IMG’s newly appointed lead on higher education, Vice President Rachael Dane recently sat down for a conversation on the key issues facing the sector. Although many institutions have operated for well over a century, today’s challenges compel new approaches and communications strategies. It is an environment that offers both complexities to navigate and opportunities to leverage.

Reflecting on your time in the higher ed space, what would you say are the biggest changes/developments from when you started to now?

I entered the higher ed space in the spring of 2015 and a few months later, the sector entered a new era of intense, bipartisan criticism. Due in part to campaign promises like “free college tuition,” conversations about higher education’s value and the nuts and bolts of their operations moved to public spaces for the first time. It was an uncomfortable spot to be in for academics and administrators– to have their cost, their culture, and their politics in the spotlight and under a microscope.

The years since have followed the same trend with the contentiousness ramping up. We’re also seeing the “higher ed” issues – budget, declining student populations, academic discourse, free speech – playing out at virtually every school, not just the “highly-selective” institutions.

Continuing on the topic of increasing, bipartisan backlash toward higher ed; do you see this as a perception issue, or perhaps insufficient adaptation to the times?

I feel like Higher Education is an easy target for pundits – and always has been, just on a much smaller scale or in the backrooms or hallways. Today, it’s just in the foreground. Institutions can be very insular and aren’t always well-suited for the hyper-scrutiny they’re currently facing. And being under the spotlight by elected officials, alumni, and students has an effect of distracting from delivering on the academic mission, which can frustrate administrators and faculty.

What should really be under scrutiny is the value of higher education, not a school’s policies or procedures. But institutions are not marketing their value as well as their detractors are marketing their missteps as indicative of ‘issues facing higher ed’ that just aren’t there. They need to rebuild trust and demonstrate their value to students and families and society at large. The rest is just noise.

What kind of impact on higher education do you anticipate from the new Administration’s policy priorities?

Right now, there are a lot of unknowns, but if the President-elect’s administration is applauding Hungary’s takeover of public universities by that country’s authoritarian leader – it gives us some sense of the direction.

One area that is taking up a lot of oxygen is the calls for mass deportations and what students would be impacted by that. It’s quite possible that the impact is predicated upon the specific schools and their location. For instance, we’d anticipate more pushback from schools in Mass. and New York versus Florida. What steps are taken to compel compliance, up to use of the military, represent further unknowns.

And, in fact, the uncertainty around the implementation of this policy is likely to be detrimental to the learning environment. Concerns about being impacted directly, or friends being impacted, are bound to affect students’ mental health and social activity, on top of negatively affecting their focus on academic work. They may also fear speaking out on social or political issues, creating a chilling effect on free speech. Some international students may fear returning home and not being allowed back into the country, which we saw happen in the first Trump Administration.

If there is a silver lining to be found, this is not a new environment we find ourselves in. Schools that may have been caught off guard in 2017 will be better prepared to respond to these types of challenges.

Setting that political scrutiny aside, what other challenges are testing higher ed?

Broadly speaking, the greatest challenges are the demographic cliff, rising tuition costs and growing student debt, return on investment, and policies around AI. 

The demographic cliff is a fairly complicated one and represents somewhat of an existential challenge. To combat this, we are seeing schools rethink how they market themselves to stand out and maintain a pipeline of students. They are making investments on campus in areas like new residence halls with attractive amenities, new facilities – both for academics and athletics.

They’re also shifting focus to a curriculum that caters to a skill-based economy, which includes finding new approaches to make the arts relevant for the modern economy. The burden is going to be on tuition dependent small colleges. What will they or can they do to retain relevance?

Are these challenges unique to the sector, or are they indicative of the challenges facing society at large?

Conversations on the values of higher education are akin to what you see of discussions of other massive institutions, like religion or government. But there are some distinctions.

For instance, higher education is tasked with solving society’s greatest issues. They are tasked with solving the problems of today and preparing future generations to solve tomorrow’s problems. They are also a generator of upward economic mobility for families.

At the same time, these institutions are not well-positioned to be nimble and responsive to change. Faculty enjoys a large degree of autonomy and control over the academic mission and oversight. Boards are intended to offer checks and balances but tend to focus on risks. Alumni are generally hesitant to embrace change because their view of the school is shaped by their time on campus.

Students are increasingly invested in their university’s beliefs and investments, not just what their faculty are teaching them. And then there’s the president. Their purview is so broad and often complicated that it seems like multiple jobs performed by an individual.

Has this truly been an annus horribilis for college presidents? How can the college presidency be fixed?

It would be difficult to argue that it has not been an incredibly challenging year for college presidents. Sticking with the outside scrutiny topic, we saw a small handful of presidents highlighted on the national stage in a manner that reflected poorly on the broader higher ed landscape. Even though one school’s actions or commentary have no bearing on another’s, it prompted widespread criticism of higher ed, overall.

As presidents chart the course for navigating this current landscape, one of the biggest challenges will be determining how they view institutional neutrality. If they are firmly entrenched in that view, they need to find ways to remain true to the values while also supporting the community and providing opportunities for their expressions of academic and speech freedom. If a school chooses not to remain neutral, it’s imperative to keep the mission at the forefront in communications so that it is not lost or disregarded. Those schools will also need to ensure they are giving space for expressions of academic and speech freedom as well.

If we think about reforming the role of the president, I return to the assessment that its job description may simply be too broad. Finding someone who can be a big-picture painter, an academic leader, a fundraiser, a community relations and communications expert, and administrative overseer is exceptionally hard. Reassessing the role of the president, and their scope, is worth consideration.

We’re nearly 4 years removed from the onset of the pandemic; how have higher ed institutions engrained lessons learned from that period? What solutions are still being drawn up?

If we look at areas of success, I will point to building community in whatever space you happen to be in. Some of that was due to technological advances or adaptations necessitated by the remote environment. But institutions were eager to return to traditional model and made intentional efforts to create new in-person opportunities to build community, through social spaces, on-campus parties, and Greek Life.

In terms of what still needs to be solved for, top of mind is creating healthy and conducive learning environments for international or low-income/high-financial aid students. The pandemic shed light on the huge discrepancies between students with resources at home and those without. Some students were simply unable to return home due to travel restrictions. Other students had their learning disrupted by difficult home lives.

Formulating a strategy to ensure vulnerable students are not left behind is still a work in progress, and one that cannot be overlooked given how detrimental the experience of 2020 was to the learning and growing aspect of higher ed.

What are you most optimistic/excited about in the world of higher ed?

When it’s working as intended, the broad mission of higher education is to prepare the next generation of leaders in our economy. So, when I think about what excites me, it’s thinking about those students who are on the cusp of transitioning from college into the real world where they’ll tackle large, complex challenges through fresh approaches and innovation. I’d like to see their stories told as examples of what value higher education brings to our society. And I’d hope those stories inspire more generations of students to pursue a degree.