New Ecosystems, Same Scrutiny

Erin Hennessy

Hi, and welcome to the Trusted Voices Podcast, hosted by Teresa Valerio Parrot and me, Erin Hennessy. We’re excited to welcome you to our conversations about the latest news and biggest issues facing higher education today. We often welcome guests who are living or studying these challenges and ask them to share their own experiences and perspectives. We also make time for the two of us to share what we’re hearing, seeing, and thinking as we engage with clients, colleagues, and journalists. 

You can subscribe to Trusted Voices on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. And now, full video episodes are available on YouTube at YouTube.com/@TrustedVoices. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Oh hi, welcome to the end of summer!

Erin Hennessy

Oh hi, welcome to can you believe it’s season five of the shenanigan.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes, and we have a little bit of a different look. You have a new haircut. 

Erin Hennessy

I do. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Look at that, everybody. And we also have a new logo and look. And we should probably tell people why. 

Erin Hennessy 

Yes.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Do you want me to share the news? 

Erin Hennessy

Because we’ve come into money. No..

Teresa Valerio Parrot

No, that is not it. I wish. We’re trying to, just kidding. 

Erin Hennessy

Well, the lottery’s a billion dollars tonight. So by the time this drops, I could be out of the country.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And then I’ll just have to like find a new host. Unless I go halfers with you on the tickets, always an option. No, we are proud to say that we’re a little bit like Taylor Swift. And we have taken on our podcast under the TVP name, TVP Comms name, and we are really excited. This is something that we approached Volt with. We are so excited, they have a new direction that they’re taking that really focuses on marketing and communications.

And we thought this is a perfect time for us to say, we love our space of being in comms and leadership. And it’s just a little bit different. Can we go on our own? And thank you to Volt for how gracious they have been and how supportive they have been. And welcome to the new Trusted Voices and Erin’s new hair.

Erin Hennessy 

I don’t even have a retort for that but yes, huge thanks to Volt for getting us up on our feet and giving us the runway and the training wheels and several other mixed metaphors. And also huge thanks to DJ Hauschild and Savannah Parrot, who behind the scenes have made, we hope, this transition as seamless as possible for listeners, have certainly made it seamless for us.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes, thank you.

Erin Hennessy 

If you want to find old episodes, you can still find them on your podcast player. You can find things on our website, TVP Comms, nope, TVPCommunications.com. Transcripts will be there, show notes will be there, episodes will be there, but you’ll still also be able to find us in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the other big news, we’re going to be rolling out full video on YouTube. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Yes, yes, we’re gonna be YouTube stars, influencers maybe.

Erin Hennessy 

Maybe. So I have to stop touching my face quite as much and you know, not…

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Does that mean I have to sit still? I’m in a chair that swivels. So I am at summer camp. I am at the CASE Summer Institutes. I’m on the faculty of the communications and marketing track. And so I truly am at summer camp and am a camp counselor. So this is a four-day intensive. So you get to see me. I’m exhausted on day three because we are doing so much, and alsoI need more sleep each night. So sorry that I look gray.

Erin Hennessy 

Are you sleeping in dorms?

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

No no, we actually are staying at The Graduate, which is super cute.  

Erin Hennessy 

Yeah, they’re fun.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I love The Graduates. They’re just, yeah, fun. But normally there is an option to stay in the dorms, which I have not taken them up on. But this year we’re so close to move-in, they asked us all to be in hotels. 

Erin Hennessy

Nice. That makes good sense

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Yes. That means I have my own bathroom, everybody.

Erin Hennessy

I did one summer with a organization that worked with under-resourced school districts and students to help them, you know, create a college list, work on an essay, all of that. And it was in, we were in Lynchburg, Virginia, also known as the hottest place on earth. And we stayed in…

Teresa Valerio Parrot

No, no. I think everybody everywhere in the United States this year is the hottest place on Earth. But go ahead.

Erin Hennessy 

Well, wherever you have to sleep in a dormitory is the hottest place on earth. And I had to sleep in a residence hall. And let me tell you, that was a good fifteen years ago and I was too old for that then. So…

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I have a story that we might cut because here we go. So I spoke at a conference a couple of years ago and they gave me the address of where I would be staying. I roll up at like 11 o’clock at night, because that’s what time my flight got in and it’s a dorm, which I had not anticipated because then you pack differently. 

Erin Hennessy 

Sheets.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Like, yeah. And also you bring things like shampoo and soap. So I roll up and I’m like, I’m in a dorm. So I check in, they had somebody to check me in. And I had not stayed in a dorm since the days when you used keys in locks. And so the next morning I let every I was in a quad. So I let the other people go on their merry way and use the bathroom, and then it was my turn. And so I got all my stuff and I decided, well, it’s just me, so I’m just gonna put a towel around me and run into the bathroom. I didn’t realize my  bedroom door was going to lock…

Erin Hennessy 

Oops.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

That you needed your key card that I had left in the room…

Erin Hennessy 

Oops.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

But I didn’t realize this. I took my shower, came out wet, and I walk out of the bathroom. There is no phone on the wall because we don’t have those anymore either. This is not my college experience. I have no key to get in. And I’m sitting there thinking, what am I gonna do? This is like the most trusted story ever. This is kind of how I live life. So I had to go downstairs with using these towels as strategically as possible because the towels they gave me were like this big.

Erin Hennessy 

Of course.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And go to the check-in desk, which was across the hall from where I was gonna present in a couple of hours.

Erin Hennessy

That’s fantastic.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

It was great. It was one of the best days of my life to go in there and ask to get led into my room while everybody stopped and looked at me to see what the heck was going on. It was great.

Erin Hennessy 

The ultimate walk of shame, my friend.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Agh yes. Yes. Thankfully nobody said anything. And if anybody listening was there, God bless you. Yes, it was a fantastic day.

Erin Hennessy

 Well, shall…I don’t, I don’t have anything to say about that. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I am very much enjoying the graduate. That’s the moral of this story. 

Erin Hennessy

There you go. And you’re taking your keys with you.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah, yeah. And also, when you yeah, when you go into a new environment, look around to see what it is that you need to be successful. Maybe that’s the takeaway from this. With that in mind, how was your summer? We gave some predictions at the beginning. Did you live what you said you were gonna do? 

Erin Hennessy 

No, and that’s fine. So, onward.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Hey, same. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had people ask how my half marathon went. It was this past weekend.

Erin Hennessy

Yeah. I saw that on your calendar.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah, I didn’t take it off of my calendar, but I did not go. There was a point where Kevin and I had a very honest conversation, and I told him, I am not gonna do this. I got really sick in May, you know this, just randomly. And all of the progress that I had, because I was doing really well, went downhill and it took me about a month before I could start running again. And at that point, it was basically the end of June, and the race was just over a month later, and that’s no bueno.

So, everybody, I didn’t read what I said I was gonna read. I didn’t run my marathon, but I had a great summer.

Erin Hennessy

Well, that’s great. And yeah, I didn’t reread the Grapes of Wrath and that’s fine. And  I’m about to go on vacation. I do have a pile of twelve books that have to be winnowed.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Twelve? That’s two more than last year.

Erin Hennessy

Probably. It’s ambitious. I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta knock some off the pile. We’ll see what happens.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Start with those that have vampires and werewolves, because I know that’s not your genre. 

Erin Hennessy

How would they have made the…? I do have one out of genre read, a Court of Thorns and Roses?

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Oh, everybody thought I would like that one. I didn’t want to try that.

Erin Hennessy 

Yeah, well I’m gonna try it and if I don’t love it, it goes into a little free library down the shore and you know, sure. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Somebody else can have some excitement. 

Erin Hennessy 

That’s right. That’s right.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah. But we have been reading some things, especially as we think about what’s coming down the pike in higher education. You like that transition? 

Erin Hennessy

What a segue!

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I know. And if you’re watching this, if you’re listening to it, know you can go on YouTube and see me super excited. 

Erin Hennessy 

Yes. Yeah, so I feel like we have to start with Compact 2.0 ‘cause that’s been the biggest story for the last week and a half. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Can I ask a question about that?

Erin Hennessy 

Sure.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

How is it 2.0? I keep calling it 3.0 because there was the initial these presidents got an invite. That’s one. And then it was still the same compact, but it was to a new audience, which I think makes it a new compact. And that I think is two. Anybody can do this. And now I think of this as three. So I really would like for people to let us know if they think it’s a one, if we’re at two or three.

Erin Hennessy 

Okay, let me reframe. I think we need to start with the latest version of the compact offered by the Trump administration. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes. Let’s do that. Go for it. 

Erin Hennessy

Yes. What a fascinating play. I think there is a lot to be unpacked around the timing and other things. But the thing that that has just pissed me off is the ham-handed way in which some organizations and institutions have responded to the announcement of this compact, the announcement of their potential involvement in this compact, the just, I feel like higher ed has just tripped over itself multiple times in the past ten days since this story broke, that it’s just, we’ve just completely botched it and sort of underscored for the administration their argument of we don’t know what we’re doing and we need to be ridden hard to figure it out.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

So here is my take on this. I think the timing, as you mentioned, is critically important. I talked with Jessica Blake about this in a piece in Inside Higher Ed. This isn’t just coincidental that it’s coming out now, in my mind. It is coming out as we start our new academic year, and it is coming at a time that will undermine the trust at those institutions that came out and said, yes, we were a part of developing this.

Whether or not they participate in the end, because we’ve had some discussion in some pieces about whether they’re gonna stay with it or not, and do they really support it or do they not? How much were they involved? Were they not? This is to undermine the trust and your social and political capital all around, take advantage of your name and do so in a way that really shuts down shared governance at your institution, or at least calls it into question. This is all perfectly timed for the start of a new year. And we stepped into this and participated, knowing that this was the case. So anybody who says, Well, I didn’t know it was going to be this way, I would say, we’re at like 17 months now, wake up. And also, I’m not saying participate or don’t, but think about what that participation means, how you are being drawn in or included or not in all of this. And to your point, how fractured it makes our industry seem. And by having some institution say, yes, I want to take a lead on this, they’re also saying, and participate in this way, I think that something is wrong with my institution. Because fundamentally, what you’re agreeing to is I need to fix some things. And you don’t fix something unless it’s broken. So all of these different pieces coming together at this time actually is pretty brilliant from the Department of Education. Kudos.

Erin Hennessy 

Yes, all of that. And I think we can acknowledge that things need to be fixed, changed, made more transparent, understandable, without saying we’re broken. But honestly, I look at the vast majority of that list and I say, you damn well better be doing this already. And if what you have to do is issue a statement on your website, that tells me you’re not doing the job of communicating with your audiences already about these things.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, and you’re not doing the work that is associated with your mission. Because on its face value, when I read what it includes, I was like, I mean, I can get it, right? The way that they framed is, you’re verifying that you’re doing your jobs. But instead, it’s about how you are being asked to attest to that that feels off to me and allows people to start to draw conclusions for themselves. That’s where I have an issue with all of this.

Erin Hennessy

Oh, a hundred percent. I don’t disagree. And if you’re an institution who just conveniently happens to publish your statement of principles days before this comes out, and then we find out that you didn’t involve your faculty, that allows a lot of conclusions to be drawn.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Again, shared governance. You know, I am such a fan of shared governance, and that’s going to be a theme that we’re going to carry throughout this semester. So a little bit of a foreshadowing there. But I have to say, the real intent of shared governance is to make sure that you have a release valve for a president in working with the faculty in a conduit. And some of these leadership teams are not using that in the way that they could to find common ground with their own faculty. They are creating divide before students have even unpacked their stuff in the dorms and learned that they need to take their key into the bathroom so they can get back in their room.

Erin Hennessy 

I was gonna make a joke, if you’re such a fan of shared governance, can you even name two of their albums? But…

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I have their greatest hits, Erin Hennessy. 

Erin Hennessy 

I think that probably makes me sound older than I…by trying to sound younger, I’ve just made myself sound older. It has been interesting and I did indulge you, and I talked about this a little bit yesterday, I did indulge in what I said I was gonna do very briefly, which was go out and pull statements from folks who potentially participated or potentially didn’t, apparently, in the drafting or revision of the compact whatever number you want to give it. And it is interesting to see how that narrative changes over time. And that leads me to believe that those folks are getting some significant back chatter and being pushed to either clarify or, clarify their involvement or distance themselves from that involvement. and I I do think it’s, I you know, we don’t seek to make this show terribly political, but I do think it is just such interesting timing that as we are seeing the president’s approval ratings drop significantly, particularly tied to the economy and to the war in Iran, and we’re seeing over and over again more and more polling that that shows that there is likely to be a change of control in the House and now even more likely in the Senate. Why people have chosen this moment to say, I’m gonna try and work with this administration that has consistently attacked, undermined, belittled, denigrated higher education and the work we do. That will puzzle me forever.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

So you and I talked about this, and this was my take. We hear this sometimes from faculty, especially when there is a turbulent presidency. I’m just gonna wait it out. And my thought for you is why are we not taking a cue from the faculty and say, it’s August. I am just gonna wait this out. We’re almost there. The other thing that I would add is that I’m very curious what this means for other institutions. If AAU and AAU institutions were the lead on this, what are the implications for non-AAU institutions with this and what kind of conflict or traps or opportunities, it could be an opportunity, who knows, does this create for regional comprehensives, for liberal arts colleges? There are so many institutions that are looking around saying, the rules changed, but for whom? And that I think is going to be a really interesting conversation over time as well.

Erin Hennessy 

Yes, I would be very grateful if I were sitting at one of the, what is it, 40% of institutions that are open access, whether that’s community college, regional publics, to be able to say, Compact 2.0, don’t know her. It doesn’t impact my institution. These questions aren’t relevant. I would take the opportunity not to respond to the administration, but to say to my most important audiences, these things don’t impact us. These things do, and here’s what we’re doing, and I’m sharing that with you.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes. Here’s how we’re doing our jobs and meeting our mission and the expectations of our audiences. I would add one more element to what you were talking about this current environment. And that is we’ve seen mixed reviews. So I’m gonna admit that up front. And also I have some pedagogy questions and a whole bunch of things. 

Erin Hennessy 

Oh, I love when you have pedagogy questions.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Mmm, let’s talk a framework. But I was very curious this summer, we saw a couple of surveys that show that trust in higher ed is inching up a little bit. And I think that that’s very interesting, that as we see that maybe trust in higher ed, maybe how people are viewing higher ed is also rising a bit when so many other surveys of trust in industries and institutions are decreasing, that that is also when a little bit of you know involvement in higher education has come back around. So just when we’re starting to get our feet under us and say, let’s move forward together, there was an effort to erode that trust across institutions and with the public.

Erin Hennessy 

I would just echo something I heard a very smart person say once, which is just keep in mind that a survey is just a snapshot of a moment in time and you know, until I can see the crosstabs and the methodology. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And you can longitudinally look at what is going on. Yes.

Erin Hennessy

Yep. Yeah, we were on a bit of a roller coaster. Before we leave Compact 2.3.0, I do just wanna note because I think it’s, this reporter has done a phenomenal job covering this. Kudos to Liam Knox at Bloomberg who broke the original story. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Yes, yes! Kudos, Liam.

Erin Hennessy

Yeah, and drove the reporting agenda for a lot of people for a number of days. But I also want to point out Francie Deep at The Chronicle has three fantastic pieces. They’re linked in the show notes. But if you just go to the Chron website and pull up her reporter profile, you’ll find these three pieces really focused on how higher ed writ large is responding to the compact. She had a great interview with somebody at the Department of Ed about what they’re hoping to get out of this statement of principles or whatever we’re calling it. So make sure you go and check out those pieces. Francie is just a super sharp reporter and really managed to get to the heart of how poorly we’re managing messaging in this moment in time around this question.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes, and just coming full circle. Also, I had mentioned Jessica Blake. I know that we also have pieces from Liam Knox and some from others at Inside Higher Ed. The trades have been doing a fantastic job at talking about who’s doing what, why they’re doing it, whoop they’re not, let’s think about what the purpose might be. All of the different angles of this. This has been really interesting to kind of Monday quarterback all of this as we see what’s coming next for the industry.

Erin Hennessy 

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I, as always, am thinking about revenue and reputation. Again, that’s where all of our comms colleagues are really finding their work these days. And I thought it was interesting, we’ve had this mix this summer of what this means for higher education moving forward. An example is a piece from Johanna Alonso at Inside Higher Ed. She talked about how the University of Alaska plans to end out of state tuition. I think that’s fascinating. And let’s see what other institutions start to do that. I always go back to the NAICU lists, and I know there are lists on other sites of who is still accepting applications. The University of Alaska did that years ago, so who post May 1. And I think this is a really smart move. And this is a great way for them to be thinking about where they fit into that public higher education ecosystem. That’s the second time I’ve said that.

Erin Hennessy 

It is. Did the piece indicate what Alaska’s current percentage of out of state students is?

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Let me click and I’ll tell you.

Erin Hennessy 

Sorry, I didn’t get to read it. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

No, you’re good.

Erin Hennessy 

I’m guessing it’s pretty low.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I’m guessing it probably is, but I think there is an opportunity. We’ve talked to some institutions about the romanticism of the West. And this would give you an affordable romanticism of the West and some really unique opportunities. So I will get back to you on that percentage. It’s not in here. But I think that’s really, really interesting. 16%. 

Erin Hennessy 

Thank you.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

“About 16% of students across the UA system are non-residents. And out-of-state tuition contributes to about 1.4 million.” That’s for two institutions. But I think that’s a really interesting mix because they’re guessing they can get it in headcount versus out-of-state tuition from a revenue balancing perspective. 

Erin Hennessy

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I think this is a really, really interesting idea. Not all states are going to be able to do this. I know, for example, the University of Colorado, where I worked, we had in statute that it at least you know, 51% of all of our students had to be in state. So I can see other legislatures maybe passing something with a higher percentage than more than half because of the contributions from the state. But I thought that was a really interesting way for institutions, public institutions, to be thinking about pricing like private institutions are.

Erin Hennessy 

Yeah. And we’ve seen I think the Massachusetts system offered in state tuition rates to, it was it was select sort of markets. So I don’t know if it was New York State, but it was like bordering states. And if you lived in those states or close enough or whatever the parameters were, that you could then tap into in-state tuition and you’re absolutely right. It’s hoping to make up with head count what you’re losing in what is a relatively small amount of money.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes. And I also will say, you know, I’ve been a champion of this program for years. I’m about to say two words that every time I say it, you giggle at me. 

Erin Hennessy

Here we go.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I have always been a fan of the WICHE WUE program. So WICHE is for the higher education institutions who are in the West, the publics, to come together and find a way to share information, resources, and also enrollment across their borders. And the WUE is a scholarship that you can apply for to get either in-state tuition or 1.25 times tuition, or they have a couple of other models too. But a cheapened or lessened, I shouldn’t say cheap, they are all excellent quality, not cheap institutions.

Erin Hennessy

Reduced cost.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

A reduced cost of attendance. 

Erin Hennessy

There it is.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

If your state that you reside in participates in WUE and you go to one of the institutions that is in WICHE.

Erin Hennessy

Goodness gracious.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

But I have always thought that was so smart to do to really maximize the impact of institutions in the West. So that’s one. I just thought that that end of out-of-state tuition was a fascinating model for all of us to watch. The next thing that I would talk about is I, again, thinking about reputation and revenue, the Heritage Foundation released sweeping model bill and options to overhaul higher education. This was in Higher Ed Dive, a shout out to Laura [Spitalniak]. Sorry about that, Laura. 

Erin Hennessy

Ouch.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

She has a piece that really I think we should be paying attention to. If we go back to Project 2025 and we were all like, but that may not ever happen, we should be looking to see how others are talking about higher education and the reforms that they are putting out there that could be at a state level, could be at a federal level.

How are we thinking about this? How are we planning for it? And what would be the impacts on higher education? So, revenue and reputation. This report, I think, is interesting. I’m gonna go on, still revenue and reputation. There was a GAO report that talked about how athletic programs are bleeding money. So, shout out to Josh Moody at Inside Higher Ed on this piece. You know I talk about this all of the time. I wish we would just call athletics for what it is.

Erin Hennessy

Amen.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

It is not going to be a moneymaker for most institutions and for the couple, handful, less than 10 that are making money off of this, you’re in a category of your own. But as the GAO has found, if your institution thinks that they are going to make money from athletics, they need a reality check. And we need to stop talking about it that way. Let’s talk about it as reputation. Let’s talk about it as gaining some revenue, but is not going to be the silver bullet that we’re looking for. And we’ve always thought that athletics could be.

Erin Hennessy

Yep. Yep. It’s…

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Okay. go ahead.

Erin Hennessy 

No, I have no words. Athletics really just…it’s so hard.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

It’s so hard. I’m so conflicted. And you know this. I love athletics in theory. Wrote a dissertation about it. But then the reality of it…

Erin Hennessy 

We just need to be better.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah, it just…They should have hired me to be in charge of the NCAA. I offered. I offered. 

Erin Hennessy

Nope. Moving on.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Moving on. Moving to a topic that we see every couple of years, so it’s back. How predatory trade schools drained, and I think it’s $300 million, I have a typo in my own document, from the GI Bill. So this was an exclusive in The Washington Post and I want to really give them credit for going back to this topic because this is something that we need to be watching. And I know that not all for-profits operate this way. There are some amazing for-profits that many people don’t even know are for-profits because they operate like a nonprofit and then there are some others who are going in and taking advantage of what is intended to be a gateway to a better life for those who have served. And as someone who comes from a military family, had a niece go to college on the GI Bill, has a brother who went to a service academy, this one always hits home in a way that really angers me. And I just want to make sure that we are watching where those GI Bill dollars go and that they have the impact that they should have.

Erin Hennessy

Yeah, agreed. This one always gets me to. My father served and went to college on the GI Bill. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

So did my dad, yeah.

Erin Hennessy

And while I was at the American Council on Education, it was during the passage of legislation creating the 9-11 GI Bill. And we did so much work and so much advocacy to try and make sure that service women and servicemen had access to funds and more importantly, or as importantly, to good institutions that would give them the maximum benefit for their earned dollars. And it’s, you’re absolutely right. There are some great for-profit institutions that offer all the flexibility and you know diversity of programs that folks at this stage of their life post-service need or children of service members need, and then there’s just some absolute skunks. And there’s a special place in hell for those people. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I agree. I’m gonna flip this now to something that I thought was an interesting model. County College of Morris in your home state acquired the Joe Kubert—I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly, but I always mispronounce things—Comic Art School. So this is a public community college that is taking in what was a for profit art school. And so kind of flipping that the other way. We usually see kind of the programs not moving in this direction. And I’m really excited to see what County College of Morris does with this. And is this a model for other institutions to be thinking about how they can serve their audiences and what resources, truly that’s how I think about this, what resources might be out there for them to broaden either their access to those faculty or to the programs or to the curriculum to make their institutions stronger. So I will be following this one because I’m very interested to see where it goes.

Erin Hennessy 

Yeah, and art schools have really been hit terribly hard by a lot of different things and we’ve seen a number of closures of institutions and we’ve seen, you know, George Washington scooped up the Corcoran, the school associated with the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC. And so hopefully there’s an opportunity there to keep some of these institutions going.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And I think there, we’re seeing these models for partnership kind of across higher education. So if you aren’t following what Brandon Busteed is doing, he was a guest on our podcast two years ago maybe. 

Erin Hennessy 

Many moons.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

He is working to create internships and opportunities for students at all institutions, through an organization that he is with. So there are so many different, just innovative partnerships to give people a leg up and some new opportunities. And I think they’re pretty fascinating. So with that, I’m gonna let you go to your topic and then we can come back to what else I read this summer.

Erin Hennessy

Oh my goodness. Okay. It’s me, Debbie Downer. DJ, if we can drop a sad trombone sound effect in right there, that’d be great. I have just been struck by the number of big deep pieces that have dropped in the last couple of weeks. And it could be, I debate every year if I’m the smartest person or the stupidest person putting my summer vacation all the way at the end of August. Maybe I’m just like cooked at this point.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I think you’re the smartest because you still have something to look forward to.

Erin Hennessy

Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. But it could be influencing my mood because I am, I have nothing in the tank. But there have been a couple of pieces that caught my eye in the last week or so that are just articulating and angsting about the sort of big existential question of what is higher ed for? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? The latest was one that ran in the New York Times today, I believe, written by Jessica Ghose, Grose. Sorry, Jessica, if you’re listening…

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Sorry, everybody with your names.

Erin Hennessy 

Doubt that you are. Titled Even Elite Colleges Have Become Trade Schools. And it really sort of digs into why are we sending students to college? What are we expecting them to come out with? Are we swinging, in this time of conversation about value and cost and future earnings, are we swinging too far in the direction of college is simply this private good that prepares me to go earn a paycheck that is more than what I paid for my education? As opposed to is college an important part of creating an informed, engaged, active citizenry, et cetera, et cetera. And I’m just gonna read because you know how I like to read to you. It’s so soothing, isn’t it? 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Oh, thank you, ma’am.

Erin Hennessy

Yeah. “When we reduce college to metrics like short-term return on investment, we are ignoring so much potential it is staggering. Young people who don’t have the resources to pay out of pocket for their college degrees are going to be pushed into jobs that they might be ill-suited for rather than getting to explore their intellectual potential in fields that are not immediately remunerative.” Great word. “Who knows how many kids we have already trapped in a cutthroat competition to get a small number of finance or tech jobs when their brains might have been put to better use, creating the next great piece of literature, designing a new kind of green building, or working in a lab that could lead to the next medical breakthrough. When we impugn the more esoteric ambitions of higher education, we lose the ability to dream big about what our young people can accomplish.”

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Well, allow them to dream big about what they can accomplish. 

Erin Hennessy 

Right? Yep. Yep. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And I’m not, I feel like we’ve been here for a while, but I feel like it’s just ramping up more. And again, I’m here at summer camp and I’m on the University of Wisconsin campus. And it’s been interesting to talk to my colleagues from across the country and how they are being told to talk about higher education in a way that really does, to the title of this piece, make us sound more like trade schools.

Erin Hennessy 

Yep, the piece also notes that as of 2022, the top two majors for students at four-year institutions are, do you want to guess? 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Business and engineering.

Erin Hennessy 

Business and health professions. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Oh I can see that. Yeah, I can see that.

Erin Hennessy 

Yeah, which are great fields to go into. But…

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Can I give you a segue to something else that you want to talk about? 

Erin Hennessy

Hmm, go ahead.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

When I was in college, one of the biggest majors at my alma mater was sociology. A lot of people picked it up as a second major, or as a primary major, or as a minor, because you get to understand how people and systems and communities work. So tell me about this one, Debbie Downer.

Erin Hennessy

Yep. Well, let me continue to just rant. There have been a couple of pieces in the last few weeks. There was one in the Wall Street Journal called, Is It Time to ‘Liquidate’ the Study of Sociology? There was one in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled The War [for] Sociology. There have been a couple of regional pieces that have popped up in the last few days. There have been some blog responses. Everybody is suddenly jumping on sociology. And I think it’s really not about sociology. It’s about the social sciences, the “softer fields.” As a political science major, I don’t really have a feeling but it’s these conversations about what students should be studying.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Not our business.

Erin Hennessy 

Parenthesis, according to whom. And secondly, what social scientists are supposed to do after they’ve studied something. Isn’t it appropriate for them to advocate for solutions that they know based on research would improve the quality of life for pick, you know, pick your community, your marginalized group, your international, whatever it might be? And there was a lot of debate about whether or not social scientists should be advocating for anything at all. And I heard a really interesting metaphor, analogy this weekend. Imagine if we said to medical students, to medical researchers, you can go ahead and study what causes cancer and how cancer works, but you shouldn’t be looking into cures. You should not be advocating for chemotherapy. And it’s really a challenging question that I think gets down to the heart of what are we doing in higher education? Are we training people to go into finance, to go into healthcare professions, to go into, I mean, it used to when I was graduating, computer science was like the gateway to a big fat paycheck right out of college. And AI has flipped the script on that. But what is legitimate to study? What is a legitimate way to study it? And what is a legitimate outcome of that study? And these are big, big questions. I don’t think this conversation is about sociology. I think sociology just happens to be…

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Oh I have a rash, I have a thought about why we’re talking about sociology.

Erin Hennessy 

Because it’s vastly tipped in the direction of women and marginalized communities that study it.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

That’s it. When we’ve seen the collapsing of different programs at different institutions as they’re making sure that they’re addressing student demand, which I think makes sense with majors. If you’re getting rid of your women’s studies department, you put it in sociology. If you’re getting rid of ethnic studies, Africana studies, Black studies, whatever it might be, you put it into sociology. And I think that tells me where we are in 2026. So every time we talk about liquidating, which is a business term, right? The study of people and how we interact and how we get along and all of those things, I think there again, I think let’s think about why. And the other thing that I would say is you have similar kinds of arguments sometimes in education as well. Let’s study education, but should you be coming up and sharing the solutions? Because isn’t that what parents should be doing? Isn’t that what school districts should be doing? Isn’t that? Isn’t that? Isn’t that? So I always stop and just ask, why are people pushing back on what would make us sense-makers, make us solution-providers, and really get to the core of what higher education does?

Erin Hennessy 

Yep. Yep. And a couple of years ago it was anthropology. And again in Florida it was a debate about the value of anthropology. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Yeah. So I’m gonna connect one of my pieces to what, to this topic. There was a study that came out a couple of weeks ago, and it was titled, this is a journal article, Do Faculty Affect Student Partisanship? Ready for what it found? 

Erin Hennessy 

Mm-hmm.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

No. 

Erin Hennessy 

Mm-hmm. Correct.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And I just want to point that out. I, in my little ecosystem on social media, everybody was like…

Erin Hennessy 

That’s the third time. Fourth time? That you used ecosystem. Fourth time.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Oh my gosh, that’s the word of the day. You know on Sesame Street when they’re like, today the word of the day is…today is ecosystem. So my social media ecosystem, there we go, that’s five. Ha! Was all a Twitter about, but we weren’t on Twitter. See, we told you, we knew this. That’s not what we’re doing. And do you know who talked about this study? Just us.

Erin Hennessy 

Of course. Of course.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

So I encourage people to go and read it. we will have a link in the show notes. There’s an actual PDF that you can download so you don’t have to go through a journal, but you can find the journal article and I think that’s a really interesting spot for us to be in, is that we get this media coverage and this pushback in all of these surveys. I just shared one yesterday in my summer camp presentation about the number one critique of higher education right now is the partisanship.

Erin Hennessy 

Mm-hmm.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And then we have a study that says psych, and nobody picks that topic back up.

Erin Hennessy

Yep. Yep. Okay, I got one more. And then I’ll toss it to you. And then we’re gonna close out this the first episode of the fifth season. There was an opinion piece in a little publication called The Washington Post titled Universities Are Fighting AI Cheating. But There’s a Deeper Problem. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Bum bum bum!

Erin Hennessy

And this was written. I am scrolling desperately to find the author’s name, Santiago Schnell, who is a professor of mathematics and the provost at a little place called Dartmouth College.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Is it well known? I said that to somebody yesterday from Stanford. He said, I work at Stanford. And I said, where is that located? And the look on his face was priceless. Go ahead.

Erin Hennessy

Ah well, with Dartmouth I would say “it is a small college, yet there are those who love it.” Look it up, folks. Those who know, know what that’s a reference to. Anyway.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I don’t know what that’s a reference to, but now I’m gonna have to look it up. 

Erin Hennessy

Well, now you’re gonna have to look it up. and what this piece argues is that we’re missing the big question behind higher education when we reduce the debate to are students using AI to cheat? And that what we really need to be focused on is how we’re assessing how students learn, how they, I think “Universities need more than a return to blue books. At Dartmouth, where the term artificial intelligence was coined some 70 years ago,” hashtag humble brag. “Some first year seminars ask students to compare their own summaries of an assigned essay with AI generated version, identify inaccuracies, and defend their judgments out loud. Foundational courses should include work done without outside assistance with appropriate accommodations so that baseline competence can be observed. So we need to not just tell students not to use AI, but we need to make sure that we are preparing them to be thoughtful, smart, engaged people in the world. And we need to do that in a way that does not treat the skillsets a student comes out with or is expected to come out with as sort of interchangeable with teaching them how to use AI.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I’m gonna say, and that’s why we need things like sociologists. That’s why we need the study of how people interact, right? I am really intrigued talking to some of my institutions that are pushing now human-centered programs, institutes, efforts, because it’s the other side of what it is that we’re talking about. And I just wanna say also that’s called the humanities. 

Erin Hennessy 

Yes. I do also, and a full disclosure, Paul is a friend and a client, but Paul LeBlanc, who’s one of the smartest thinkers about the intersection of technology and higher ed and how you can leverage it for good, for good education for more people, has a new book out called Reclaiming Purpose, and it looks at how institutions can smartly use AI in ways that let the institution get back to its core task of helping students figure out who they want to be, how they want to live in the world, and what a meaningful life looks like for them. So it’s an optimistic take.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah, I love that. And please listen to the conversation that we had with Paul. He was kind of thinking through what the book would become when he was on our podcast earlier. And I really do think that he is one of those people that is just such an amazing systems thinker that every time I talk to him or read what he has written, I feel smarter.

Erin Hennessy

Yes.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Okay, ready for my last ecosystem I’m gonna talk about? 

Erin Hennessy

Ugh yes, let’s go.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Two sides of a coin here. So there was a piece in ProPublica that was titled, Is there anyone who can respond to my FOIA requests? Anyone? And this is my annual request. I think at this point you and I have made this request every year. Let’s partner with our media colleagues, let’s partner with those reporters. You don’t need to give everything that makes you vulnerable, but you have relationships that you’re trying to maintain. And what this argument talks about is decades of sending FOIA requests and hearing crickets. Back in the day, I used to work with legal counsel on FOIA requests at the institution where I worked and, well for the system where I worked, and I used to call a reporter and explain if we weren’t going to respond and why.

Sometimes it was a terminology issue, right? Because you put in a FOIA request and you say, I’m looking for. I knew what they were looking for. For positive pieces, too, you put in a FOIA request. And I would just call them and say, if you use this term, it’s going to produce entirely different results for you. Would you like to amend your FOIA request? For other things, I would say, here’s why I can’t. This is the part that’s attorney client privileged. This is the part that isn’t. Or what you’re asking about, we did search and we used other terms and we’re just not finding anything. So working with reporters to help them understand so they just don’t have that Bueller, Bueller moment is huge. Because then when we want to partner with them, we don’t understand why they’re not giving us the benefit of the doubt. On the other side of that, if any of the reporters that we have mentioned in this episode, or any other reporters are listening, I have a request, and that comes after a Bloomberg article that said that there are seven PR people for every one journalist. It’s not about the article. That is what it is. And I would also say we have very complex jobs that are beyond PR. PR is an umbrella term. Some of the reporters who shared this on social media in my marcomm ecosystem, they acknowledge that. But a number of them took an opportunity to have some really bad swipes at our industry.

I’m not saying that all PR people are perfect. I am not saying that we couldn’t use some feedback or guidance on how to do our jobs better. And I like to think of myself as a comms person, not just PR, but some of the examples that they gave, the name dragging that they had, the screenshots that they included, the ways that they disparage those who they are then gonna go fill out a FOIA request with. This is a sort of an ecosystem, everybody. So I’m just asking for grace on both sides so that we all can get our work done. Amen.

Erin Hennessy 

Yep. Yep. There you go.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Yes, in our new platform we are looking at the same things. 

Erin Hennessy

I would also say to our fine comms colleagues, you have, hopefully, the opportunity to step in and say to your legal colleagues or whoever it is that sets the cost that you tell reporters they’re gonna have to cover to fulfill a FOIA request. Come on, let’s all just take a breath. There’s nothing in the world that can cost forty five thousand dollars or whatever some of those ridiculous numbers are. And by sending that back, you are guaranteeing yourself a story about how long it’s…

Teresa Valerio Parrot

You are creating an enemy. Especially because when those FOIA guidelines were created, so in Colorado, I think they’re set by statute, it was based on them receiving a paper something. So back in the day, you would come in and you would either get it by fax or you would get it in person as a paper something. That is not the world we live in anymore. And I don’t know that any FOIA laws have been or statutes have been updated to reflect the world that we’re in now, and in part because some of those who could have that power to change how accessible items are through FOIA don’t want to be FOIA’d. So we all should be thinking about what makes common sense.

Erin Hennessy

Yes. And don’t be mad when the reporter writes a piece about it’s been this many days since they filed the FOIA request and then you came back with a astronomical sum. So, that’s all.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

So all we’re trying to say is let’s get along. 

Erin Hennessy 

Okay, Pollyanna.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And part of how you do that is through shared governance. See? There’s the episode, everybody. 

Erin Hennessy 

In an ecosystem!

Teresa Valerio Parrot

In an ecosystem that includes higher education, reporters, the government, and us.

Erin Hennessy 

Before this gets more ridiculous, we’re gonna, we’re gonna wrap this one up.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Yes. Can I preview who our next guest is, our first guest this season? 

Erin Hennessy 

Sure. We can make this a new thing that we do.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

So yes, yes. Oh also we’re gonna be back every two weeks, much to your dismay. 

Erin Hennessy 

Not to my dismay. You know my feelings.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Just to your calendar’s dismay. Yeah, yeah. 

Erin Hennessy 

Go ahead.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

My calendar’s dismay. So we are gonna have the editor in chief of the Chronicle of Higher Education. So Brad Wolverton, I invited him a bit ago and he said, You allowed Sara Custer from Inside Higher Ed to be on the job for a year before you brought her in to talk about what she’s doing and where she’s going. I would love that as well. So he is going to be talking to us in two weeks.

Erin Hennessy 

Mhm, about his first year and about what’s coming next for The Chronicle.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

That’s exactly it. So stay tuned, everybody, and we can’t wait to see what comes next in this semester.

Erin Hennessy 

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Teresa.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Thank you, Erin. Bye bye.

Erin Hennessy 

Bye.

Thank you for joining us for this episode. Links and transcripts are available at TVPCommunications.com/category/podcast. You can contact us with feedback, questions, or guest suggestions at trustedvoices@tvpcommunications.com. Follow Trusted Voices wherever you get your podcasts and until next time, thanks to Teresa Valerio Parrot, Savannah Parrot, and DJ Hauschild for a great episode. And thank you for listening.