Tag: Role

  • President’s Role in the Enrollment Experience

    President’s Role in the Enrollment Experience

    Why Enrollment Should Be a Shared Institutional Priority

    The future hangs in the balance as enrollment management at your institution spirals into chaos. 

    Siloed growth initiatives are relegated solely to marketing departments, which bear the full weight of institutional pressure yet lack the authority to grow enrollment throughout the entire funnel. Overburdened marketing teams bombard campus stakeholders with complex, opaque data and demand astronomical digital marketing budgets that few truly understand. It’s just easier to say no. 

    Meanwhile, admissions teams and faculty pursue divergent, often conflicting strategies to recruit students, each operating in isolation with little coordination. 

    Student success teams, critical to retaining and supporting new enrollees, are entirely excluded from strategic discussions, leaving vital continuity efforts out of the equation. 

    As these disconnected forces collide, the institution risks a catastrophic decline in enrollment, eroding its mission and future viability — an unfolding crisis in which collaboration is abandoned and the system teeters on the brink of collapse.

    This isn’t the latest thriller from your favorite streaming platform but instead a worst-case scenario of what some higher education institutions face today. The only one who can save them? You, the university president.

    The President as Chief Enrollment Champion

    It would be easy to assume that enrollment success and growth are mandates of marketing, admissions, and student support teams, as they focus on enrollment key performance indicators (KPIs), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, return on investment (ROI), lead-to-enrollment (L2E), and other such tools and metrics. For many university presidents and leaders, the details of enrollment management success are often isolated from broader priorities, such as mission, strategy, and resource allocation, even if enrollment growth is mentioned in the strategic plan. 

    Enrollment success is the lifeblood of institutional stability. The president and provost set the tone, vision, and degree of urgency around enrollment success initiatives. Without executive involvement, schools and departments compete instead of collaborating, pitting enrollment management teams against each other in a crowded market. This approach can lead to silos, missed opportunities, and uneven accountability. At worst, this approach leads to finger-pointing and a cycle of frustration and disappointment across the president’s cabinet.

    While marketing and enrollment management teams are the frontline drivers of enrollment strategies, the ultimate success of growth and student satisfaction hinges on the strategic leadership of university presidents and provosts. Effective leadership necessitates active engagement and oversight to ensure that these efforts are successfully integrated into the university’s priority initiatives. 

    Strong executive involvement signals holistic institutional commitment. This helps break down barriers that can impede enrollment success and diminish the student enrollment experience, such as disconnects between the operational teams supporting enrollment management and the academic teams safeguarding quality, reputation, and ranking. 

    Here, we discuss why the university president must champion ambitious and responsible enrollment. We explore how executive leadership can ensure that enrollment efforts are appropriately resourced; aligned under a single vision; and integrated across governance, academics, operations, and administration to achieve the most compelling metrics: exceptional student experiences and outcomes.

    Ensuring Adequate Resources and Support

    One of the key ways presidents and provosts can bolster enrollment success is by ensuring that marketing, recruitment, and student success teams are sufficiently resourced. No one expects executive leadership to be in the weeds of enrollment management operations. 

    However, having a working understanding of digital marketing and how it differs from event-driven marketing (for example, enrollment fairs or conferences) can be helpful during budget allocation conversations for marketing campaigns. 

    Equally important is ensuring that faculty and enrollment management staff have access to training and development opportunities to stay current in a rapidly evolving field, which is full of new tools and approaches, as well as a diverse ecosystem of third-party support opportunities. Faculty and staff are on the front line of student engagement. Presidents and provosts can cultivate an environment of continuous professional development focused on inclusive teaching, technology integration, and student engagement strategies. Well-supported faculty and staff are more effective in creating positive learning environments that attract and retain students. 

    Finally, presidents and provosts should invest in a process for new academic program development that assesses whether programs meet market demand and provide graduates with specific professional outcomes. 

    When components such as the above are underfunded, efforts to increase enrollment and enhance the student experience are likely to falter over time.

    Leveraging Modern Data and Analytics

    Are enrollment management staff using outdated and siloed technology systems that require significant manual work to develop basic reporting and analysis? This is a critical area for institutional-level investment and support. 

    Data-driven decision-making is essential in today’s competitive enrollment environment. Presidents and provosts should champion investments in analytics platforms that provide insights into prospective students’ behaviors and indicate their likelihood of enrollment, academic performance, and postgraduation outcomes. 

    Using this data, enrollment management and academic leadership can tailor recruitment strategies, optimize academic pathways, and identify at-risk students early, enabling targeted interventions that improve retention and graduation rates.

    Championing a Student-Centric Institutional Culture

    At the heart of enrollment and student success is a culture that prioritizes the student journey, from initial inquiry through graduation and beyond. While the traditional student journey may be well understood, that of the adult and online learner may require special analysis and support. 

    Presidents and provosts must champion this student-first culture by fostering collaboration across academic units, student services, and administrative departments, ensuring that every touchpoint enhances the student experience for all types of learners. 

    Establish Intentional Governance for Enrollment Success With Shared Performance Metrics 

    Enrollment growth and student success are inherently cross-functional. Presidents and provosts can foster collaboration by establishing formal structures with the authority to act, such as integrated enrollment planning committees or task forces that bring together academic leadership, student affairs, admissions, marketing, and technology teams. This helps align cabinet-level leaders around a unified enrollment vision. 

    These cross-functional collaborations ensure that strategies are coordinated, data-driven, and responsive to emerging trends. For example, aligning ambitious enrollment growth plans with course section scheduling and staffing planning ensures responsible outcomes, rather than having faculty leaders scramble at the last minute to find instructors to cover overfull admitted-student course sections.

    To ensure sustained focus, presidents and provosts should embed enrollment growth and student experience metrics into the university’s performance evaluations. This reinforces their importance across the institution and encourages all units to align their priorities accordingly. Shared accountability metrics should measure success from inquiry through graduation and be accessible to all teams through executive dashboards and regular reviews.

    Promoting Innovation and Building External Partnerships

    Staying competitive requires ongoing innovation and connection to the broader marketplace. Presidential and provost leadership should support the development of flexible academic pathways, such as online or hybrid programs, competency-based education, and microcredentials that appeal to diverse student populations. 

    Partnerships with industry, community organizations, and alumni can keep academic programs and curricula relevant, expand opportunities for students, and enhance the institution’s reputation. Presidents and provosts can lead efforts to establish these collaborations, opening pathways for internships, research projects, and employment while keeping a finger on the pulse of evolving industry and workforce skills needs and gaps.

    Demonstrating Visible Leadership and Accountability

    Finally, effective presidents and provosts demonstrate visible leadership by regularly communicating progress, celebrating successes, and holding units accountable for results. Transparent reporting on enrollment trends, student satisfaction, and graduation rates fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Training everyone to understand the basic KPIs that connect marketing, admissions, academics, and retention ensures that all are speaking the same language and working in partnership.

    Key Takeaways

    The strategic leadership of university presidents and provosts is essential for sustainable enrollment growth and a high-quality student enrollment experience. By actively championing student-centric culture, ensuring appropriate resourcing, fostering aligned governance and collaboration, leveraging data, and embedding metrics into institutional goals, executive leaders can create an environment where enrollment strategies are not only initiatives but also integral components of the university’s shared mission, leading to higher retention; better outcomes; and a stronger, more competitive institution.

    Increase Leadership’s Role in Your Enrollment Experience

    Archer Education partners with institutional leaders and admissions, marketing, and strategy teams to help them overcome enrollment challenges. Using tech-enabled, personalized enrollment marketing and management solutions, we can help your institution align its teams and create a strategic roadmap to sustainable growth. 

    Click here to request more information about Archer’s full-funnel engagement strategies and digital student experience technology.

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  • Elon University AAUP demands larger faculty role in Queens University combination

    Elon University AAUP demands larger faculty role in Queens University combination

    Dive Brief:

    • Elon University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors is seeking more faculty involvement in the merger process as the institution looks to take over Queens University of Charlotte.
    • In a statement Wednesday, the group described faculty as being blindsided by the merger announcement in September and left out of the planning process. They called for faculty to elect representatives on integration teams and for officials to formally include of the universities’ faculty councils in merger advising. 
    • The Elon AAUP also said faculty should have a role in deciding whether to formally approve the merger. The two private nonprofits expect their boards to approve final parameters in November.

    Dive Insight:

    Elon and Queens, about 115 miles away from each other in North Carolina, said last month that their combination “creates new advantages of scale, bringing together resources, faculty expertise, research capacity and student services across both universities.”

    They also said their merger would accelerate the creation of new programs meant to address the Charlotte area’s workforce needs, such as a growing shortage of nurse practitioners, physician assistants and lawyers and a rising demand for graduate offerings.

    Since that announcement, Elon has said hundreds of employees, students and other stakeholders have attended town hall events about the combination and listening sessions and that officials are using their feedback to shape the plan. It has also seen public pushback from faculty, students and alumni.

    Faculty feedback has been “important to the extensive work of a team with representatives of both campuses discussing questions related to the academics, operations, and programming of a merged institution,” the university said Thursday in an emailed statement.

    But the university’s AAUP chapter said faculty need a larger, more formal role in the process.

    “Shared governance is not a courtesy; it is a cornerstone of higher education and a safeguard for academic quality,” the faculty group said in its statement, which was published by Elon’s student news organization. “It only functions when faculty are partners in major institutional decisions.”

    The chapter said officials didn’t consult with Elon’s academic council before the merger announcement. That’s despite stipulations in the university’s faculty handbook for the council to “advise the President on the setting of priorities and the planning of long-range goals for the University.”

    Going forward, Elon’s AAUP called for a “meaningful” advisory role for the full council and its Queens counterpart on the combination. They acknowledged scheduled meetings that included the chairs of those bodies, but the Elon AAUP pushed for the full involvement of the councils.

    With a fleshed-out merger plan still to be approved, the Elon AAUP is pressing for faculty to have a say in the ultimate decision. 

    “If faculty will be called upon to help make the merger a success, then faculty should be included in the decision of both institutions to move forward with the merger,” the group said. 

    In its Thursday statement, the university said, “There have been, and will continue to be, opportunities for Elon faculty, in their individual capacities and through involvement with Elon’s Academic Council, to participate in strategic conversations as work progresses toward a final decision by the boards of trustees of Elon and Queens.”

    Elon is the larger institution of the two, with 7,207 students in fall 2023, an increase of 3.1% from 2018. Queen’s fall 2023 headcount of 1,846 students was a 27.2% decline from five years earlier.

    Elon is also on firmer financial footing. It had $1.2 billion in assets in fiscal 2024, more than three times that of Queens. That year, Elon logged a $70.4 million operating surplus while Queens reported an $8.7 million deficit. However, in a FAQ page on the merger, the universities said that the combination plan is “not driven by crisis.”

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  • The Next System Teach-Ins and Their Role in Higher Education

    The Next System Teach-Ins and Their Role in Higher Education

    In a time when higher education grapples with systemic challenges—rising tuition, debt burdens, underfunding, and institutional inertia—the Next System Teach-Ins emerge as a powerful catalyst for critical dialogue, community engagement, and transformative thinking.

    A Legacy of Teach-Ins: From Vietnam to System Change

    Teach-ins have long functioned as dynamic forums that transcend mere lecturing, incorporating participatory dialogue and strategic action. The concept originated in March 1965 at the University of Michigan in direct protest of the Vietnam War; faculty and students stayed up all night, creating an intellectual and activist space that sparked over 100 similar events in that year alone.

    This model evolved through the decades—fueling the environmental, civil rights, and anti-apartheid movements of the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the Democracy Teach-Ins of the 1990s which challenged corporate influence in universities and energized anti-sweatshop activism. Later waves during Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter sustained teach-ins as a tool for inclusive dialogue and resistance.

    The Next System Teach-Ins: Vision, Scope, and Impact

    Vision and Purpose

    Launched in Spring 2016, the Next System Teach-Ins aimed to broaden public awareness of systemic alternatives to capitalism—ranging from worker cooperatives and community land trusts to decentralized energy systems and democratic public banking.

    These teach-ins were designed not just as academic discussion forums but as launching pads for community-led action, connecting participants with toolkits, facilitation guides, ready-made curricula, and resources to design their own events.

    Highlights of the Inaugural Wave

    In early 2016, notable teach-ins took place across the U.S.—from Madison and New York City to Seattle and beyond. Participants explored pressing questions such as, “What comes after capitalism?” and “How can communities co-design alternatives that are just, sustainable, and democratic?”

    These gatherings showcased a blend of plenaries, interactive workshops, radio segments, and “wall-to-wall” organizing strategies—mobilizing participants beyond attendee numbers into collective engagement.

    Resources and Capacity Building

    Organizers were provided with a wealth of support materials including modular curriculum, templates for publicity and RFPs, event agendas, speaker lists, and online infrastructure to manage RSVPs and share media.

    The goal was dual: ignite a nationwide conversation on alternative systemic models, and encourage each teach-in host to aim for a specific local outcome—whether that be a campus campaign, curriculum integration, or forming ongoing community groups.

    2025: Renewed Momentum

    The Next System initiative has evolved. According to a May 2025 update from George Mason University’s Next System Studies, a new wave of Next System Teach-Ins is scheduled for November 1–16, 2025.

    This iteration amplifies the original mission: confronting interconnected social, ecological, political, and economic crises by gathering diverse communities—on campuses, in union halls, or public spaces—to rethink, redesign, and rebuild toward a more equitable and sustainable future.

    Why This Matters for Higher Education (HEI’s Perspective)

    Teach-ins revitalize civic engagement on campus by reasserting higher education’s role as an engine of critical thought and imagination.

    They integrate scholarship and practice, uniting theory with actionable strategies—from economic democracy to ecological regeneration—and enrich academic purpose with real-world relevance.

    They also mobilize institutional infrastructure, offering student-led exploration of systemic change without requiring prohibitive resources.

    By linking the global and the local, teach-ins equip universities to address both planetary crises and campus-specific challenges.

    Most importantly, they trigger systemic dialogue, pushing past complacency and fostering a new generation of system-thinking leaders.

    Looking Ahead: Institutional Opportunities

    • Host a Teach-In – Whether a focused film screening, interdisciplinary workshop, or full-scale weekend event, universities can leverage Next System resources to design context-sensitive, action-oriented programs.

    • Embed in Curriculum – The modular material—especially case studies on democratic economics, energy justice, or communal models—can integrate into courses in sociology, environmental studies, governance, and beyond.

    • Forge Community Partnerships – By extending beyond campus (to community centers, labor unions, public libraries), teach-ins expand access and deepen impact.

    • Contribute to a National Movement – University participation in the November 2025 wave positions institutions as active contributors to a growing ecosystem of systemic transformation.

    A Bold Experiment

    The Next System Teach-Ins represent a bold experiment in higher education’s engagement with systemic change. Combining rich traditions of activism with pragmatic tools for contemporary challenges, these initiatives offer HEI a blueprint for meaningful civic education, collaborative inquiry, and institutional transformation.

    As the 2025 wave approaches, universities have a timely opportunity to be centers of both reflection and action in building the next system we all need.

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  • New HEPI Policy Note: Universities’ role in global conflict

    New HEPI Policy Note: Universities’ role in global conflict

    Author:
    HEPI

    Published:

    With the UK Government moving to a posture of ‘war fighting readiness’ amid intensifying global conflict, a new HEPI Policy Note warns higher education remains an untapped asset in national preparedness.

    The Wartime University: The role of Higher Education in Civil Readiness by Gary Fisher argues UK universities must be recognised as central pillars of national security and resilience. The paper highlights how higher education institutions represent a ‘composite capability’ to enhance and sustain civil readiness, spanning defence, health, skills, logistics and democratic continuity, but warns this potential remains under-recognised and poorly integrated into emergency planning frameworks.

    You can read the press release and access the full report here.

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  • How Gov. Shapiro’s role at Penn puts free speech and institutional autonomy at risk

    How Gov. Shapiro’s role at Penn puts free speech and institutional autonomy at risk

    Nearly two years ago, the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza sparked intense debate and demonstrations on American campuses. 

    Many schools responded by attempting to censor controversial but protected speech in the name of combating antisemitism. But in testimony before Congress on Dec. 5, 2023, University of Pennsylvania’s then-President Liz Magill initially declined to follow suit. She explained that “calling for genocide” does not always violate Penn’s rules. Instead, she correctly labeled this a “context-dependent decision,” recognizing that rhetoric some find deeply offensive can still be protected speech. This assertion was in line with Penn’s longstanding — but often ignored — commitment to tracking the First Amendment in its own policies.

    Unfortunately, Magill quickly backtracked in the face of public criticism, including from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. The governor said publicly that Magill needed to “give a one-word answer” and that her testimony demonstrated a “failure of leadership.”

    As it turns out, the governor’s response was not limited to his public comments. Recent reporting by The Chronicle of Higher Education reveals how Gov. Shapiro’s office enmeshed itself in this controversy and in Penn’s response to antisemitism on campus in the months and semester that followed October 7.

    Seizing on a rarely used provision of the Penn Statutes of the Trustees that establishes the governor as a trustee ex officio, Gov. Shapiro appointed Philadelphia lawyer Robb Fox as his observer to the board of trustees. Gov. Shapiro’s director of external affairs Amanda Warren explained in a then-private email that Fox would be “integrated into all future board meetings, as well as ongoing antisemitism work, on behalf of the Governor.” Fox was previously part of the governor’s transition team in 2022 and serves as his appointee on the board of SEPTA, Philadelphia’s transit authority.

    Per the Chronicle, Fox “quickly immersed himself in Penn’s affairs — arguing technicalities of the board of trustee’s rules, liaising with students, faculty, and administrators, and contributing to Penn’s task force on antisemitism.” He began corresponding with Marc Rowan, who serves as chair of the Penn Wharton School’s board of advisors and was an early critic of both Magill and Bok. And in one early email regarding a proposed statement from the board, Fox said he would tell them “enough with the statements” and that they needed “a vote on board chair [Scott Bok] and president remaining.”

    Days later, Magill and Bok resigned. A member of Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences’ board later thanked Fox for this early engagement, saying the trustees were able to oust Magill and Bok “with the governor’s nudge and with his support.”

    All of this broke with precedent. Historically, Penn did not allow designees to attend board meetings in the governor’s place. The university only broke with this tradition after “many conversations between the Governor, President Magill, Board leadership, and staff.”

    Fox’s influence reportedly expanded in the months that followed. Penn’s then-interim President Larry Jameson intervened to add Fox to the university’s antisemitism task force. One member of the task force told the Chronicle that Fox frequently said he was trying to represent the governor’s position. And when Fox got the impression that the task force was trying to treat him as a mere spectator, he reached out to Warren and declared that he would “not be an observer.”

    Throughout all this, Fox and Warren frequently acted as a team. She connected him with Rowan in the early days of his appointment, and later connected him with the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee. Fox and Warren were both part of an email exchange with Penn’s new board chair that sought information about the burgeoning encampment. And when Fox considered bypassing the task force on antisemitism and going directly to President Jameson to address an Instagram post by a pro-Palestine student organization, he first emailed Warren to discuss the issue with her.

    Neither Penn nor Gov. Shapiro’s office deny any of this involvement. Indeed, both parties acknowledged their relationship in comments to the Chronicle, with Gov. Shapiro’s spokesperson explaining that they and Fox intervened in order to combat hate and antisemitism.

    State pressure on private universities can be a dangerous backdoor to censorship

    Combating unlawful antisemitic harassment is a noble goal, but when powerful public officials wield their influence to regulate speech at private universities, they’re playing a dangerous game. We saw this play out recently at Columbia University, where university leaders responded to the Trump administration’s unlawful funding freeze (purportedly a response to campus antisemitism) by capitulating to demands that will chill protected speech. 

    Columbia incorporated the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s overbroad definition of antisemitism, which the Trump administration had earlier demanded, into its own definition. Later, in a settlement agreement it signed to restore government funding, Columbia required students to commit to vague goals like “equality and respect” that leave far too much room for abuse, much like the DEI statements, civility oaths, and other types of compelled speech FIRE has long opposed.

    Gov. Shapiro’s intervention here is not nearly as heavy-handed, but it is still cause for concern. If the Chronicle’s reporting is accurate, then he and his office must act with greater restraint given the state’s influence over Penn, a private institution, and the potential for overreach.

    The Chronicle notes that when President Jameson took office, Penn was working to reclaim $31 million in funding for its veterinary school and $1.8 million designated for the Penn Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases that had been withheld by the Pennsylvania legislature over antisemitism concerns. When faced with the loss of so much funding, many institutions, even those as wealthy as Penn, will be quick to fall in line with the state’s demands.

    This backdoor approach to regulating speech, known as jawboning, is both incredibly powerful and uniquely dangerous. The First Amendment only protects against state censorship, not private regulation of speech, so when the state pressures private institutions into censoring disfavored speech, it blurs the legal line between unconstitutional state action and protected private conduct. The Supreme Court unanimously condemned this practice in NRA v. Vullo, reaffirming its 60-year-old ruling that governments cannot use third parties to censor speech they disfavor. The Court explained that this practice would allow a government official to “do indirectly what she is barred from doing directly.” 

    Jawboning’s chilling effects go beyond the pressured institution itself. For example, Gov. Shapiro’s close involvement at Penn incentivizes campus leaders to over-enforce their anti-discrimination and harassment policies in ways that prohibit or chill what would otherwise be lawful speech. Rather than risk state interference, many institutions will censor first and ask questions later.

    None of this is to say that Penn has a sterling history when it comes to managing speech controversies on its own. In fact, Penn finished second to last in FIRE’s 2023 campus free speech rankings. But the situation is likely to get worse, not better, when the government amplifies the impulse to censor.

    Transparency limitations at private universities amplify the risks of state involvement

    Private universities are not subject to open-records laws like many public universities. At a public university, it is often possible to obtain records that reveal how or why the school changed a speech policy or engaged in censorship. By contrast, at a private university there is no formal way (besides the costly process of litigation) to request records that reveal the basis for such actions, including the extent to which they were the result of state pressure.

    For example, after Penn’s tumultuous 2024 spring semester, the university adopted a vague and overbroad events and demonstrations policy. This policy prohibits “advocat[ing] violence” in all circumstances, even when it doesn’t cross the line into unprotected and unlawful conduct or speech, like incitement or true threats. Moreover, the policy fails to define “advocat[ing] violence.” This leaves students guessing and will lead to administrative abuse and uneven enforcement. Is the common but controversial slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” a call for violence in Israel or a call for political change? Calling for U.S. bombing of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda is explicitly advocating violence. Is that prohibited? Under Penn’s new policy, that’s left to administrators to decide. 

    FIRE criticized this policy at the time and expressed concern that it was driven in part by viewpoint discrimination. But at a private university like Penn, there is no public records mechanism for the public to scrutinize how or why the policy was adopted. And although private universities are generally well within their rights to keep these decisions private, this arrangement becomes more troublesome when the state gets involved.

    Private universities have their own free speech rights

    Private universities themselves have free speech rights. A federal district court recently reiterated as much, explaining that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment when it conditioned funding to Harvard on the university “realigning its campus to better reflect a viewpoint favored by the government.” 

    Harvard, like Columbia and many other institutions, has been the target of a federal pressure campaign purportedly aimed at combatting antisemitism. But unlike Columbia, Harvard chose to defend its rights in court. This stand is praiseworthy, and the district court’s decision shows that private institutions stand on solid legal ground when they resist unlawful government pressure. Unfortunately, not every institution will be bold enough, or sufficiently well resourced, to fight the state in court.

    State actors should protect students by enforcing the law, not by censoring protected speech

    Given these dangers, Gov. Shapiro and other government actors seeking to combat discrimination must act through the proper legal channels. In the federal context, this means following the procedures laid out by Title VI and binding federal regulations. In its ruling for Harvard, the district court explained that this process is designed to ensure that recipients of federal funding “are shielded against being labeled with the ‘irreversible stigma’ of ‘discriminator’ until a certain level of agency process has determined that there was misconduct that warranted termination.” In other words, this process is a check on government overreach and all the harms that entails. The same principle applies to states trying to combat discrimination within their borders.

    Enforcing valid anti-discrimination laws is important. But there’s a significant danger when state actors attempt to use the rationale of anti-discrimination to regulate speech at private universities. If left unchecked, this backdoor regulation risks turning private universities into de facto extensions of the state — undermining both academic freedom and the First Amendment itself.

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  • Pause for REFlection: Time to review the role of generative AI in REF2029

    Pause for REFlection: Time to review the role of generative AI in REF2029

    Author:
    Nick Hillman

    Published:

    • 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.

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  • A largely invisible role of international students: Fueling the innovation economy

    A largely invisible role of international students: Fueling the innovation economy

    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.

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    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.”

    States with the most international students

    California: 140,858

    New York: 135,813

    Texas: 89,546

    Massachusetts: 82,306

    Illinois: 62,299

    Pennsylvania: 50,514

    Florida: 44,767

    Source: NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Figures are from the 2023-24 academic year, the most recent available.

    Related: So much for saving the planet. Climate careers, and many others, evaporate for class of 2025

    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 of college-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.

    Related: International students are rethinking coming to the US. That’s a problem for colleges

    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.”

    Related: Colleges partnered with an EV battery factory to train students and ignite the economy. Trump’s clean energy war complicates their plans

    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] or jpm.82 on Signal.

    This story about international students was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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  • Serving to Lead: The Transformative Role of Servant Leadership in Higher Education – Faculty Focus

    Serving to Lead: The Transformative Role of Servant Leadership in Higher Education – Faculty Focus

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  • Serving to Lead: The Transformative Role of Servant Leadership in Higher Education – Faculty Focus

    Serving to Lead: The Transformative Role of Servant Leadership in Higher Education – Faculty Focus

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  • Weekend Reading: Rethinking the Role of Place in UK Higher Education Policy

    Weekend Reading: Rethinking the Role of Place in UK Higher Education Policy

    • 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.

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