in full: not only as a supply chain, but as a strategic and cultural force.

    Importantly, we must acknowledge that our graduates are not just contributors to the UK’s creative economy – they are cultural ambassadors on a global stage. From Emmy, Oscar and BAFTA winning actors to internationally celebrated designers, technical artists, writers and directors (and so much more) UK-trained creatives shape discourse, aesthetics, and industries across the world. To frame their education in purely national economic terms is to limit its scope and power.

    Because the purpose of creative education isn’t just to help students find their place in the industry. It’s to empower them – and us – to shape what that industry becomes.

    Source link

  • Change Management in Higher Ed Isn’t a One-Off, It’s a Leadership Discipline

    Change Management in Higher Ed Isn’t a One-Off, It’s a Leadership Discipline

    Heraclitus once said, “The only certainty in life is change.”  I don’t often quote ancient philosophers, but that line feels especially true in the context of higher education.”

    We hear a lot about change and change management in higher ed, but we don’t hear enough about how to successfully navigate it and use it as a springboard to propel institutions forward. But change in our industry is no longer episodic; it’s constant. From evolving student expectations to emerging technologies and shifting funding models, institutions are facing wave after wave of disruption. The sheer volume of change within higher education makes effective change management not just important, but essential to success.

    Too often, change management in higher education is treated like a checklist: a one-and-done plan that lives and dies with the project at hand. A new technology platform. A revised advising model. A restructured academic department. Each initiative gets a task force, a timeline, maybe a town hall or two. Then it ends.

    This reactive, fragmented approach may get things over the finish line, but it can also lead to burnout, resistance, and a lack of long-term adoption. Change fatigue is real, and without a strategic change management plan, it can lead to staff turnover and a revolving door of changes that fail to realize their full potential. Institutions get stuck in a perpetual loop of short-term fixes and long-term frustration.

    We can’t continue to treat change management in higher education as a one-time initiative but need to start thinking of it as a core leadership discipline.

    Higher ed change management deserves a seat at the table

    Higher ed leaders are navigating an environment where agility is essential. Budgets are tighter. Competition is fiercer. Student needs are more complex. And digital transformation is an ongoing reality that will drive constant change.

    But too often, higher education views change management as a reactive function, kicking in when something is already in motion, such as implementing a new CRM, redesigning an advising model, or centralizing key functions and departments. The focus is often on damage control: How do we minimize pushback, smooth over disruptions, and reach the finish line without too much friction?

    Start by elevating change management to the strategic level, not only giving it a seat at the leadership table, but also providing it with the same structure, dedicated resources, and strategic oversight as any other core function. Schools that do this are better equipped to:

    • Improve cross-campus alignment
    • Reduce resistance and increase buy-in
    • Accelerate the adoption of new systems or models
    • Minimize disruption to students and staff
    • Deliver better outcomes, faster

    The bottom line? In this climate, the ability to manage change effectively is a competitive advantage. If you want your institution to be resilient, you need to be deliberate about how you manage change.

    Build the muscle: 3 strategies for better change management in higher ed

    To help get you started, here are three practical ways you can help your institution build confidence, strengthen its change management muscle, and create a culture that’s ready to adapt.

    1. Create a change management playbook and use it

    Successful change management cannot be ad hoc or reactive.  A change management playbook brings clarity and consistency. It outlines the steps, tools, and best practices for managing change from start to finish. When creating your playbook, consider:

    • Stakeholder mapping: Who are the executive sponsors? Who is affected? Who are the influencers? Who needs to be consulted early and often?
    • Communication protocols: What do different audiences need to know and when? How will you keep them informed and engaged? How will the messages be delivered? How will we gather feedback?
    • Training and support: What tools, resources, or guidance will people need to succeed in the new environment?

    Having a playbook doesn’t mean every change looks the same. It means every change follows a thoughtful, proactive approach, building institutional memory and contributing to a proven, repeatable model. It also sends a clear signal to your campus community: We take change seriously, and we’re investing in doing it well.

    Don’t silo your playbook. Make it a shared resource across IT, academic affairs, student services, and marketing. The more aligned your teams are, the more cohesive your change efforts will be.

    2. Appoint change champions across the institution

    Change doesn’t stick because a VP says so. It sticks because people at every level understand it, own it, and advocate for it.

    That’s why identifying change champions is essential. Change champions are individuals with influence in their peer groups who understand the value of the change and are willing to help others navigate the transition. They can be faculty, staff, or student leaders. When building your network, identify advocates across departments and at all levels.

    Empower these individuals with context, talking points, and direct lines of communication to leadership. Let them surface concerns early and share success stories along the way. Peer advocacy goes a long way in building trust, momentum, and reinforcing key messages.

    The result? Change doesn’t feel imposed. It feels supported, even co-owned.

    3. Make Communication your top priority

    Communication is the lifeblood of effective change management in higher education. But too often, it’s treated as an afterthought. You can’t lead change in silence, and exceptional leaders should communicate early and often

    Your institution should approach communication with intention and discipline:

    • Start with the “why” behind the change. People are more likely to support change when they understand its purpose.
    • Tailor messages to each audience. Faculty care about different things than students or staff. Don’t send one-size-fits-all emails and expect engagement.
    • Use multiple channels. Email, intranet, in-person forums, social media, video — different people absorb information in different ways.
    • Be transparent, even when things aren’t going according to plan. Share what you know, when you know it. When things change, explain why.

    Clear, frequent communication is one of the most powerful tools you for building trust and reducing resistance. And remember: Communication is a two-way street. Build feedback channels into your plan. Listen actively. Adapt as needed.

    Change management as a strategic function

    So, what does it look like when an institution treats change management as a true leadership discipline? It looks like this:

    • A standing change management office or role, reporting into strategy or operations.
    • A centralized playbook that guides every major initiative.
    • Regular training and coaching for leaders on how to lead through change.
    • KPIs and feedback loops that track engagement, adoption, and outcomes.
    • An inclusive culture where stakeholders are part of the process, not just recipients of it.

    In this model, change is no longer a disruption. It’s a capability. Something your institution can do reliably, thoughtfully, and at scale.

    Lead like change is the constant

    If you take one thing away from this, let it be that change management isn’t a project, it’s a leadership discipline. It deserves the same strategic attention as budgeting, enrollment planning, or accreditation. Because, when done right, it unlocks the potential of your people, your technology, and your mission.

    Change will keep coming, and by making change management a core part of how your institution operates every day, you can take control of it and effectively drive your desired outcomes.

    Innovation Starts Here

    Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

    Source link