This blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Richard Watermeyer (Professor of Higher Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education at the University of Bristol), Tom Crick (Professor of Digital Policy at Swansea University) and Lawrie Phipps (Professor of Digital Leadership at the University of Chester and Senior Research Lead at Jisc).
On Tuesday, HEPI and Cambridge University Press & Assessment will be hosting the UK launch of the OECD’s Education at a Glance. On Wednesday, we will be hosting a webinar on students’ cost of living with TechnologyOne – for more information on booking a free place, see here.
For as long as there has been national research assessment exercises (REF, RAE or otherwise), there have been efforts to improve the way with which research is evaluated and Quality Related (QR) research funding consequently distributed. Where REF2014 stands out for its introduction of impact as a measure of what counts as research excellence, for REF2029, it has been all about research culture. Though where impact has become an integral dimension of the REF, the installation of research culture (into a far weightier environment or as has been proposed People, Culture and Environment (PCE) statement) as a criterion of excellence appears far less assured, especially when set against a three-month extension to REF2029 plans.
A temporary pause on proceedings has been announced by Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government’s Minister for Science, as a means to ensure that the REF provides ‘a credible assessment of quality’. The corollary of such is that the hitherto proposed formula (many parts of which remain formally undeclared – much to the frustration of universities’ REF personnel and indeed researchers) is not quite fit for purpose, and certainly not so if the REF is to ‘support the government’s economic and social missions’. Thus, it may transpire that research culture is ultimately downplayed or omitted from the REF. For some, this volte face, if it materialises, may be greeted with relief; a pragmatic step-back from the jaws of an accountability regime that has become excessively complex, costly and inefficient (if not even estranged from the core business of evaluating and then funding so-called ‘excellent’ research) and despite proclamations at the conclusion of its every instalment, that next time it will be less burdensome.
While the potential backtrack on research culture and potential abandonment of PCE statements will be focused on to explain the REF’s most recent hiatus, these may be only cameos to discussion of its wider credibility and utility; a discussion which appears to be reaching apotheosis, not least given the financial difficulties endemic to the UK sector, which the REF, with its substantial cost, is counted as further exacerbating. Moreover, as we are finding in our current research, the REF may have entered a period not limited to incremental reform and tinkering at the edges but wholesale revision; and this as a consequence of higher education’s seemingly unstoppable colonisation by artificial intelligence.
With recent funding from Research England, we have undertaken to consult with research leaders and specialist REF personnel embedded across 17 UK HEIs – including large, research-intensive institutions and those historically with a more modest REF footprint, to gain an understanding of existing views of and practices in the adoption of generative AI tools for REF purposes. While our study has thrown up multiple views as to the utility and efficacy of using generative AI tools for REF purposes, it has nonetheless revealed broad consensus that the REF will inevitably become more AI-infused and enabled, if not ultimately, if it is to survive, entirely automated. The use of generative AI for purposes of narrative generation, evidence reconnaissance, and scoring of core REF components (research outputs and impact case studies) have all been mooted as potential applications with significant cost and labour-saving affordances and applications which might also get closer to ongoing, real-time assessments of research quality, unrestricted to seven-year assessment cycles. Yet the use of generative AI has also been (often strongly) cautioned against for the myriad ways with which it is implicated and engendered with bias and inaccuracy (as a ‘black box’ tool) and can itself be gamed in multiple ways, for instance in ‘adversarial white text’. This is coupled with wider ongoing scientific and technical considerations regarding transparency, provenance and reproducibility. Some even interpret its use as antithetical to the terms of responsible research evaluation set out by collectives like CoARA and COPE.
Notwithstanding, such various objections, we are witnessing these tools being used extensively (if in many settings tacitly and tentatively) by academics and professional services staff involved in REF preparations. We are also being presented with a view that the use of GenAI tools by REF panels in four years’ time is a fait accompli, especially given the speed by which the tools are being innovated. It may even be that GenAI tools could be purposed in ways that circumvent the challenges of human judgement, the current pause intimates, in the evaluation of research culture. Moreover, if the credibility and integrity of the REF ultimately rests in its capacity to demonstrate excellence via alignment with Government missions (particularly ‘R&D for growth’), then we are already seeing evidence of how AI technologies can achieve this.
While arguments have been previously made that the REF offers good value for (public) money, the immediate joint contexts of severe financial hardship for the sector; ambivalence as to the organisational credibility of the REF as currently proposed; and the attractiveness of AI solutions may produce a new calculation. This is a calculation, however, which the sector must own, and transparently and honestly. It should not be wholly outsourced, and especially not to one of a small number of dominant technology vendors. A period of review must attend not only to the constituent parts of the REF but how these are actioned and responded to. A guidebook for GenAI use in the REF is exigent and this must place consistent practice at its heart. The current and likely escalating impact of Generative AI on the REF cannot be overlooked if it is to be claimed as a credible assessment of quality. The question then remains: is three months enough?
Notes
The REF-AI study is due to report in January 2026. It is a research collaboration between the universities of Bristol and Swansea and Jisc.
With generous thanks to Professor Huw Morris (UCL IoE) for his input into earlier drafts of this article.
PITTSBURGH — Saisri Akondi had already started a company in her native India when she came to Carnegie Mellon University to get a master’s degree in biomedical engineering, business and design.
Before she graduated, she had co-founded another: D.Sole, for which Akondi, who is 28, used the skills she’d learned to create a high-tech insole that can help detect foot complications from diabetes, which results in 6.8 million amputations a year.
D.Sole is among technology companies in Pittsburgh that collectively employ a quarter of the local workforce at wages much higher than those in the city’s traditional steel and other metals industries. That’s according to the business development nonprofit the Pittsburgh Technology Council, which says these companies pay out an annual $27.5 billion in salaries alone.
A “significant portion” of Pittsburgh’s transformation into a tech hub has been driven by international students like Akondi, said Sean Luther, head of InnovatePGH, a coalition of civic groups and government agencies promoting innovation businesses.
The Pittsburgh Innovation District along Forbes Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Oakland section, near the campuses of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
“Next Happens Here,” reads the sign above the entrance to the co-working space where Luther works and technology companies are incubated, in an area near Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh dubbed the Pittsburgh Innovation District. The neighborhood is filled with people of various ethnicities speaking a variety of languages over lunch and coffee.
What might happen next to the international students and graduates who have helped fuel this tech economy has become an anxiety-inducing subject of those conversations, as the second presidential administration of Donald Trump brings visa crackdowns, funding cuts and other attacks on higher education — including here, in a state that voted for Trump.
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Inside the bubble of the universities and the tech sector, “there’s so much support you get,” Akondi observed, in a gleaming conference room at Carnegie Mellon. “But there still is a part of the population that asks, ‘What are you doing here?’ ”
Much of the ongoing conversation about international students has focused on undergraduates and their importance to university revenues and enrollment. Many of these students — especially in graduate schools — fill a less visible role in the economy, however. They conduct research that can lead to commercial applications, have skills employers need and start a surprising number of their own companies in the United States.
Sean Luther, head of InnovatePGH, at one of the organization’s co-working spaces. One reason tech companies have come to Pittsburgh “is because of those non-native-born workers,” Luther says. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
“The high-tech engineering and computer science activities that are central to regional economic development today are hugely dependent on these students,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies technology and innovation. “If you go into a lab, it will be full of non-American people doing the crucial research work that leads to intellectual property, technology partnerships and startups.”
Some 143 U.S. companies valued at $1 billion or more were started by people who came to the country as international students, according to the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonprofit that conducts research on immigration and trade. These companies have an average of 860 employees each and include SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.
Whether or not they invent new products or found businesses of their own, international graduates are “a vital source” of workers for U.S.-based tech companies, the National Science Foundation reported last year in an annual survey on the state of American science and engineering.
Dave Mawhinney, founding executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University, with Saisri Akondi, an international graduate and co-founder of the startup D.Sole. “There still is a part of the population that asks, ‘What are you doing here?’ ” says Akondi. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
It’s supply and demand, said Dave Mawhinney, a professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon and founding executive director of its Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, which helps many of that school’s students do research that can lead to products and startups. “And the demand for people with those skills exceeds the supply.”
That’s in part because comparatively few Americans are going into fields including science, technology, engineering and math. Even before the pandemic disrupted their educations, only 20 percent ofcollege-bound American high school students were prepared for college-level courses in these subjects. U.S. students scored lower in math than their counterparts in 21 of the 37 participating nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on an international assessment test in 2022, the most recent year for which the outcomes are available.
One result is that international students make up more than a third of master’s and doctoral degree recipients in science and engineering at American universities. Two-thirds of U.S. university graduate students and more than half of workers in AI and AI-related fields are foreign born, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
“A real point of strength, and a reason our robotics companies especially have been able to grow their head counts, is because of those non-native-born workers,” said Luther, in Pittsburgh. “Those companies are here specifically because of that talent.”
International students are more than just contributors to this city’s success in tech. “They have been drivers” of it, Mawhinney said, in his workspace overlooking the studio where the iconic children’s television program “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” was taped.
Jake Mohin, director of solution engineering at a company that uses AI to predict how chemicals will synthesize, uses a co-working space at InnovatePGH in Pittsburgh’s Innovation District. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
“Every year, 3,000 of the smartest people in the world come here, and a large proportion of those are international,” he said of Carnegie Mellon’s graduate students. “Some of them go into the research laboratories and work on new ideas, and some come having ideas already. You have fantastic students who are here to help you build your company or to be entrepreneurs themselves.”
Boosters of the city’s tech-driven turnaround say what’s been happening in Pittsburgh is largely unappreciated elsewhere. It followed the effective collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s, when unemployment hit 18 percent.
In 2006, Google opened a small office at Carnegie Mellon to take advantage of the faculty and student expertise in computer science and other fields there and at neighboring higher education institutions; the company later moved to a nearby former Nabisco factory and expanded its Pittsburgh workforce to 800 employees. Apple, software and AI giant SAP and other tech firms followed.
“It was the talent that brought them here, and so much of that talent is international,” said Audrey Russo, CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council.
Sixty-one percent of the master’s and doctoral students at Carnegie Mellon come from abroad, according to the university. So do 23 percent of those at Pitt, an analysis of federal data shows.
The city has become a world center for self-driving car technology. Uber opened an advanced research center here. The autonomous vehicle company Motional — a joint venture between Hyundai and the auto parts supplier Aptiv — moved in. So did the Ford- and Volkswagen-backed Argo AI, which eventually dissolved, but whose founders went on to create the Pittsburgh-based self-driving truck developer Stack AV. The Ford subsidiary Latitude AI and the autonomous flight company Near Earth Autonomy also are headquartered in Pittsburgh.
Among other tech firms with homes here: Duolingo, which has 830 employees and is worth an estimated $22 billion. It was co-founded by a professor at Carnegie Mellon and a graduate of the university who both came to the United States as international students, from Guatemala and Switzerland, respectively.
InnovatePGH tracks 654 startups that are smaller than those big conglomerates but together employ an estimated 25,000 workers. Unemployment in Pittsburgh (3.5 percent in April) is below the national average (3.9 percent). Now Pitt and others are developing Hazelwood Green, which includes a former steel mill that closed in 1999, into a new district housing life sciences, robotics and other technology companies.
In a series of webinars about starting businesses, offered jointly to students at Pitt and Carnegie Mellon, the most popular installment is about how to found a startup on a student visa, said Rhonda Schuldt, director of Pitt’s Big Idea Center, in a storefront on Forbes Avenue in the Innovation District.
One of the co-working spaces operated by InnovatePHG in the Pittsburgh Innovation District. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
Some international undergraduates continue into graduate school or take jobs with companies that sponsor them so they can keep working on their ideas, Schuldt said.
“They want to stay in Pittsburgh and build businesses here,” she said.
There are clear worries that this momentum could come to a halt if the supply of international students continues a slowdown that began even before the new Trump term, thanks to visa processing delays and competition from other countries.
The number of international graduate students dropped in the fall by 2 percent, before the presidential election, according to the Institute of International Education. Further declines are expected following the government’s pause on student visa interviews, publicity surrounding visa revocations and arrests and cuts to federal research funding.
Rhonda Schuldt, director of the Big Idea Center at the University of Pittsburgh. International students “want to stay in Pittsburgh and build businesses here,” Schuldt says. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
It’s too early to know what will happen this fall. But D. Sole co-founder Saisri Akondi has heard from friends who planned to come to the United States that they can’t get visas. “Most of these students wanted to start companies,” she said.
“I would be lying if I said nothing has changed,” said Akondi, who has been accepted into a master’s degree program in business administration at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business under her existing student visa, though she said her company will stay in Pittsburgh. “The fear has increased.”
This could affect whether tech companies continue to come to Pittsburgh, said Russo, at least unless and until more Americans are better prepared for and recruited into tech-related graduate programs. That’s something universities have not yet begun to do, since the unanticipated threat to their international students erupted only in March, and that would likely take years.
Audrey Russo, CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council. If the number of international students declines, “Who’s going to do the research? Who’s going to be in these teams?” she asks. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
“Who’s going to do the research? Who’s going to be in these teams?” asked Russo. “We’re hurting ourselves deeply.”
The impact could transcend the research and development ecosystem. “I think we’ll see almost immediate ramifications in Pittsburgh in terms of higher-skilled, higher-wage companies hiring here,” said Sean Luther, at InnovatePGH. “And that affects the grocery shops, the barbershops, the real estate.”
There are other, more nuanced impacts.
Mike Madden, left, vice president of InnovatePGH and director of the Pittsburgh Innovation District, talks with University of Pittsburgh graduate student Jayden Serenari in one of InnovatePGH’s co-working spaces. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report
“Whether we like it or not, it’s a global world. It’s a global economy. The problems that these students want to solve are global problems,” Schuldt said. “And one of the things that is really important in solving the world’s problems is to have a robust mix of countries, of cultures — that opportunity to learn how others see the world. That is one of the most valuable things students tell us they get here.”
Pittsburgh is a prime example of a place whose economy is vulnerable to a decline in the number of international students, said Brookings’ Muro. But it’s not unique.
“These scholars become entrepreneurs. They’re adding to the U.S. economy new ideas and new companies,” he said. Without them, “the economy would be smaller. Research wouldn’t get done. Journal articles wouldn’t be written. Patents wouldn’t be filed. Fewer startups would occur.”
The United States, said Muro, “has cleaned up by being the absolute central place for this. The system has been incredibly beneficial to the United States. The hottest technologies are inordinately reliant on these excellent minds from around the world. And their being here is critical to American leadership.”
Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected]orjpm.82 on Signal.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Students learn just as much from who we are as educators as they do from what we teach. While content is important, the way faculty members carry themselves, how they communicate, lead, and treat others, can leave an even deeper impact on students’ personal and professional growth. This article explains that educators who use servant leadership principles create trust, empathy, and ethical development in students, ultimately supporting both academic success and long-term character building of students.
Throughout this article, I will explain why servant leadership is especially relevant in higher education today. While using a student-centered philosophy is very beneficial, adopting a servant leadership approach offers an extension of that philosophy. This is not just about teaching content effectively. It is about modeling values like integrity, empathy, and thoughtful decision making in ways students can absorb and carry with them beyond the classroom. In this paper, I will provide research and real-world examples. I will present practical strategies faculty members where they know their students are walking away a better individual, professionally and personally. I will also discuss how faculty members themselves benefit from adopting a servant leadership model, finding stronger connections with students and a deeper sense of purpose in their work.
Modeling Values in the Classroom
One of the clearest ways servant leadership shows up in higher education is through the modeling of values that students can see and experience in everyday interactions. As Rabin and Smith say, “students learn as much from who we are as what we teach” (p. 2, 2013). This speaks to the purpose of servant leadership in higher education. In the context of the classroom, faculty who embody servant leadership not only communicate course content but also demonstrate values such as compassion and care through their actions.
This leadership approach directly supports student-centered teaching by emphasizing the importance of understanding students’ backgrounds, life circumstances, and unique learning needs. In the research article, Rabin and Smith explain that “to care for students, a teacher needs to know her students well enough to understand their unique motivations and needs” (p. 4). This describes a strong part of servant leadership, placing the needs of others before one’s own and creating relationships built on trust and mutual respect.
When higher education faculty take on the role of servant leaders, they transform learning environments. They challenge the authority-driven classroom stereotype and replace it with a relational one, where students are empowered, respected, and mentored not only academically, but as people. These professors serve as living examples of the kind of leaders we hope our students become.
How Faculty Benefit from Servant Leadership
While much attention is given to how servant leadership benefits students, its impact on faculty is equally as important. Faculty are the heart of teaching and service in higher education, and adopting a servant leadership mindset can enhance the purpose they find in their work.
Stronger relationships and classroom dynamics. Faculty who adopts servant leadership approaches often develop more meaningful relationships with students, which fosters better classroom engagement and cooperation. As Rabin and Smith explain, “teachers who practice an ethic of care consider developing relationships to be artfully complex and at the same time critical to a learning environment” (p. 8, 2013). When professors create spaces where trust and respect are mutual, the classroom becomes a place of safety and comfortability, benefiting both teaching and learning.
Personal fulfillment and emotional connection. The emotional toll of teaching is often overlooked, but faculty who embrace servant leadership experience a deeper sense of purpose in their work. Faculty gain more than content delivery; they gain the joy of watching students thrive and knowing their role made a difference.
Increased satisfaction and retention. Research shows that workplace satisfaction among educators increases when they feel seen and supported. Rabin and Smith talked about that a reflection of heart is critical for both effective teaching and faculty well-being (2013). When institutions encourage servant leadership, they cultivate a better faculty morale, higher job satisfaction, and stronger loyalty to the institution.
Practical Ways Faculty Can Begin Tomorrow
The foundation of servant leadership is intention. Faculty can begin modeling servant leadership in simple ways that foster stronger connections with students, healthier learning environments, and personal fulfillment. Below are three realistic strategies faculty can begin using tomorrow:
1. Practice Intentional Listening
Great teachers listen more than they talk, creating space for students to feel seen and heard. In the classroom, this might look like pausing before responding to student comments, asking follow-up questions that show curiosity, or creating reflection activities that allow the quieter voices to contribute. Being fully present communicates respect and care. Students are more likely to engage, ask questions, and trust the instructor when they feel heard. Faculty often gain feedback into student needs, boosting classroom culture and reducing conflict.
2. Respond with Empathy and Flexibility
Rather than assuming conflict or disrespect, servant leaders seek to understand the reasoning behind student behavior. For example, if a student misses a deadline, a professor might ask about circumstances before being close minded. This also could be seen as staying real with your students, making sure they know you make mistakes as well. Implementing this will make students feel respected and supported. Faculty reduce unnecessary conflict and model emotional intelligence, an essential skill for students to learn.
3. Empower Students with Real Responsibilities
Servant leadership isn’t about doing everything for others, it’s about helping others grow. Faculty can give students meaningful tasks like leading part of a class discussion, mentoring peers, or giving feedback about the course. Offering students that autonomy in the course will result in better trust and relationships. Students will build confidence and ownership over their learning.
Servant leadership in higher education is more than a philosophy, it’s a daily practice that transforms both student outcomes and faculty experiences. When educators lead with care, humility, and a commitment to student growth, they foster an environment where students thrive academically, emotionally, and ethically. By integrating servant leadership principles such as intentional listening, empathetic responses, and student empowerment, professors can cultivate vibrant, respectful, and collaborative learning environments. In doing so, they don’t just teach content, they develop whole people.
Carlee Norris was born and raised in Kansas and has always had a deep love for learning. Her appreciation for strong faculty leadership has shaped her perspective on education and student development. While earning her MBA at Kansas State University, Carlee authored an article exploring how students feel most empowered and how servant leadership can be used to effectively guide and support them. She is passionate about creating spaces where students feel encouraged, understood, and equipped to thrive.
Students learn just as much from who we are as educators as they do from what we teach. While content is important, the way faculty members carry themselves, how they communicate, lead, and treat others, can leave an even deeper impact on students’ personal and professional growth. This article explains that educators who use servant leadership principles create trust, empathy, and ethical development in students, ultimately supporting both academic success and long-term character building of students.
Throughout this article, I will explain why servant leadership is especially relevant in higher education today. While using a student-centered philosophy is very beneficial, adopting a servant leadership approach offers an extension of that philosophy. This is not just about teaching content effectively. It is about modeling values like integrity, empathy, and thoughtful decision making in ways students can absorb and carry with them beyond the classroom. In this paper, I will provide research and real-world examples. I will present practical strategies faculty members where they know their students are walking away a better individual, professionally and personally. I will also discuss how faculty members themselves benefit from adopting a servant leadership model, finding stronger connections with students and a deeper sense of purpose in their work.
Modeling Values in the Classroom
One of the clearest ways servant leadership shows up in higher education is through the modeling of values that students can see and experience in everyday interactions. As Rabin and Smith say, “students learn as much from who we are as what we teach” (p. 2, 2013). This speaks to the purpose of servant leadership in higher education. In the context of the classroom, faculty who embody servant leadership not only communicate course content but also demonstrate values such as compassion and care through their actions.
This leadership approach directly supports student-centered teaching by emphasizing the importance of understanding students’ backgrounds, life circumstances, and unique learning needs. In the research article, Rabin and Smith explain that “to care for students, a teacher needs to know her students well enough to understand their unique motivations and needs” (p. 4). This describes a strong part of servant leadership, placing the needs of others before one’s own and creating relationships built on trust and mutual respect.
When higher education faculty take on the role of servant leaders, they transform learning environments. They challenge the authority-driven classroom stereotype and replace it with a relational one, where students are empowered, respected, and mentored not only academically, but as people. These professors serve as living examples of the kind of leaders we hope our students become.
How Faculty Benefit from Servant Leadership
While much attention is given to how servant leadership benefits students, its impact on faculty is equally as important. Faculty are the heart of teaching and service in higher education, and adopting a servant leadership mindset can enhance the purpose they find in their work.
Stronger relationships and classroom dynamics. Faculty who adopts servant leadership approaches often develop more meaningful relationships with students, which fosters better classroom engagement and cooperation. As Rabin and Smith explain, “teachers who practice an ethic of care consider developing relationships to be artfully complex and at the same time critical to a learning environment” (p. 8, 2013). When professors create spaces where trust and respect are mutual, the classroom becomes a place of safety and comfortability, benefiting both teaching and learning.
Personal fulfillment and emotional connection. The emotional toll of teaching is often overlooked, but faculty who embrace servant leadership experience a deeper sense of purpose in their work. Faculty gain more than content delivery; they gain the joy of watching students thrive and knowing their role made a difference.
Increased satisfaction and retention. Research shows that workplace satisfaction among educators increases when they feel seen and supported. Rabin and Smith talked about that a reflection of heart is critical for both effective teaching and faculty well-being (2013). When institutions encourage servant leadership, they cultivate a better faculty morale, higher job satisfaction, and stronger loyalty to the institution.
Practical Ways Faculty Can Begin Tomorrow
The foundation of servant leadership is intention. Faculty can begin modeling servant leadership in simple ways that foster stronger connections with students, healthier learning environments, and personal fulfillment. Below are three realistic strategies faculty can begin using tomorrow:
1. Practice Intentional Listening
Great teachers listen more than they talk, creating space for students to feel seen and heard. In the classroom, this might look like pausing before responding to student comments, asking follow-up questions that show curiosity, or creating reflection activities that allow the quieter voices to contribute. Being fully present communicates respect and care. Students are more likely to engage, ask questions, and trust the instructor when they feel heard. Faculty often gain feedback into student needs, boosting classroom culture and reducing conflict.
2. Respond with Empathy and Flexibility
Rather than assuming conflict or disrespect, servant leaders seek to understand the reasoning behind student behavior. For example, if a student misses a deadline, a professor might ask about circumstances before being close minded. This also could be seen as staying real with your students, making sure they know you make mistakes as well. Implementing this will make students feel respected and supported. Faculty reduce unnecessary conflict and model emotional intelligence, an essential skill for students to learn.
3. Empower Students with Real Responsibilities
Servant leadership isn’t about doing everything for others, it’s about helping others grow. Faculty can give students meaningful tasks like leading part of a class discussion, mentoring peers, or giving feedback about the course. Offering students that autonomy in the course will result in better trust and relationships. Students will build confidence and ownership over their learning.
Servant leadership in higher education is more than a philosophy, it’s a daily practice that transforms both student outcomes and faculty experiences. When educators lead with care, humility, and a commitment to student growth, they foster an environment where students thrive academically, emotionally, and ethically. By integrating servant leadership principles such as intentional listening, empathetic responses, and student empowerment, professors can cultivate vibrant, respectful, and collaborative learning environments. In doing so, they don’t just teach content, they develop whole people.
Carlee Norris was born and raised in Kansas and has always had a deep love for learning. Her appreciation for strong faculty leadership has shaped her perspective on education and student development. While earning her MBA at Kansas State University, Carlee authored an article exploring how students feel most empowered and how servant leadership can be used to effectively guide and support them. She is passionate about creating spaces where students feel encouraged, understood, and equipped to thrive.
This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by John Goddard OBE, Emeritus Professor of Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University.
In a HEPI note prompted by a Centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) conference, Nick Hillman asked: Should the seminal Robbins report inform the forthcoming post-16 strategy? He referenced the point made by Professor Robson of SKOPE about the need ‘to encourage place-based approaches … and replace competition with coordination.’ As Nick points out, the challenge of place and coordination are not new, but as I will argue, these are not being confronted by policymakers right now.
The Robbins’ report led to new universities being established. But these were in county towns and as we observe in our volume on The University and the City, overlook the growing urban crisis of that period. The Education Reform Act of 1988 severed the link between polytechnics and local government. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which allowed polytechnics to apply for university status, had the Government’s desired impact of reducing the unit cost of higher education and moving the UK instantly up the OECD rankings in terms of participation in higher education. But it also signalled a further disconnection with cities. The creation of new universities in the 1970s to meet a 50% participation rate was also unplanned in geographical terms. So, unlike many countries, the UK has not had a plan for the geography of higher let alone further education.
Indeed, UK higher education policy and practice has ignored the lessons of history as well as being geographically blind. It has not been sensitive to the different local contexts where universities operate and the evolution of these institutions and places through time.
It is important to remember that locally endowed proto-universities like Newcastle, Sheffield and Birmingham supported late 19th-century urban industrialisation and the health of the workforce. They also played a role in building local soft infrastructure, including facilitating discourse around the role of science and the arts in business and society. This was also a time in which new municipal government structures were being formed. In short, universities helped build the local state and create what the British Academy now calls social and cultural infrastructure, in which universities play a key role
These founding principles became embedded in the DNA of some institutions. For example, in 1943, the Earl Grey Memorial lecturer in King’s College Newcastle noted,
Ideal Universities… should be an organic part of regional existence in its public aspects, and a pervading influence in its private life. …Universities to be thus integrated in the community, must be sensitive to what is going on in the realm of business and industry, of practical local affairs, of social adaptation and development, as well as in the realm of speculative thought and abstract research.
In the later 20th century, most so-called redbrick universities turned their back on place as the central state took on direct funding of higher education and research and did not prioritise the local role of universities. But this was challenged by the Royal Commission on the Future of Higher Education in 1997, chaired by Lord Dearing. He noted that: ‘As part of the compact we envisage between HE and society, each institution should be clear about its mission in relation to local communities and regions.’ For him, this ‘compact’ was wide-ranging, had a strong local dimension and was one where the university’s contribution to ‘the economy’ could not be separated from the wider society in which it was embedded.
Many of Dearing’s ideas were subsequently incorporated into the work of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) that were established in 1989 to promote economic development and regeneration, improve business competitiveness, and reduce regional disparities. This included investment, (matched by European regional funds ) into university-related research and cultural facilities. These capital and recurrent investments contributed to ‘place making’ and university links with business and the arts. For example, the former Newcastle brewery site was purchased by Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council and RDA, which they named ‘Science Central’. The partnership was incorporated as Newcastle Science City Ltd., a company limited by guarantee with its own CEO and independent board. The organisation’s portfolio included:
Support for business, facilitating the creation of new enterprises drawing on the scientific capabilities of the region’s universities and work with local schools and communities, particularly focussed on promoting science education in deprived areas.
The initiatives recognised the role that universities could play in their places by building ‘quadruple helix partnerships’ between universities, business, local and central government and the community and voluntary sectors.
But from 2008, with the onset of public austerity, a focus on national competitiveness and a rolling back of the boundaries of the state, we saw the abolition of the RDAs in 2012, the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships with more limited powers and resources and a cutting back on non-statutory local government activities, notably for economic development. My 2009 NESTA provocation Reinventing the Civic University was a reminder that universities had to go back to their roots and challenge broader geo-political trends, including globalisation and the creation of university research excellence hierarchies that mirrored city hierarchies.
Marketisation was subsequently embedded into law in the 2017 Higher Education Act. This abolished the Higher Education Funding Council for England and its network of regional consultants working with formal university associations. The act unleashed competition regulated via the Office for Students (OfS) and supported by an enhanced discipline-based research excellence funding scheme. Both were place blind. Some of us raised the possibility of the financial collapse of universities in less prosperous places where they were so-called ‘anchor institutions’
It was a recognition of this place blindness that contributed to the case for the establishment of the Civic University Commission, chaired by the late Lord Kerslake. The Commission argued that the public – nationally and locally – needed to understand better the specific benefits that universities can bring in response to the question: ‘We have a university here, but what is it doing for us? Institutions that were ultimately publicly funded needed to be locally accountable given our place-based system of governance – parliamentary constituencies and local authorities.
For the Commission, accountability meant something different from a top-down compliance regime. Rather, sensitive and voluntary commitments made between a diverse set of actors to one another, whose collective powers and resources could impact local economic and social deficiencies
The Commission therefore proposed that universities wishing to play a civic role should prepare Civic University Agreements, co-created and signed by other key partners and embracing local accountability. Strategic analysis to shape agreements should lead to a financial plan that brings together locally the many top-down and geographically blind funding streams that universities receive from across Whitehall – for quality research, for health and wellbeing, for business support, for higher-level skills and for culture.
Some of these national funds now need to be ring-fenced to help universities work with partners to meet local needs and opportunities, including building capacity for collaborative working within an area. As the Secretary of State for Education has suggested in her letter to VCs, this might include a slice of core formulaic Quality Research (QR) funding. Such processes would be preferable to the ad-hoc interventions that have hitherto failed to establish long-term trust between universities and the community. At the same time, a place dimension could be included in the regulation of the domestic student marketplace. This could all form part of a compact or contract between universities and the state which enshrined a responsibility to serve the local public good.
Going forward, I would argue that the coincidence of multiple crises across the world has far-reaching implications that universities cannot ignore. Indeed, if they do not step up to the plate and assert their civic role as anchor institutions in their places, their very existence may be at stake. The issues are well set out in this Learning Planet Institute Manifesto for the Planetary Mission of the University.
Reading this Manifesto should help policy makers and institutional leaders in the UK recognise that the current financial crisis facing universities is an outward and visible sign of deeper threats, not least those arising from popularism and being fanned by Donald Trump. And popularism has its roots in the experience of people in left behind places.
Therefore, Government support for the role of universities in their communities is not only beneficial to them but also to society at large. To respect institutional autonomy, this requires the right incentives (sticks and carrots). For example, universities throughout England could be required to support the Government’s plans for devolution as part of the compact I suggest. Questions to be answered by the Departments for Education; for Housing, Communities and Local Government and for Science, Innovation and Technology working TOGETHER could include:
What structures need to be put in place inside and outside of universities to facilitate joint working between universities and Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs)?
How should universities be included in upcoming Devolution Deals?
How might these differ between MCAs at different stages of development and different levels of prosperity?
How should universities link their work with business, with the community and the priorities of MCAs for inclusive growth and with the Industrial Strategy White paper?
How should Combined Authorities work with different universities and colleges in their area to meet skills gaps?
How can areas without MCAs work with universities to deliver equivalent outcomes?
In summary, universities must recognise that they are part of the problem identified by populism, but can contribute to solutions through purposive local actions supported by the government.
“You have two ears, one mouth – use them in that proportion.”
The words of my mother seem to have gained relevance and resonance for me, as I reflect at the end of my tenure as CEO responsible for overseeing the launch of Medr, the new tertiary funding and regulatory body in Wales.
As we arrive at our first birthday as an organisation, my mother’s words ring true in the approach we have tried to nurture with partners to help tackle the challenges and embrace the opportunities facing the sector.
And this is perhaps particularly true during the well-established perfect storm of headwinds facing our higher education institutions at present, prompting understandable deliberations and concern around staffing, provision and campus restructuring.
Wonkhe readers will be well versed in the plethora of pressures facing even the most long-established and most renowned universities across the UK. Put simply, the pressures of increasing costs are currently not being met by an increase in income for too many, and our institutions in Wales are no different (further context and a Medr perspective were provided to the Senedd’s Children, Young People and Education Committee a few short weeks ago, if it’s of interest).
For the long-term viability of the post 16 sector to thrive in Wales, finding strategic, joined-up solutions is imperative. As a regulator and funder and having engaged extensively with the sector since day one, our analysis is that no institution in Wales is at immediate risk of collapse, but that medium-term outcomes do cause us concern if well thought-through changes are not made.
Beyond “competition with a smile”
What’s also clear to us in Wales is that many of these pressures are also affecting other parts of the tertiary sector – local authorities, schools, further education colleges, apprenticeship providers, adult education providers as well as universities and everything in between.
This, however, can create opportunities.
Back to the words of my mother – “two ears and one mouth” – during our first year of operation as Medr, we have had to quickly get on top of the tertiary issues in Wales. In Stephen Covey’s words, we must “seek first to understand”. We must understand the extent and context of the challenges and why certain actions are being proposed. Through a genuine commitment to engaging with a range of stakeholders and considering how we can facilitate a culture of listening, learning and collaborating across the post-16 sector, we have a great opportunity to build on the solid foundations of a shared ambition and purpose to build resilience for the future.
Being a regulator and a funder is not an end in itself. To be honest, I had underestimated the importance of our role in convening and facilitating conversations between different stakeholders whilst respecting institutional autonomy. Colleagues must be bored of me telling the story of an ex-colleague of mine who challenged me after a meeting when I talked about collaboration. He said:
Do you mean collaboration? Or are you talking about competition with a smile?
We’ve all been there! We smile and nod in a meeting when we talk about working together – and then go back to our respective ranches and nothing changes.
However, if we genuinely place learner need ahead of institutional need, we have an opportunity to create a system that is better than the sum of its parts. Don’t get me wrong, as a former CEO of a post-16 provider, I’m fully aware of the accountability to a governing body and the need to protect the viability of the organisation. But I also acknowledge that I was probably more comfortable in exploring growth and new opportunities, rather than thinking about stopping some things we did because someone else was in a better place to provide that service to our community or region. Collaboration is also not an end in itself – there is no point in collaborating if it just appeases everybody but doesn’t improve the breadth or quality of provision for learners or improves the system as a whole.
A course through the headwinds
At Medr, we have tried to live our values and engage, listen and collaborate with the sector. For example, our first strategic plan has developed considerably through consultation. We have recently launched a consultation on our draft regulatory framework, a hugely important piece of work for the sector, and we will continue to listen throughout that process.
What I hope shines through in that work, and which I equally hope isn’t lost in wider discussions around headwinds and pressures, is the positive everyday impact that all parts of the tertiary sector have on our learners and our communities. I have a huge respect for the learner focussed people who work in our wonderfully diverse post-16 sector. Developing that mutual respect amongst all parts of the sector is vital if we are to develop a better system in the future that can tackle some of the challenges, such as the numbers not in education, employment or training, and our desire to improve participation rates in higher levels of learning.
This isn’t easy. If it was, we would have solved these challenges by now. It has taken decades to create these issues and they won’t be solved overnight. And true collaboration – not competition with a smile! – takes time to build trust, requires a great deal of commitment along with a good dollop of inspiring and tenacious leadership.
Yes, it’s challenging – but therein lies opportunity for innovation. In my experience, when the going gets tough, leaders demonstrate two basic types of behaviour. They either sharpen the elbows and dig in and become even more competitive or they reach out to others and work collectively to find joined up solutions to problems. To achieve the latter, we need to look at ways we can remove the barriers to this approach. Get it right and we can build prosperous futures for our learners and the tertiary education system and for Wales.
There may often be differing views on how best to achieve outcomes but by working together to identify challenges and opportunities, consulting and engaging in solution-based conversations that benefit our learners, we can and will overcome them. Nelson Mandela said that education is “the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” – we are fortunate in Wales to have some brilliant people coming together to try to deliver that change for good.
Indeed, the name Medr itself is not an acronym. It’s a Welsh word which roughly translated straddles ability, skill and capacity. It’s a name that acts as a reminder of what we’re here to achieve: to ensure all learners can access opportunities to learn new skills and expand their opportunities for the greater good.
And, of course, that greater good extends beyond learners and their immediate surroundings. I continue to be impressed by the work many of our universities deliver through groundbreaking research and innovation. Research Excellence Framework recently recognised 89 per cent of Welsh research as internationally excellent or world leading in its impact. Successful recent spin-outs such as Draig Therapeutics are further examples of world-class research leading to significant impacts of R&I and serve as a reminder that our universities are critical to our economy, society and culture – both now and in the future.
And we are very proud too of our commitment to the Welsh language. The legislation identifies the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol as the designated advisor to Medr on Welsh language delivery in the post-16 sector. Our two organisations have developed a strong working relationship and through engagement with the sector, we will deliver a national plan for Welsh language delivery.
Reaching out
All this can all only be successfully achieved by working together. It is easy to be a spectator sniping from the sidelines but we must focus on having the right people and systems in the arena to make positive collaborative change. Across the board we must think beyond borders – sectoral, governmental, regional, national and international – listening to and reaching out to others with similar challenges to us. I am heartened by the willingness we’ve seen across the tertiary sector to do just this.
For our part we will continue to facilitate progress by working with stakeholders to understand risks and plans, provide support and challenge based on different situations, ensure governments are well-informed and understand the challenges and opportunities as early as possible – and a whole host besides. It’s both an opportunity and a duty to bring people together and think about how we can do things differently and how we can do things better.
I’ll finish where I started, by talking about my Mam and my upbringing. Growing up in an area that would be described as “socially deprived”, and losing my Dad while still at primary school, it’s very clear to me now the difference a few key educational touchpoints made to my life. I was fortunate to have some teachers along my journey who could see something in me when I couldn’t see it myself. Medr wants to be part of ensuring that such positive educational experiences can be felt by all.
Medr is celebrating its first birthday. We are new kids on the block. And as I hand over to the excellent James Owen, Medr’s new CEO, I recognise that we have launched at a particularly challenging time for the sector.
But among all the noise around business resilience, longevity and political headwinds, it’s absolutely imperative that every conversation comes back to what is right for our learners, the ones who will determine our future successes or failures. Now the exciting bit begins. If we work together to get the system right for our learners – and that’s absolutely at the forefront of what we are trying to shape at Medr – the rest can and will stem from there.
Penny Schwinn, in line to serve as second in command of the U.S. Department of Education, has withdrawn from the nomination, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced Thursday.
Instead, the former Tennessee education commissioner will take on a different role for the department.
“I am grateful to Dr. Schwinn for her commitment to serving students, families, and educators across the nation,” McMahon said in a statement. “Penny is a brilliant education mind and I look forward to continuing working with her as my chief strategist to make education great again.”
Schwinn, in a statement, said she gave the decision “thoughtful consideration” and said she will “remain committed to protecting kids, raising achievement and expanding opportunity — my lifelong mission and north star.”
Considered a champion for improving reading outcomes and high-dosage tutoring, Schwinn was among President Donald Trump’s early picks for department posts. Many perceived her as a more bipartisan choice than others joining the administration, but among Tennessee conservatives, many who felt she was too liberal, opposition to her nomination was strong.
The timing of Schwinn’s withdrawal couldn’t be worse, according to some conservatives.
“Her decision to remove herself from consideration to become deputy secretary hurts students, educators, and the Trump administration,” said Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, a think tank. “Secretary McMahon has been charged by Congress and the president with huge tasks under the One Big Beautiful Bill and several urgent executive orders.”
As head of the Education Department, McMahon is striving to turn more authority over education to the states. It’s now unclear who will step into the deputy position and take the lead on the state’s requests for more flexibility over education funding. At least two states, Iowa and Oklahoma, have already submitted requests for block grants, and Indiana is currently gathering comments from the public in preparation for a similar proposal. Kirsten Baesler, North Dakota’s long-time education chief, is currently awaiting confirmation to be assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the department. In February, she joined 11 other GOP chiefs in asking McMahon for greater freedom to direct education funds toward state-level needs.
Controversies and questions over Schwinn’s conservative qualifications have followed her for years. Far-right groups, including Moms for Liberty, said her past support for equity initiatives, like hiring more teachers of color, was evidence that she was not a good fit for an administration determined to eliminate such programs. Others remained angry over Schwinn’s pandemic-era plan to conduct “well-being” home visits. Even though she scrapped the plan, parents and members of the legislature considered it an example of government overreach.
More recently, Steve Gill, a conservative commentator in Tennessee, reported that while she was deputy superintendent of the Texas Education Agency, Schwinn recommended individuals who advocate for comprehensive sex education, including abortion rights, to advise the state on health curriculum.
Gill told The 74 he shared his TriStar Daily article about her stance on these issues with Tennessee Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, as well as the state’s congressional delegation. Blackburn, who is expected to run for governor next year, was considered a possible no vote for Schwinn.
According to Gill, Blackburn’s office “has been working tirelessly behind the scenes with the White House, Secretary Linda McMahon and Majority Leader [John] Thune to block the confirmation.”
But Madi Biedermann, spokeswoman for the department, said the agency “strongly disagrees with that characterization.”
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee was expected to vote no on Penny Schwinn’s confirmation. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Blew said it’s unfortunate that politics got in the way, noting that Schwinn’s experience in both blue and red states would have brought valuable expertise to the Ed Department role. In addition to her jobs in Tennessee and Texas, Schwinn founded a charter school in Sacramento and also served in the Delaware Department of Education.
“It’s sad that a handful of demagogues are standing in the way of giving Secretary McMahon the team she needs to succeed,” he said.
Others praised Schwinn’s record of prioritizing the science of reading in Tennessee schools and directing COVID relief funds toward tutoring.
“This is a setback for all who want to see Washington slashing red tape, advancing literacy and fighting for common sense values,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
For some critics, Schwinn’s business ventures since leaving the top spot in Tennessee two years ago raised questions as she waited to appear before the Senate education committee.
In June, a day ahead of her joint hearing with three other nominees, The 74 reported that shortly after Trump tapped her for the job, she registered a new education consulting business in Florida, New Horizon BluePrint Group, with a longtime colleague. Before Schwinn filed ethics paperwork with the federal government, her sister replaced her as a manager on the business.
When a reporter from The 74 asked questions about the new project, Donald Fennoy, her colleague and a former superintendent of the Palm Beach County School District, dissolved the business.
Ethics experts say candidates for an administration post often distance themselves from new business entanglements to avoid any appearance of a conflict, but Schwinn has faced accusations of poor judgment before.
While she was in Texas, the state agency signed a $4.4 million no-bid contract in 2017 with a software company where she had a “professional relationship” with a subcontractor, according to a state audit. And in Tennessee, the education agency made an $8 million deal in 2021 with TNTP, a teacher training organization where her husband Paul Schwinn was employed at the time. Lawmakers considered the deal a “huge conflict.”
“Ethics was a crucial concern,” said J.C. Bowman, executive director and CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-union organization. He was among those who sent letters to the Senate, asking them to remove her from consideration. “Her personal business interests and possible conflicts could potentially influence educational decisions in ways that many found difficult to overlook.”
Clarification: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the role Penny Schwinn will take on in lieu of serving as the deputy education secretary. Schwinn will be taking on an advisory role at the Education Department.
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In early June, the governing board of Florida’s university system surprised the higher education sector when it rejected Santa Ono as the sole finalist for the presidency of the University of Florida.Ono had faced backlash — led by conservative activist Christopher Rufo — over his past embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts while head of the University of Michigan.
Later that month, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan abruptly stepped down after the U.S. Department of Justice pressured him to resign over the institution’s diversity efforts.Ryan said he wouldn’t fight to keep his job when staying would have cost the institution research funding and student aid and hurt international students.
The duties of the modern college president extend far beyond keeping their institutions viable. For decades, how the head of a college is selected and who fills the position has been steadily shifting. Now, whoever assumes the role will likely take vitriol from both the public and policymakers.
James Finkelstein, professor emeritus at George Mason University’s public policy school, researches leadership in higher education. We spoke with him about the changing role of the college president, the increased influence a presidency faces from both the political and private sectors and what that means for higher ed in the long run.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
HIGHER ED DIVE: How does one become a college president? And has that changed in recent decades?
James Finkelstein, professor emeritus at George Mason University
Permission granted by Judith Wilde
JAMES FINKELSTEIN:The traditional route would start with becoming an assistant professor. You get tenure next, and then you may start to move up the administrative ranks. The most common path was to go from provost to president. For now, that’s still the most common path, but it’s on the decline.
The problem is, provosts don’t fundraise. Deans do. And the No. 1 qualification that a board now looks for in a university president is their ability to raise money.
Given that shift in priorities, how do college boards pick their institution’s next presidents?
My colleague, Judith Wilde, and I have studied this process extensively, and boards are increasingly relying on executive search firms.
We found that only 2% or 3% of presidential classified ads mentioned a search firm in 1975. Today, it’s almost 100%. And based on the data, that change has also correlated with the beginning of the decline in the length of university presidents’ tenure.
Search firms do the initial screening and determine for the board which candidates are really viable. But very few of the search firm senior executives have any real experience in higher education and their No. 1 responsibility as fiduciaries is to return profit to investors.
From there, the board picks from the candidates highlighted by the search firm? What do they look for?
Yes. People tend to look for candidates who look like them. And boards are not primarily made up of academics — the only thing most board members know about a university is that they got a degree from one. You’re seeing a lot more political types on the boards, as is the case in Virginia, or corporate types.
It’s interesting, corporations don’t turn to universities for their leadership. They don’t select a college president to run them. The former president of TIAA [Clifton Wharton Jr.] was the only university president to become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company — and he led a company designed to serve universities.
But many universities, at least 10% or so, will select a corporate executive to lead them.
If boards expect university presidents to behave more like corporate executives than leaders of an educational, social and cultural institution — someone who serves the public — then the next generation of university leadership is going to look very different. You’re going to see a different kind of person be not only sought after but interested in these jobs because they think they can take their private sector skill set directly into higher ed.
In recent years, the presidential compensation packages at some colleges have mirrored those of Fortune 500 CEOs. In 2022, Ben Sasse received a notably lucrative package when he was hired to lead the University of Florida, as you and Judith have discussed. What effect does that shift have on colleges?
When I was an undergraduate, the university president probably wore a tweed sport coat with leather patches on the elbows. And the patches weren’t there to make a style statement; it’s because the elbows were worn out. If he had a car — and it was far and away “he” when I was in school — it was a car from the university’s car pool that was several years old.
And in the past, presidents maintained some academic interests. They taught. They were visible on campus.
Now, university presidents drive expensive cars and are more likely to associate with people outside the university than faculty inside the university.
Our sector does not enjoy the reputation with the public that it used to. There are all sorts of questions now about the value of a college degree. People generally think faculty get paid a lot of money and don’t do very much.
More than anything, presidents today are facing the question of if there is a way to win back that trust.
While college presidents are grappling with that question, though, they are also watching their positions become increasingly precarious. One recent example is Santa Ono, who had been set up as Sasse’s replacement. Traditionally, the vote from the Florida universities’ governing board would have been pro forma. What shifted the tides and left Ono out of a job?
Ono was targeted by the Chris Rufo machine. You can go back and read Rufo’s interview with Politico and listen to his interview with The New York Times — he’s very public about his strategy to delegitimize leaders in higher ed. His team made a decision early on that they wanted one of their own in Florida. And Ono wasn’t it.
Having watched the entire governing board meeting in Florida, my professional assessment is that I’ve never seen a president or someone of Ono’s stature so ill-prepared and give so poor a performance on every level.
Whoever prepared him, didn’t. And if they did, they weren’t preparing him for the right thing. It was much like what happened to the college presidents who testified at congressional committee hearings. Ono wasn’t completely prepared that he was going to be essentially cross-examined by a former state legislator.
By that point, Ono had already announced his departure from the University of Michigan, leaving a highly debated track record on diversity efforts and the handling of student protests in his wake. Does he stand a chance of getting another job heading a university?
About 75% of presidents are what we call one-and-done — they report they’ll hold one presidency, and that’s more than enough. The Gordon Gees of the world are the exception, not the rule.
Ono was, in my view, the modern-day equivalent of [former West Virginia University President] Gordon Gee. He’s the professional president who developed a public persona. He developed it at the University of Cincinnati, refined it at the University of British Columbia, and then brought it to Michigan.
But I’ve talked to people at Cincinnati and Michigan. The truth of the matter is, he wasn’t well-thought of by the faculty. And he burned out very quickly in Michigan.
Ono shouldn’t be the model for the modern university president. Personally, I don’t think that he’s going to get another presidency after the Florida situation, at least not for a while.
Is the role of president still a consequential one? Do the heads of colleges wield influence in the same way they have in the past?
Who the president is makes a difference. They set the tone of the institution in many ways. But presidents today can exercise less independent leadership than they did in the past — they’re being put on a shorter and shorter leash.
There are so many different constituencies that they’re having to serve, and a lot of those constituencies are in conflict with each other.
Some presidents are engaging in what people call anticipatory compliance.
“In order to avoid these conflicts,” the thinking goes, “I’m going to get one step ahead.” Sadly, what that means is that when the board intervenes, they want even more.
Is there a world where that kind of interference becomes so unpleasant that it renders the job unpalatable?
I think for many serious potential candidates, the answer is yes. It doesn’t matter whether you’re being paid $1 million. Or if you have two country club memberships, a big car, a big house and staff, and all of that. These jobs have always been 24/7, 365. And the scrutiny is exponentially worse now.
The real question is: Who’s going to want these jobs? That’s part of the plan of critics of higher education. They want to drive people out so they can replicate what they’re doing in Florida and appoint political loyalists who have no experience in higher education.
Even though conservatives are critical of what they see as judicial activism, they have been extraordinarily active on college boards, working to influence curriculum and promotions and tenure.
The current climate changes things for all trustees, even those who don’t align with this thinking. Regardless of their backgrounds, no board will want to appoint a president who is going to put at risk all of their research funding. And the Trump administration has shown that it is willing to use any lever it has to bring these institutions under its thumb. Look how quickly Jim Ryan was gone from UVA.
As you mentioned, presidents are serving increasingly shorter tenures, instead of holding the position for life, or at least until retirement. Beyond a loss of leadership consistency, does this turnover hurt colleges?
Take Jim Ryan as an example. He’s 58 years old.
I assume the terms of his contract were renegotiated when he left, but based on my analysis of his 2022 contract, the university has a future liability of almost $17 million to him. He would actuarially retire from teaching in 15 years, and in 2038, his base salary would be over $1 million a year for teaching at most two courses a semester.
The people who are actually doing most of the teaching at UVA in 2038 won’t be tenured or tenure track. They will be contingent faculty who are barely able to scrape together a living.
If you put $10 million in a scholarship fund at UVA, would that be a better investment than keeping Ryan on the faculty? The answer is a no-brainer.
Universities Australia CEO Luke Sheehy. Picture: Martin Ollman
A tax write-off for small businesses that hire PhD graduates, lower course fees and higher PhD stipends are some of the ideas higher education’s peak body has put to the federal government ahead of its economic roundtable on productivity.
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Harassment and sexual misconduct have no place on our university campuses, nor in wider society. Yet, both continue to be pervasive. The Office for National Statistics reports that 1 in 10 people aged 16 years and over experienced at least one form of harassment in the previous 12 months, while the Crime Survey for England and Wales reveals that “an estimated 7.9 million (16.6%) adults aged 16 years and over had experienced sexual assault since the age of 16 years”. The adverse sequelae for victims/survivors are well documented.
Over the last decade, universities have taken these matters more seriously, appreciating both the impact on victims/survivors and on their institution’s culture and reputation. In 2016, Universities UK and Pinsent Mason published guidance (updated in 2022) for HEIs on managing student misconduct, including sexual misconduct and that which may constitute a crime. As of 1 August 2025, the OfS has sought to strengthen universities’ actions through introducing condition E6 to ensure institutions enact robust, responsive policies to address harassment and sexual misconduct, as well as promote a proactive, preventative culture. Our experience, however, suggests that universities’ preparedness is varied, and the deadline is not far away.
Culture Starts at the Top
Organisational culture is shaped significantly by those at the top. At its heart is ‘the way things are done around here’: the established, normative patterns of behaviour and interaction that have come to be. Senior leaders have the power to challenge and change entrenched patterns of behaviour or to reinforce them. Thus, compliance with Condition E6 is just a starting point; herein lies an opportunity for university leaders to lean deeper into transforming institutional culture to the benefit of all.
Understandably, times of significant financial challenge may cause executive teams to quail at more demand on limited resource. This can precipitate a light-touch, bare minimum and additive approach; that is, devolving almost exclusive responsibility to a university directorate to work out how to do even more with less. Yet, the manifold benefits of inclusive cultures are well established, including improved performance and productivity and lower rates of harassment and sexual violence. Leadership attention to and engagement in building a positive culture will see wider improvements follow. Moreover, hard though it is to write this, we know from our own work in the sector that some leaders or teams are not modelling the ‘right’ behaviour.
Ultimately, the imperative to transform culture is in the best interests of the institution although it should also manifest a desire for social justice. Consequently, university governors need to understand and have oversight of the imperative; though narrowly defined as regulatory, it should be strategically defined as the route to creating a happier, healthier and more productive community likely to generate the outputs and outcomes the governing authority seek for a successful and sustainable institution.
Creating Safer Cultures
We use the term ‘safer culture’ to refer to a holistic organisational environment that is intolerant of harassment, discrimination, and mistreatment in any form. Underpinning the sustainable development of a safer culture are eight key pillars:
Leadership Commitment, Governance and Accountability Senior leaders and university governors need to visibly and actively promote an inclusive and respectful culture, holding themselves – and others – accountable. Strategic allocation of resources and institutional infrastructure needs to support cultural change, and governance mechanisms must enable assurance against objectives. A whole-institution approach is required to avoid commitments becoming initiative-based, siloed, inconsistent, or symbolic: the responsibility should be shared and collective.
Clear Policies, Procedures and Systems Institutions need to develop accessible policies that define inappropriate behaviour, including harassment and sexual misconduct, and outline clear consequences for non-adherence. Associated procedures and systems should support effective prevention and response measures.
Training and Development A tiered training approach should be adopted to embed shared understanding, develop capability and confidence, raise awareness, and foster appropriate levels of accountability across the organisation: among students and staff, including the executive team and governing body. Specialist skills training for those in frontline and support roles is essential.
Reporting Processes Simple, reliable, confidential, and trusted reporting mechanisms are required. These must protect against retaliation, the need to repeat disclosure information unnecessarily, and provide swift access to appropriate support through a minimum of touchpoints.
Provision of Support A trauma-informed, empathetic environment is crucial to ensure individuals feel safe and supported, whether they are disclosing misconduct or have been accused of such. User-focused support systems and wellbeing services need to be in place for all members of the university’s community.
Investigation and Resolution Fair, timely, and impartial processes are required which uphold the rights of all parties and enforce meaningful consequences when misconduct is confirmed. Those involved must be appropriately trained and supported to ensure just outcomes for all.
Risk Management Risk should be proactively identified and appropriately managed. Individuals throughout the organisation need to understand their responsibility in relation to risk, both individual and institutional.
Investigation and Resolution Creating a safer culture requires regular evaluation through policy review, data analysis and reporting, including staff and student feedback. This is essential to address emerging issues, enhance interventions in line with changing policy and practice, and achieve cultural maturity.
A Leadership Imperative
The imminent introduction of condition E6 offers university leaders an opportunity to bring renewed and purposeful focus to developing an institutional culture that is safe, respectful and high achieving – the very foundation of academic excellence, creativity and innovation. At a time when equity, diversity and inclusion are under threat worldwide, including in the UK, the imperative has never been greater.
