VOL. 106, NO. 1/2 • WINTER/SPRING 2020 LiberalEducation A s s o c i at i o n o f A m e r i c a n C o l l e g e s a n d U niversities

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION PLUS: Supporting student vets Life lessons from James Joyce

The Leap Challenge DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

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(Cover photo) Vesnaandjic/iStock VOL. 106, NO. 1/2 • WINTER/SPRING 2020 LiberalEducation A s s o c i at i o n o f A m e r i c a n C o l l e g e s a n d U niversities

From 1818 R Street NW 2 President’s Message 4 From the Editor 5 News and Information

Featured Topic 8 The Higher Education Act: Opportunities for Bipartisan Reform 14 Borrowing while Black: Understanding What Makes Student Debt a Crisis for Black Students By Tiffany Jones, Victoria Jackson, and Jaime Ramirez-Mendoza 20 The Promise of College: Opening New Pathways to the American Dream By Martha Kanter and Anjana Venkatesan 26 Democracy under Siege: What Are Colleges and Universities to Do? By Brian Murphy 32 Seeding the Garden: Civic Transformation and Youth of Color Stepping into Their Power By Marisol Morales and Jacqueline Perez Valencia

Perspectives 38 Combating Transition Stress among Student Veterans: Building a Community from the Ground Up By Stephen Kaplan 44 Seeing Is Believing: Timely Lessons from Communication Research in the Wake of COVID-19 By Richard A. Cherwitz 48 Transforming the Academy: The Urgency of Recommitting Higher Education to the Public Good By Nancy Cantor 56 Relationships Drive Success: How Peer Mentoring Empowers Students By Stephanie Krusemark and George White

My View 58 Get a Job and Get a Life—with James Joyce: Why Reading the “Jocoserious” Joyce Is Useful Fun By Kevin P. Reilly FROM 1818 R STREET NW PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE increasingly competitive job market, access to excellence in higher education—at colleges increasingly competitivejobmarket,accesstoexcellence in highereducation—atcolleges following theinitialstate-issuedshelter-in-place ordersenactedinMarch.Inanuncertain, paramount. Bymid-April,morethantwenty-sixmillionpeoplefiledforunemployment taking actiontoredressthegrowingeconomicsegregationinhighereducationbecomes recession thathasbroughttheworldtobrinkofadepression,payingattentionand an expansivedigitaldivide.Atatimewhenglobalpandemichastriggeredeconomic andshelterinsecuritiesalongside the vastnumberofstudentswhoareexperiencingfood and inoursocietyasawhole.Thesuddenevacuationofresidentialcampusesunveiled local communities. as anchorinstitutions,whosesuccessisinextricablylinkedtothewell-beingoftheir to afocusonthecivicmissionofcollegesanduniversities,reaffirmingtheirimportance hanced professionaldevelopmentsupportforfacultyandstaff.Italsodemandsreturning centered onstudentlearningandsuccess.Implementingsuchavisionnecessitatesen whilesafeguardinghigh-quality,financial models equitable,andinclusivelearningenviron colleges anduniversitiesfaceanewsenseofurgencyaroundidentifyingmoreflexible ning aroundacontinuumofpossiblefutures.Inpreparingforpost-pandemicworld, sponse tothiscrisiswillnotsufficeandmustbecombinedwithlong-termstrategicplan is widespreadconsensusamonghighereducationleadersthatshort-termtacticsinre extraordinary resilienceandinnovationinmeetingunprecedentedchallenges.Yet, there would emergeasadisruptiveforceinthepivottoremotelearningandonlineeducation. that thethreatofZoombombing,acatalystforhate-filledrhetoricandintimidation, place orders,andlocalnationallockdownswouldbecomepartofourdailylexicons;or the worldasweknewitwouldbeupended;that A and OurDemocracyinaPost- The FutureofHigherEducation 2 that couldpotentiallytreatthecoronavirus,academy ishelpingleadtheresponseto other protectivegear, toconductingclinicaltrialsofmedications(suchasRemdesivir) faceshieldsand transitioning dormitoriestohospitalsandusing3Dprinters toproduce contributing academic,financial,andphysicalresources totheircommunities.From also forthepublicgood. but individuals of and universitiesofalltypes—isessential,notonlyforthe advancement

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, socialdistancing,shelter-in- World - - - - - 2. Ibram X.KendiTwitter 2. Post,April18,2020,https://twitter.com/DrIbram/status/1251549681785716736. 1405ba54-7f4e-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html. com/national/rallies-against-stay-at-home-orders-grow-as-trump-sides-with-protesters/2020/04/17/ Grow asTrump SideswithProtesters,” 1. Toluse Olorunnipa,ShawnBoburg andArelisR.Hernández,“RalliesagainstStay-at-HomeOrders NOTES —LYNN PASQUERELLA inservicetodemocracy, ismorecriticalthanever. education graduate making equity andqualitythefoundationsforexcellenceinunder sion of advancingthevitalityandpublicstandingliberaleducation,by this volumeillustratewhy, atthismomentofglobalcrisis, inequities andstructuralbarriersthatjeopardizethesevalues,theauthorsin creation of a more just and inclusive society. Addressing a range of persistent tered byaliberaleducationareessentialtothrivingdemocracyandthe These skillsandadispositiontocivicinvolvementlifelonglearningfos with respecttocompetingargumentswhilecultivatingpersonalandsocialresponsibility. of thedangersideologicalfiltering;tospeakacrossdifferences;andengageindeliberation value ofliberaleducationandhowitpreparesstudentstodiscernthetruthbemindful founding directoroftheAntiracistResearchandPolicyCenteratAmericanUniversity: Swift repudiationonsocialmediaincludedthefollowingtweetbyIbramX.Kendi, Rosa Parks,”Mooresaid.“Theyareprotestingagainstinjusticeandalossofliberties.” demonstrators toleadersinthecivilrightsmovement.“Icallthesepeoplemodern-day Trump’s economicadvisorStevenMoorecreatedafirestormbycomparingtheanti-quarantine militia, anti-vaccination,andalt-rightmovements.Within thiscontext,PresidentDonald banks.However,food manyalsogatheredaspartoforganizedcampaignsspurredby ineligibility tofileforunemploymentbenefits,andwaitsinmiles-longlinesatdrive-through reported beingattheralliesoutofsheerdesperationfollowingclosetheirbusinesses, several statestooktothestreets,decryingrestrictionsimposeduponthem.Some campaigns andcallstoreopenstatesattheriskofpublichealthsafety. and thedisparateimpactitishavingonpoorcommunitiesofcoloramidmisinformation community areprovidingaccuratescientificinformationaboutthespreadofvirus the currenthealth-carecrisis.Perhapsmostimportantly, membersofthehighereducation The current culture wars being played out on the national stage highlight the enduring The currentculturewarsbeingplayedoutonthenationalstagehighlightenduring lynch, deport,exclude,rob.Theyhavealwaysprotestedthe“lossofliberties.” These folkwantthefreedomtoinfect,liketheyhavewantedenslave, freedoms. RosaParks.”ButParksdesireddifferentStephen Moorecallsthem“modern-day As theUnitedStatessurpassed800,000confirmedcasesof Washington Post , April17,2020,https://www.washingtonpost. L a r e b i l

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FROM 1818 R STREET NW Democracy in Action

I’ll get right to the point: Go vote. On Election Day this November, make sure you and your students cast ballots, even if it means doing so by mail. Last fall, when I first started working on this issue’s theme, “Democracy in Action,” much was already at stake in the United States with regard to democratic participation, public support for higher education, more equitable systems for student access and funding, as well as a variety of other issues. Now, as I write this note, my initial inclination is to talk about how, in the midst of the current global pandemic—and a failure of public leadership to prepare for and handle such a crisis—the stakes are even higher. But the stakes are not suddenly higher. Democracy is not suddenly more important than it was yesterday. When it comes to democratic systems and participation, which directly affect access to and support for education, the stakes have always been life and death. The COVID-19 pandemic is simply FROM 1818 R STREET NW laying bare just how much was already at stake. It is merely emphasizing with many exclamation points the importance of higher education’s mission to be on the forefront of protecting democracy and ensur- ing students are prepared to become FROM THE EDITOR engaged citizens—including as doctors, scientists, ethicists, communicators, and many other needed experts—who can address complicated global issues. Most of the articles in this issue were written before the COVID-19 outbreak, yet the challenges presented in them must be grappled with in order to handle this present pandemic, prevent future pandemics, and face other global crises. In considering the renewal of the Higher Education Act, the chairs of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Task Force on Higher Education Financing and Student Outcomes discuss federal policy recommendations for increasing higher education access, afford- ability, and accountability. Writers from the Education Trust look at why black student borrowers struggle more with debt than other groups and offer ways to help level the playing field. Former US Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter talks about the College Promise Campaign’s work in local communities and across states to provide more students with a college education. As the United States responds to the pandemic, Richard A. Cherwitz calls on scholars to employ visual rhetoric to combat “fake news” and to hold leaders accountable as they make policy decisions. Marisol Morales and Jacqueline Perez Valencia share their personal stories of civic transformation and look at how educators can support today’s students of color in becoming empowered activists. One of the essential things, as Brian Murphy points out in his essay on higher education’s role in protecting democracy, is ensuring students are informed about the issues and that they go out to vote. It’s always been imperative that we prepare students to serve in a functioning democracy—this deadly new virus is simply making what’s at stake that much clearer.—CHRISTEN ARAGONI

Vice President, Liberal Education (ISSN 0024-1822) is published AAC&U invites proposals for articles that promote Communications quarterly by the Association of American liberal learning in a broad sense. For writers’ guidelines and Public Affairs Colleges and Universities, 1818 R Street NW, see www.aacu.org/liberaleducation. David Tritelli Washington, DC 20009-1604. Annual rates are Liberal Education is available on microfilm from Editor $50 for individual subscribers and $60 for libraries. NA Publishing, Inc. Christen Aragoni Subscription information can be found online at ©2020 by the Association of American Colleges Associate Editor www.aacu.org/liberaleducation. Periodicals postage and Universities. Permission is granted for individuals Ben Dedman paid at Washington, DC, and at additional mailing to make single copies for personal use in research, Production Manager offices.PO STMASTER: Send address changes to study, or teaching. Authors’ opinions do not necessarily Michele Stinson Liberal Education, 1818 R Street NW, Washington, reflect the views of AAC&U. Design DC 20009-1604. Liz Clark

4 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Michael Ferguson Shaun R. Harper R. Shaun reform, and more. Participants reform, andmore.Participants preparedness, undergraduate student-centered learning,civic exclusive outcome.”Sessionsexplored inclusive processratherthanan and “affirmingexcellenceasan sustained welcomeandbelonging” of places colleges and universities are AAC&U to Lead.” of HigherEducation:AnInvitation annual meeting,“ShapingtheFuture Washington, DC,for education professionalsgatheredin In January, morethan2,200higher Accepting theInvitation Visit ourwebsite: www.aacu.org.Visit Write ortweet@AACU. [email protected] President Lynn Pasquerelladescribed NEWS ANDINFORMATION ’s vision of “ensuring that “ensuring that of ’s vision AAC&U STEM ’s 2020

he said,“canmakeyoustronger.” campus. “Confrontationwithideas,” most importantonestohaveon takes tofeelincludedaresomeofthe about whydebateswhatit President MichaelS.Rothtalked Possibilities,” Wesleyan University Liberal Education:Pressuresand Spaces SafeEnoughforPragmatic and hopefulconversations.” tweeted, fostered“honest,practical, The conference,asoneattendee political participationalifelonghabit. with complexissues,andmake learn fromadiversityofideas,engage discussed empoweringstudentsto In hisclosingplenary, “Shaping L a r e b i Michael S. Roth Piñeres de Gutiérrez Amin Sheila McNair Brown Tia l

E tion o i at c u d W r e t n i /S g n i r p 2020

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FROM 1818 R STREET NW (Above and below) Attendees at various annual meeting sessions Lynn Pasquerella

Joy Ann Williamson-Lott

Mariko Silver

6 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Marjorie Hass (left) and Julia Sweig Adrianna Kezar

Dawn Michele Whitehead

2020 K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award winners (left to right): Edgar Virgüez, Zachary del Rosario, Douglas R. Valentine, Ciara R. Christian, María B. Alcívar-Zuñiga, Sara R. Abelson, Brett Ranon Nachman

Correction: In the summer/fall 2019 issue, an incorrect photo accompanied the interview with Caroline Coward, librarian at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Liberal Education sincerely regrets the error.

“Making Inclusive Music” with George Mason University’s “Green Machine” pep band

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 7 The Higher Education Act Opportunities for bipartisan reform

Higher education is a critical tool for social mobility, but today, students and their families face significant challenges. Since 1999, the average price paid for tuition, fees, room, and board has increased by 70 percent at public four-year colleges and universities, 21 percent at private nonprofits, and 10 percent at public two-year institutions.1 The Pell Grant Program, the FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED federal government’s largest source of need-based grant aid, has failed to keep pace with rising prices, placing strains on low- and middle-income families. At the same time, declining state funding for higher education We must come together to ensure the has led public institutions to rely more heavily on system meets the needs of today’s and tuition revenue. tomorrow’s economy for everyone. Meanwhile, too few students make it to graduation day, and too many are saddled with debt that they cannot afford to repay. Currently, just two-fifths of first-time, full-time students graduate with a bachelor’s degree within four years,2 and 39 percent of the federally managed student loan portfolio expected to be in repayment is either delinquent or in default.3 These problems are exacerbated by a loan repayment system that is complex and difficult to navigate. Students and families also lack clear information to inform their decisions. Similarly, federal higher education data obscures student outcomes by key demographic characteristics, making it difficult to gauge institutional per- formance and the potential return on investment for degrees and credentials. Even though higher education remains a worthwhile investment for most who complete a degree, this lack of clear information leads many students to enroll in schools that may serve them poorly. It is against this backdrop that the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) convened the Task Force on Higher Education Financing and Student Outcomes. This group has identified several areas of federal policy ripe for reform that could drastically improve the US higher education system for students and their families. With a focus on access, affordability, and accountability, the task force analyzed a wide range of relevant data. After more than a year and a half of deliberations, the task force reached a consensus on a package of recommendations for lawmakers. Importantly, the package of recommendations is roughly budget neutral, providing a blueprint for a comprehensive and bipartisan Higher Education Act reauthorization. The task force members’ ability to reach an agreement on this package suggests that pragmatic and data-driven reforms are possible.

8 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED

George Miller (left) and Howard P. “Buck” McKeon These reforms aim to promote college affordability and reduce equity gaps, encourage In 2019–20, the maximum Pell Grant efficiency and improve the targeting of federal award accounted for only 28% of the cost aid programs, boost quality assurance and insti- of attending a public four-year institution. tutional accountability, and enhance federal data systems while providing better informa- Recommendation: Increase mandatory tion to policymakers, researchers, and—most Pell funding by $90 billion over 10 years, importantly—students and families. Ultimately, raise the maximum Pell award, and this package of reforms would work to ensure that expand eligibility for middle-income every student shares in the benefits of America’s households. higher education system. The task force was cochaired by former US representatives Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) and George Miller (D-CA). Both served as Let’s start with establishing the task force. chairs of the House Committee on Education and What went into forming it and ensuring that it Labor during their time in Congress. In the fol- was a truly bipartisan effort? lowing Q&A with Liberal Education, they further George Miller: The Higher Education Act was elaborate on the bipartisan recommendations to last reauthorized in 2008, when I was serving as make college more affordable for and more acces- chair of the House Education and Labor Com- sible to a greater number of Americans. Key mittee, and Buck was my counterpart. We worked report recommendations are highlighted through- together in a truly bipartisan way on that bill. out the article. To read the entire report, visit With a reauthorization of that act long overdue https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/new-higher-ed. and college costs and student debt in the news almost every day, I think we felt the time was —Jinann Bitar, senior policy analyst at the right to make this renewed push for change. Bipartisan Policy Center BPC launched the task force with a goal of producing pragmatic policy recommendations that would dramatically improve the higher Low-income students are more than 2X as education system for students and their families. likely as their high-income peers to drop out To achieve a goal that ambitious, you need every within two years of matriculation. perspective in the room. We assembled a terrific group that included former lawmakers, college Recommendation: Provide additional presidents, and higher education leaders from Pell dollars to students who choose to all points on the political compass, whose varied attend institutions that successfully serve large numbers of low-income students. expertise and commitment to evidence-based reform allowed for both lively debate and the

Greg Gibson, Bipartisan Policy Center Bipartisan Policy Gibson, Greg development of serious policy solutions.

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 9 Can you talk about the work of the task federal resources should be allocated to post- force on addressing the issue of college secondary education? Some members, for ex- affordability and how policymakers on both ample, wanted to see an increase in overall sides of the aisle came together to make higher education spending, while others favored recommendations? reducing the federal footprint, believing that Howard P. “Buck” McKeon: From the start, our loans without limits were driving up college group was unified in the belief that too many prices, particularly for graduate and professional low- and even middle-income students and their degrees. This dynamic led us to conclude that families are struggling to afford a college degree. in order to reach an agreement, we would pursue FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED Consequently, the task force’s recommendations a budget-neutral package that focused on focus on reducing unmet need among low- and retargeting the federal resources spent on middle-income students primarily by reallocating higher education. federal resources towards front-end grant aid and It’s important to note that not every task improving the federal student loan program. member supports each of the forty-five recom- These improvements would make a high-quality mendations in insolation. There are several postsecondary education more affordable and proposals I would have preferred to leave out, help to ensure higher education is an engine of such as the federal-state partnership. But each opportunity to drive economic growth. of us agreed that this full package of reforms would be an improvement on the status quo What were the biggest points of agreement and meaningfully improve the higher education among task force members? system for students and families. Miller: As Buck said, there was an overwhelm- ing sense of purpose to strengthen access and Can you talk a little about the federalization affordability. There was also broad agreement of higher education and the responsibility that federal student aid should be better tar- of states in supporting higher education? geted and less complex, that The task force recommends establishing a There was an overwhelming the federal government $5 billion matching-grant program to help sense of purpose to strengthen should improve oversight states improve student outcomes and make access and affordability. Most over poorly performing higher education more affordable. Why do schools, and that students federal incentives matter so much? Are there important, however, we shared and families need better downsides to making state participation in a sense of urgency. We’ve seen information when making the program optional? the consequences of ignoring college enrollment and fi- Miller: States were historically the primary a dynamic higher education nancing decisions. Most funders of public higher education, with the system for ten years. important, however, we federal government playing a complementary shared a sense of urgency. role. More recently, however, declining state We’ve seen the consequences of ignoring a support for higher education has really shifted dynamic higher education system for ten years. the playing field. Since the mid-1970s, state and local support for higher education as a What were the biggest points of contention? share of personal income has dropped from McKeon: The task force was philosophically 1 percent to 0.5 percent today. And, as state divided on one key question: What level of support has declined, public colleges and uni- versities have increased their reliance on tuition revenues, resulting in higher costs for students and greater dependence on federal Only about 50% of borrowers are student aid. able to reduce their principal balance Federal incentives matter because these within 5 years of beginning repayment. trends are likely to continue. States face a num- ber of challenges to investing in their higher Recommendation: Require institutions education systems, including balanced budget participating in the federal loan program requirements, and these challenges are exacer- to pay a small premium tied to student bated during a recession. Recognizing that loan outcomes. every state higher education system is unique, the task force agreed that participation in the

10 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 the research shows this funding has limited impact on access and retention. One of the Since the mid-1970s, state and local most controversial changes is likely to be the support for higher education as a share of elimination of the standard repayment cap, a personal income has been cut in half. feature of some income-driven repayment plans, that could result in higher earners paying Recommendation: Reimagine the federal- back more than they would have otherwise. state financing relationship through a It’s fair to say that these recommendations $5 billion annual matching grant to help states reduce unmet need and improve would represent a significant change to the FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED student outcomes. ways the federal government supports higher education. I predict they will generate a lot of discussion in Congress, with some people wanting to spend more money without offsets new federal-state grant program should be and others wanting to save money without optional. With a $4-to-$1 match for every spending more someplace else. But the bottom additional dollar invested, the program offers line is that there are opportunities here for states a significant incentive to participate, the federal government to get better results which we believe will result in multistate for the money that is currently spent on participation. higher education.

Describe how, if implemented, the recommen- What’s the biggest takeaway about college dations would achieve relative budget neutrality. affordability you would want Liberal Education Would the changes to stop benefits from readers to get from the task force’s report and disproportionally aiding high-income families recommendations? have support among policymakers? Miller: This isn’t a problem that is going to solve McKeon: I learned early in my career in Congress itself. If we continue to do nothing, we’ll continue that budget estimates on student loans change to see prices and student debt rise. We need to often and sometimes by wide margins. None- act to ensure that America’s higher education theless, within the framework of rough budget system is transformative for those who seek it neutrality, our focus was to reallocate existing and that every student shares in its benefits. resources to policies that could better target low-and middle-income students. To offset the In a 2017 Pew Research Center poll, new cost of the proposed federal-state partner- 58 percent of Republicans said that college ship and a Pell Grant expansion, the task force had a negative effect on the United States, calls for eliminating certain higher education while only 19 percent of Democrats said the tax benefits under which higher-income earners same.4 What can be done at both the policy receive larger benefits than lower-income earners. and campus levels to address the negative We also proposed eliminating the in-school narrative about the value of higher education? interest subsidy on federal student loans because What effects might the narrative have on imple- menting changes like those the task force recommends? Why do you think that this view is disproportionately Republican, and what Complex requirements of the Public might be done about it? Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program McKeon: The US higher education system has have led to a staggering 99% rejection long been held up as the best in the world, but rate among borrowers expecting their more people are questioning the payoff to grad- remaining balances to be forgiven. uates and society as a whole. However, despite the statistics you mention, our nation’s long- Recommendation: Restructure the PSLF to term prosperity depends on a highly skilled and provide an up-front, flat monthly benefit of innovative workforce. While the threats to free $300 for 5 years for any eligible borrowers speech and inquiry on college campuses are a working in public service or at nonprofit organizations. real concern, America cannot just turn its back on higher education. We must come together to ensure the system meets the needs of today’s

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 11 and tomorrow’s economy for everyone. This report is a start, but there’s more work to be done to restore confidence in the American higher Outstanding federal student loans total nearly $1.5 trillion. education system, and some of that is going to need to come from higher education leaders themselves. They need to redefine their value Recommendation: Automatically enroll proposition in terms of meeting workforce all borrowers in an income-driven repayment plan, implement evidence- demands, which is something that we cannot based reforms to federal loan counseling, do from Washington. develop personalized, easy-to-understand FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED disclosure forms for student borrowers, How can we move to a space with more and provide an annual notification constructive policymaking, and how do we of students’ remaining eligibility for prioritize educational policy? federal financial aid. Miller: It begins with members of Congress getting to know each other and developing relationships beyond policymaking. In the case of higher education, we have a luxury. There consider. The task force took on both issues, are institutions of higher redirecting existing spending toward increasing College and university presidents education in virtually affordability and boosting capacity at under- need to be willing to innovate every congressional dis- resourced schools that serve low-income students, trict, and these institutions while also providing accountability mechanisms and leverage the talent of their are integral to state econo- to ensure quality programs that provide students faculty and students to help mies. This is a critical issue a positive return on their investment of time offer solutions to solve problems for policymakers to come and money. and to focus more on the world together on to ensure our Colleges and universities currently receive outside of their institutions. higher education system roughly $150 billion annually in grants and meets the needs of today’s loans from the federal government. That’s a lot students and the modern workforce. Without of money even in Washington. But when you action, I do not believe that Congress or look at the results of spending all that money American families can have full confidence each year—with too few students graduating in our public system of higher education. on time and too many taking out loans for That is going to require action to address both studies that don’t pay off—you can’t help but affordability and accountability. conclude that we can’t just spend our way out of these problems. Improving access will not Where do the policy proposals for free college provide the dramatic improvements the higher fit in the conversation? education system needs unless we also have McKeon: So-called “free” college was not a policy quality standards and incentives to improve we considered. Our focus was on providing every- student outcomes. one access to an affordable postsecondary educa- tion, particularly for low-income students, but What do educational leaders need to there are also important issues of quality to be doing at their own institutions to be ready for reforms that address college affordability? Miller: Institutions don’t have to wait for Students who file theFAFSA are policy reform to address college affordability. 72% more likely to persist in higher Improving the information available to stu- education than those who do not file. dents and families is an important aspect of ensuring an affordable and accessible higher Recommendation: Simplify the FAFSA education system. Institutions should act to through automatic data sharing and lay provide students and families easy-to-understand the groundwork for a one-time FAFSA. financial aid offers, ensure borrowers receive personalized loan counseling, and increase student awareness of tools that inform student decision making.

12 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 What advice do you have for college and What is the outlook for the Higher Education Act? university presidents for working with When might an update be passed? policymakers? McKeon: It is hard to predict. I think there McKeon: College and university presidents have been many missed opportunities because need to work on becoming a trusted resource people aren’t focused enough on the 80 percent for policymakers. They can’t just be asking for of things that they can agree on. Since the money or complaining about the red tape 2008 reauthorization that George and I worked connected to the money they get. They need on, we have found that a number of policies to show the impact that their institutions are enacted by both parties haven’t worked as they having on the community. They need to be were intended. We also have a system—and TOPIC FEATURED willing to innovate and leverage the talent of students the system serves—that has dramatically their faculty and students to help offer solutions changed over the past decade. We cannot afford to solve problems, and, most important, they to wait much longer. need to focus more on the world outside of their institutions. We have a dynamic and Anything else you’d like to add? diverse higher education system, and policy- Miller: The task force’s work signals that bi- makers face many complex issues. They could partisanship is indeed possible, even in this era use some trusted leaders to help in navigating of political polarization. Buck and I had our through all the complexity. disagreements over the years, but we were usually able to put aside our differences and bring our committee together to make real progress. Keeping Institutions Accountable That’s what we’ve done again here, and we look forward to the work ahead. This Q&A has been edited for clarity. LE Six principles guide the recommendations concerning federal accountability policies: 1. Protect student and taxpayer resources NOTES by disallowing the worst-performing 1. College Board, Trends in College Pricing, Figures institutions from accepting federal student 8–10, 2019, https://trends.collegeboard.org/college- aid dollars and by incentivizing continuous pricing/figures-tables/average-net-price-over-time-full- improvement among institutions that time-students-sector. accept these dollars. 2. “Digest of Education Statistics,” National Center for 2. Preserve access and affordability for Education Statistics, Table 326.10, 2018, https://nces. students of color, low-income students, ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_326.10.asp. adult learners, first-generation students, 3. BPC staff calculation of “Federal Student Loan and veterans. Portfolio,” Portfolio by Delinquency Status, U.S. Department of Education, 2019, https://studentaid. 3. Support institutional capacity building ed.gov/sa/about/data-center/student/portfolio. and prevent downward spirals in which well-intended but under-resourced insti- 4. “Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions,” Pew Research Center, July 10, 2017, tutions are unable to meet performance https://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan- metrics, and, as a result, are further deprived divisions-in-views-of-national-institutions/. of financial resources. 4. Provide students with improved opportu- nities for employment and increase the likelihood that students will realize a positive return on their investment. 5. Be sector-neutral, meaning punitive measures should not be targeted at specific types of institutions. 6. Set clear and transparent goals and metrics that are simple to understand but difficult to game.

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 13 TIFFANY JONES, VICTORIA JACKSON, AND JAIME RAMIREZ-MENDOZA Borrowing while Black Understanding what makes student debt a crisis for black students

With the total student debt in the United Black student borrowers in the 2003–4 cohort States at nearly $1.5 trillion,1 loans are affecting defaulted on their loans by 2016,5 and up to the lives of many students. Research suggests 70 percent are projected to default by 2024.6 that despite the challenges of student debt, Even the earnings boost from graduating from FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED on average, going to college pays off because college or having a high family income does not students have better completely shield Black students from defaulting. social and economic A Black bachelor’s degree graduate is more outcomes than their likely to default than a White college dropout,7 Borrowing while Black is a different peers.2 But while and Black borrowers from high-income families experience. Black students are more higher education pays are seven times more likely to default than likely to borrow—and borrow more— off for the average their White peers from high-income families.8 than their peers and are also more likely graduate, the student We have a crisis in which Black students are to struggle with repayment. loan data illustrates a more likely to borrow, borrow more, owe more unique and severe than their original loan amount, struggle with situation for Black students that has reached repayment, and have higher default rates even crisis level, even if the same isn’t true for other among those who earn a college degree and come racial and ethnic groups. from high-income families. Existing student debt Borrowing while Black is a different experience. policies that adjust payments based on income Black students are more likely to borrow—and (income-driven repayment plans, for instance) borrow more—than their peers and are also have not made a difference for Black borrowers.9 more likely to struggle with repayment.3 For But to understand what can make a difference, example, while other student groups who we first have to explore exactly what is fueling entered college in 2003–4 were able to pay off this student debt crisis for Black students. some portion of their loans after twelve years, Black students actually owed more than what Racial income and wealth gap they originally borrowed.4 Those who cannot Thanks to rampant employment discrimination, make the payments eventually go into default, Black people tend to be concentrated in low- which can lead to severe consequences such as paying jobs.10 Part of the problem is that Black having wages garnished, tax refunds withheld, applicants don’t get an equitable chance at job and credit ruined, which affects the ability to opportunities, as résumés with White-sounding buy a house or car. Unfortunately, about half of names receive 50 percent more callbacks than those with Black names.11 This leads to a racial TIFFANY JONES is senior director of higher education income gap, where the typical White household policy, VICTORIA JACKSON is senior policy analyst, has $61,200 in income, while the typical Black and JAIME RAMIREZ-MENDOZA is a policy analyst, household has $35,400.12 Unfortunately, the

all at The Education Trust. cumulative effects of racist policies over time David Grossman/Alamy

14 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 TIFFANY JONES, VICTORIA JACKSON, AND JAIME RAMIREZ-MENDOZA

Because of the racial wealth gap, Black families tend to rely more heavily on student loans to finance higher education. do not end there. The long legacy of slavery, Inequitable state higher education policy Jim Crow, and racist federal housing policies,13 and spending combined with ongoing employment and lending In the wake of the Great Recession, which discrimination, have impeded Black families from began in December 2007, states slashed fund- building wealth through homeownership—a ing for public two- and four-year institutions, leading reason the typical White household resulting in colleges increasing their tuition to has nearly ten times more wealth than the make up the difference. States have still not typical Black household.14 Unfortunately, even returned to pre-recession funding levels. In higher education cannot close this racial wealth 2018, overall state funding for public institutions FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED gap, as the typical Black household with a was more than $6.6 billion below what it was bachelor’s degree or higher has a lower net worth in 2008, and states on average spent 13 percent than a typical White household with a high less on students after adjusting for inflation.20 school education or less.15 Due to these dispari- Rising costs and state budget cuts affect ties, Black families tend to rely more heavily all students and disproportionately threaten on student debt to finance higher education. affordability and access for Black students. In 2017, the average net price for a public four-year Housing segregation and an inequitable college was 23 percent of the typical household K–12 system income but was 40 percent or more of the typical Factors and policies outside of higher education Black household income in seventeen states. have negatively affected Black students’ ability And in forty-seven states, low-income students to access college. Racist housing segregation need to work more than fifteen hours per week and its economic impacts are still happening to pay the net price at a public four-year college.21 today, as three out of four neighborhoods that In addition to not having enough income, were “redlined”—an Black families do not have the wealth to shoulder Black students are concentrated institutionalized system the increasing cost of college. of discriminatory mort- With cuts in funding aside, states have long at under-resourced K–12 schools gage lending toward operated in a racially segregated and unequal that are less likely to have Black people—on govern- system of higher education. Due to policy college-prep courses and that ment maps continue to choices, states have funded less selective com- are more likely to have less struggle economically.16 munity colleges and public four-year institu- qualified teachers who have This impacts not just tions at much lower rates than selective public lower expectations of students. Black borrowers but also colleges. Since a disproportionate share of Black communities. For Black students attend less selective colleges, example, majority-Black neighborhoods (de- this means states are spending $1,000 less per termined by zip code) have higher student loan student on Black students than on their White balances and default rates than majority-White peers, amounting to approximately $5 billion neighborhoods.17 This translates into Black less annually.22 communities having fewer resources to invest From 1970 to 1997, many court cases found in local businesses and schools. that states systematically spent less on histori- Then there is the rampant inequitable funding cally Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) of public K–12 schools, in which non-White than on predominantly white institutions.23 school districts received $23 billion less than Yet despite HBCUs winning their cases in White school districts even though they served court, not all outcomes have led to equitable the same number of students.18 Unfortunately, compensation for years of inequitable funding Black students are concentrated at under- practices. For example, in 2013, Maryland was resourced K–12 schools that are less likely to found guilty of allowing traditionally white have college-prep courses and that are more universities to duplicate academic programs likely to have less qualified teachers who have that were already established at four HBCUs in lower expectations of students.19 The combina- the state, effectively steering away students and tion of de jure and de facto housing segrega- funding.24 Fortunately, the Maryland Senate tion with inequitable funding of K–12 systems recently passed a bill to provide more than ultimately results in Black students being further $500 million to the state’s HBCUs. Black students segregated into less selective colleges with lower are underrepresented even at public two- and graduation rates. four-year colleges and universities.

16 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 TL LT T T C CTCT T LLT TT TT T TTT

la la he he L C eal ae eal ae

L FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED

L L

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Family Income: Low < $32,000, Low middle ≥ $32,000 & < $60,000, High middle ≥ $60,000 & < $92,000, High ≥ $92,000 Family Income:Source: Education Low < Trust $32,000, analysis of Low US Department middle ≥ of $32,000 Education, National & < $60,000, Center for Education High middle Statistics, ≥ 2003–4$60,000 Beginning & < Postsecondary$92,000, HighStudents ≥ $92,000Longitudinal Study, Second Follow-Up (BPS:04/09). Source: Education Trust analysis of US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2003–4 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, Second Follow-Up (BPS:04/09)

Underfunding the institutions (such as HBCUs Lastly, default rates have remained high and community colleges) that provide Black despite income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, students with access to college means Black which adjust monthly payments based on the students have less access to the financial resources borrower’s income. While some IDR plans necessary to complete their degree. cover a portion of accumulating interest rates, they can be dangerous for borrowers who are Federal higher education policy on the plan for long periods of time and make exacerbates the crisis few or no payments, as they will likely see their The Pell Grant Program is the largest federal balances increase. Unfortunately, a third of need-based aid program, and 58 percent of Black bachelor’s degree recipients are enrolled Black students are recipients.25 Unfortunately, in such a plan, and of those, nearly 60 percent as Black enrollment has progressed over the have a monthly payment of $0.32 decades, the purchasing power of the Pell Grant has sharply declined. In 1975, the grant covered Racial justice problems require 79 percent of the cost of college at a public racial justice solutions university,26 but by 2019–20 it covered only 28 Racial equity for Black borrowers will not be percent.27 This decline has severe consequences achieved by relying on proxies for race, ignoring for all Black students—who disproportionately racial discrimination, or avoiding race-conscious rely on the Pell Grant to make higher education policies. So, how can we turn the tide? Here more affordable28—and many have turned to are a few steps: student loans to make up the difference.29 • States should oppose using race-neutral Meanwhile, the federal government has higher education funding formulas and invest failed to protect students from predatory for- more in need-based aid and in colleges that profit institutions that disproportionately tar- provide high-quality opportunities for students get and enroll Black students. Studies have of color. They should also remove bans on found that three in four Black borrowers who affirmative action. attended a for-profit college and did not com- • The federal government should make states plete their degree defaulted on their loans,30 work toward closing gaps in spending by race and rules that would force for-profit schools to in K–12 schools and in public higher educa- disclose information about graduate salaries tion as a requirement for any state-federal were struck down this year.31 partnerships.

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 17 • The federal and state governments should invest more in HBCUs, tribal colleges, and NOTES other minority-serving institutions (MSIs) 1. Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit and ensure enrollment-driven MSIs are truly (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, August 2019), serving students of color. https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/interactives/ • The federal government should restore householdcredit/data/pdf/hhdc_2019q2.pdf. the purchasing power of Pell by at least 2. Philip Trostel, “It’s Not Just The Money—The Benefits of College Education to Individuals and to doubling the maximum amount, index it to Society,” Lumina Foundation, October 14, 2015, inflation, and make 100 percent of funding https://www.luminafoundation.org/resources/its-not- FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED for the grant mandatory, all while making just-the-money. it available to currently and previously 3. “Quicksand: Borrowers of Color & the Student Debt incarcerated individuals. Crisis,” UNIDOS US, National Association for the • In order to close the racial wealth gap, policy- Advancement of Colored People, Center for Responsive makers should commit to large-scale, equitable Lending, National Urban League, & The Leadership Conference Education Fund, September 2019, https:// student debt forgiveness that is based on www.responsiblelending.org/sites/default/files/nodes/ both income and wealth. For example, a files/research-publication/crl-quicksand-student-debt- recent Education Trust report suggests that crisis-jul2019.pdf. debt forgiveness policy should identify eligible 4. Mark Huelsman, “Debt to Society: The Case for students under a particular income threshold Bold, Equitable Student Loan Cancellation and Reform,” – but allow a higher income threshold for Demos, June 6, 2019, https://www.demos.org/sites/ default/files/2019-06/Debt_to_Society.pdf. Black students who can demonstrate limited wealth.33 Additionally, other factors should 5. Ben Miller, “The Continued Student Loan Crisis for Black Borrowers,” Center for American Progress, be included to further target forgiveness to December 2, 2019, https://www.americanprogress.org/ Black, Latino, and Native American borrowers, issues/education-postsecondary/reports/2019/12/02/ who, because of the effects of structural and 477929/continued-student-loan-crisis-black-borrowers/. institutional racism, struggle more to repay 6. Judith Scott-Clayton, “The Looming Student Loan their loans. Default Crisis Is Worse than We Thought,” Brookings Despite the crisis they have created, student loans Institute, May 15, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/ research/the-looming-student-loan-default-crisis-is- have been important in giving opportunity to worse-than-we-thought/. Black students who may 7. Judith Scott-Clayton, “The Looming Student Loan It’s critical to fix the Black student– not have had other Default Crisis Is Worse than We Thought.” means to finance their debt crisis, and this requires 8. Tiffany Jones and Andrew H. Nichols, “Hard Truths: education. Some would Why Only Race-Conscious Policies Can Fix Racism in recognition that there is a crisis argue that in today’s Higher Education,” Education Trust, January 2020. and an understanding of how it knowledge economy, 9. Ben Miller, “The Continued Student Loan Crisis for uniquely affects Black students. the most expensive Black Borrowers.” education is the one 10. Christian E. Weller, “African Americans Face not earned. Unfortunately, with racism and Systematic Obstacles to Getting Good Jobs,” Center inequity manifesting itself in the forms of in- for American Progress, December 5, 2019, https://www. americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2019/12/ come and wealth gaps, separate and unequal 05/478150/african-americans-face-systematic-obstacles- segregation, inequitable funding, and ineffec- getting-good-jobs/. tive policy, Black borrowers are paying that 11. Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, unjust price. Therefore, it’s critical to fix the “Discrimination in the Job Market in the United States,” Black student debt crisis, and this requires Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, accessed recognition that there is a crisis and an under- February 11, 2020, https://www.povertyactionlab.org/ standing of how it uniquely affects Black stu- evaluation/discrimination-job-market-united-states. dents.34 While there is no single quick fix to 12. Lisa J. Dettling, Joanne W. Hsu, Lindsay Jacobs, Kevin B. Moore, and Jeffrey P. Thompson, “Recent the complicated crisis of borrowing while Trends in Wealth-Holding by Race and Ethnicity: Black, these race-conscious recommendations Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances,” are important first steps in ensuring we recog- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, nize the plight of Black borrowers, not only in September 27, 2017, https://www.federalreserve.gov/ how we diagnose the problem but also in how econres/notes/feds-notes/recent-trends-in-wealth- 35 LE holding-by-race-and-ethnicity-evidence-from-the- we craft the solutions. survey-of-consumer-finances-20170927.htm.

18 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 13. Tracy Jan, “Redlining Was Banned 50 Years Ago. 26. Spiros Protopsaltis and Sharon Parrott, “Pell It’s Still Hurting Minorities Today,” Washington Post, Grants—a Key Tool for Expanding College Access and March 28, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ Economic Opportunity—Need Strengthening, Not news/wonk/wp/2018/03/28/redlining-was-banned- Cuts,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, July 27, 50-years-ago-its-still-hurting-minorities-today/. 2017, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/ 14. Christian E. Weller, Connor Maxwell, and pell-grants-a-key-tool-for-expanding-college-access- Danyelle Solomon, “Simulating How Progressive and-economic-opportunity. Proposals Affect the Racial Wealth Gap,” Center for 27. “Pell Grants Help Keep College Affordable for American Progress, August 7, 2019, https://www. Millions of Americans,” Institute for College Access americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2019/08/07/ and Success, September 18, 2019, https://ticas.org/

473117/simulating-progressive-proposals-affect-racial- wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Overall-Pell-one-pager.pdf. TOPIC FEATURED wealth-gap/. 28. “Trends in Pell Grant Receipt and the Characteristics 15. Mark Huelsman, “Debt to Society.” of Pell Grant Recipients.” 16. Tracy Jan, “Redlining Was Banned 50 Years Ago.” 29. “Quicksand: Borrowers of Color & the Student 17. Andrew F. Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Joelle Debt Crisis.” Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw, “Just Released: 30. Mark Huelsman, “The Debt Divide: The Racial Racial Disparities in Student Loan Outcomes,” Liberty and Class Bias Behind the ‘New Normal’ of Student Street Economics, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Borrowing,” De–mos, May 19, 2015, https://www.demos. November 12, 2019, https://libertystreeteconomics. org/research/debt-divide-racial-and-class-bias-behind- newyorkfed.org/2019/11/just-released-racial-disparities- new-normal-student-borrowing. in-student-loan-outcomes.html. 31. Erica L. Green, “DeVos Repeals Obama-Era Rule 18. “23 Billion,” EdBuild, February 2019, https://edbuild. Cracking Down on For-Profit Colleges,”New York org/content/23-billion. Times, June 28, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/ 19. “K-12 Disparity Facts and Statistics,” United Negro 06/28/us/politics/betsy-devos-for-profit-colleges.html. College Fund, accessed February 9, 2020, https://uncf. 32. Ben Miller, “The Continued Student Loan Crisis org/pages/k-12-disparity-facts-and-stats. for Black Borrowers.” 20. Michael Mitchell, Michael Leachman, and Matt 33. Tiffany Jones and Andrew H. Nichols, “Hard Truths.” Saenz, “State Higher Education Funding Cuts Have 34. “National Study on Black Student Loan Debt,” Pushed Costs to Students, Worsened Inequality,” The Education Trust, accessed May 26, 2020, https:// Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 24, edtrust.org/black-student-debt-study/. 2019, https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and- tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed- 35. “Black Student Debt: Explaining the Crisis and costs-to-students. Providing Solutions,” The Education Trust, accessed May 26, 2020, https://edtrust.org/black-student-debt/. 21. Andrew Nichols, Marshall Anthony, and J. Oliver Schak, “How Affordable Are Public Colleges in Your State?” Education Trust, December 19, 2019, https://edtrust.org/resource/affordability-gap/. 22. Sara Garcia, “Gaps in College Spending Shortchange Students of Color,” Center for American Progress, April 5, 2018, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ education-postsecondary/reports/2018/04/05/ 448761/gaps-college-spending-shortchange-students- color/. 23. Andre M. Perry, “HBCUs Are Leading Centers of Education. Why Are They Treated as Second-Class Institutions?” Brookings Institute, November 22, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalk- board/2019/11/22/hbcus-are-leading-centers-of-education- why-are-they-treated-as-second-class-institutions/. 24. Talia Richman, “Coalition of Maryland HBCUs Seeks $577 Million to Drop Lawsuit, Avoid ‘Litigating for the Next 10 Years’,” Baltimore Sun, September 11, 2019, https://www.baltimoresun.com/ education/bs-md-hbcu-lawsuit-settlement-offer- 20190910-cbop4pgnbzbj5emeyni77xcuoy-story.html. 25. “Trends in Pell Grant Receipt and the Characteristics of Pell Grant Recipients: Selected Years, 2003–4 to 2015–16,” US Department of Education, September 2019, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019487.pdf.

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 19 MARTHA KANTER AND ANJANA VENKATESAN The Promise of College Opening new pathways to the American dream

Our democracy was built on the belief that tuition and fees while providing academic, education would drive our collective economic, student, and community supports that enable social, and civic responsibility and prosperity— students to flourish in college, in work, and that it was a public good. A century ago, we as a in the rest of their lives. FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED nation made high school education our minimum A College Promise is a commitment to fund a standard. Times have college education for every eligible hardworking changed. Today, a high student advancing on the path to earn a college school education is degree, a certificate, and/or credits that transfer For a College Promise to truly benefit not enough to lead to a four-year university. A College Promise is students, a program must go beyond Americans to a good a public assurance to prepare students for the simply allowing students to attend college— job and a decent quality twenty-first century workforce and the pursuit it must give them the tools and supports of life.1 Education of the American dream without the burden of to persist, achieve, and graduate. beyond high school is unmanageable college debt. A College Promise critical for success in is also a trust to make the first two years of our global economy, for our social fabric, and for college—at minimum—as universal, free, and our personal and collective well-being. Every accessible as public high school has been since student should have the opportunity to attain the twentieth century. an affordable quality college education, regard- less of income, race, ethnicity, geography, or Local resonance background, but rising college costs have placed The College Promise Campaign (CPC) was higher education out of reach for too many of launched on September 9, 2015, at Macomb today’s students and burdened others with Community College in Michigan by President often insurmountable amounts of debt.2 Barack H. Obama, Second Lady of the United One solution to this problem that has found States Jill Biden, and the thirtieth governor of traction locally—and increasingly statewide— Wyoming (1995–2003), Jim Geringer. The CPC’s is the development of College Promise programs. mission is to increase the social, economic, and These place-based initiatives aim to promote a civic mobility of students by advancing College college-going culture, increase access to higher Promise programs in communities and states across education, and improve student and postsecondary the nation, starting in America’s community outcomes by removing the barrier of college colleges. The CPC’s work falls into three main categories: building widespread public awareness; MARTHA KANTER is executive director of College tracking, collecting, and promoting Promise Promise and served as US under secretary of research, high-impact practices, and policy solu- education in the Obama administration. ANJANA tions; and encouraging cross-sector Promise lead- VENKATESAN is College Promise senior policy and ers to establish new programs or make innovative

research advisor. and evidence-based improvements to existing Promise Campaign/Richmond Promise College

20 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 The Promise of College

The College Promise Campaign’s mission is to increase the social, economic, and social mobility of students by advancing Promise programs across the nation, starting in community colleges.

Caption here

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 21 The Long Beach City College (LBCC) Promise program partners with Long Beach Unified FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED School District students. Participating students enroll at LBCC and are guaranteed transfer admission to California State University–Long Beach in ten different majors. Promises. At its founding, the CPC identified • covering tuition for specific colleges, or fifty-three Promise programsnationwide. Today, enabling students to take their scholarship it is tracking more than three hundred local anywhere in the country programs and twenty-nine statewide Promise • providing mentors, tailored wraparound initiatives actively serving millions of students student supports, and/or intrusive advising across the United States. to accelerate progression to and through The explosive growth of the movement college and career speaks to a widespread recognition of the need • offering guided pathways, community service for improved access to and success in higher opportunities, job-shadowing, and/or paid education, but perhaps the most unique aspect internships of College Promise programs is how strongly their message has resonated in local communities. Wraparound supports Education, business, philanthropic, and govern- While College Promise programs vary across ment leaders have joined together with stu- the country, most share a few common features. dents and families to develop and sustain their First, Promise programs have an explicit policy to Promise programs. Local Promise programs engage students, institutions, policymakers, and offer students place-based scholarships, mean- the public on the importance of postsecondary ing they serve specific geographic or institu- education. Second, Promise stakeholders send tional areas. They are a clear message that college is attainable for Removing tuition as a barrier of designed and imple- every eligible hardworking student advancing entry for higher education is a mented by drawing on the on the path to earn a college degree, a certificate, crucial first step to expanding community’s available and/or credits that transfer to a four-year university. education access, but alone, this resources and keeping Third, in addition to providing the financial award step is frequently not enough. particular student needs in and stakeholder framework for postsecondary mind. As a result, College education, quality Promise programs acknowledge Promise programs differ community to commu- that additional support services are critical to nity in terms of funding sources, service area, improving college outcomes and student success. and the type or amount of support offered. As College Promise programs have become Local Promise programs across the country more widely accepted and embraced, the third have developed many unique solutions to help feature of wraparound support services has their students: become a key focus of Promise administrators • utilizing public, private, or mixed funding and the CPC. Removing tuition as a barrier of streams entry for higher education is a crucial first step • providing scholarships that are first dollar to expanding education access, but alone, this step (upfront cost of tuition), last dollar (re- is frequently not enough. The students helped maining cost of tuition after federal/state by Promise programs often come from tradi- funding applied), or last dollar plus (adding tionally underserved populations struggling 3 a first-dollar bonus) with barriers beyond tuition. Many of these College Promise Campaign/Long Beach City College

22 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 COLLEGE PROMISE CPROGRAMSOLLEGE PROMISE PROGRAMS

WE STARTED WITH 53

WE NOW HAVE 320+ TOPIC FEATURED

STATEWIDE PROMISE AVAILABLE FOR ELIGIBLE STUDENTS

students are able to enroll in college thanks to the statewide Tennessee Promise.5 Some well- tuition-free options but then still struggle with designed programs are utilizing support services the full cost of attendance, which includes that extend deeply into the K–12 system expenses for housing, childcare, food, transporta- (early messaging, integrated college savings tion, and books. Some students aided by Promise accounts, summer bridge programs, counseling never expected to be able to afford higher educa- and mentorship programs before and through tion and lack the knowledge or social supports college enrollment) and up through job placement necessary to navigate the college experience. In (career counseling, job shadowing, internship order for a Promise to truly benefit students, a opportunities, industry exposure). program must go beyond simply allowing students To support local and state innovations taking to attend college—it must give them the tools wraparound support services to the next level, and supports to persist, achieve, and graduate. the CPC is identifying the specific “ecosystem” By actively assessing the needs of their of supports needed by particular subsets of Promise students, programs now more than students to progress to, through, and beyond ever are investing in the specific supports that college. The CPC and the nonprofitETS part- will benefit the students in their community. nered on the College Promise Ecosystems project A range of College Promise programs offer with the support of philanthropy, bringing book and/or transportation stipends to supple- together higher education scholars, practitioners, ment the Promise, and some provide a level of and finance experts to identify practical solutions housing benefit. The Campaign has now identi- to better support specific student populations fied programs that have invested in developing (disconnected adults, veterans, DREAMers, food banks or drop-in childcare access on traditional college-age youth). By conducting campus. The Detroit Promise has established a intensive focus groups and reviewing current robust network of volunteer mentors who use a practices that have been shown to benefit dif- series of proactive and high-touch interactions, ferent student populations, the CPC supports such as scheduled in-person check-ins and Promise programs to provide evidence-based regular text message exchanges, to guide targeted services to improve retention and students through the transition to college graduation rates. Examples include establishing and help them stay on track once enrolled.4 cohorts of Promise students, promoting guided Frequent meetings with their mentors, pathways, providing mentors, and offering monthly financial incentives, text messaging, specialized counseling and financial aid advising, and schedule management are several features to name a few. to help students navigate the college experi- ence. The Tennessee Promise has an entire State participation independent network of supports made possible While the flexibility and variability of College through its independent nonprofit, TN Promises are certainly a strength that enables Achieves, which works with students to help local and statewide Promise programs to better

College Promise Campaign/Long Beach City College Map: College Promise Campaign them access the full breadth of services from meet student needs, comparing Promise programs

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 23 and supporting research that is applicable to the provide a general funding stream to enable the movement as a whole is a continuing challenge. College Promise to grow, allowing local colleges In the past few years, the CPC has increasingly and universities to then tailor programs to student focused on identifying and disseminating high- needs.8 Many state programs, like Kentucky’s quality, high-impact Promise features, but Work Ready Scholarship Program, focus on the oftentimes Promise research and findings have economic benefits of a Promise and target spe- been highly localized and case specific.6 cific high-demand workforce programs geared In order to streamline and collect research toward certain industries or underemployed efforts, as well as help identify general best populations. Others, such as the Washington FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED practices, in 2019 the CPC launched the College Promise, approach Promise with an equity lens Promise Research Network (CPRN). The and structure their programs to act as expansions CPRN consists of a steering committee and a of existing state need grants. series of working groups built around major The growth of statewide Promises is a testa- topics of Promise research, all composed of ment to the innovation, success, and significance researchers actively engaged in studying local of local programs. Although the scope and and state Promise programs. The goal is to scale of a statewide Promise might overshadow identify gaps in current Promise literature, the capabilities and outcomes of local Promises, facilitate national collaboration for prospective community-based initiatives provide an or ongoing Promise research, and distinguish unmatched level of flexibility and a much the most effective high-impact deeper understanding of how to meet student While all programs are unique, practices to be widely shared needs.9 As states continue participating in many regions share particular among Promise researchers Promise programs, it will be increasingly challenges, and communities and practitioners alike. So far, important to identify the best ways for state often find inspiration in and the CPRN has documented an and local Promises to interact. At worst, a extensive bibliography of more system with little communication between opportunities to learn from than 150 Promise research state and local Promises will duplicate efforts. the successes and challenges studies and gathered researchers At its best, effective state and local partner- of their neighbors. across the country into four ships can dramatically increase the impact of working groups: Workforce/ Promises and successfully serve the students Economic, Financial Sustainability, Program who can most benefit from Promise resources. Design, and Metrics and Evaluation. Looking Certainly, the federal-state partnership envisioned ahead, the CPC will develop a robust system of years ago in America’s College Promise, which communications to share research findings is increasingly in the public discourse, may with the larger Promise community and its well be on the horizon in the years ahead and partner institutions and organizations for con- could add value and sustainability to local and tinuous program improvement from research to state Promise programs if properly designed practice based on evidence garnered by the and implemented.10 growing number of Promise scholars from across the nation. A promising future Perhaps the most exciting new frontier for The CPC strongly values communication be- the College Promise movement is the intense tween and among local programs and states. interest we are now seeing at the state level.7 While all programs are unique, many regions At the start of 2020, there were twenty-nine share particular challenges, and communities statewide Promise initiatives, all differing dra- often find inspiration in and opportunities to matically in structure and implementation but learn from the successes and challenges of their all affirming a commitment to expanding neighbors. With this in mind, the CPC helps access to and success through higher educa- foster regional coalitions to identify, share, and tion, reducing the barriers of tuition and fees, address concerns; celebrate and promote local and bolstering critical student supports. Some triumphs; and encourage positive regional states directly structure and design their own growth. Over the past two years, several Promise programs, determining eligible students, K–12 coalitions have formed in California, Texas, schools, community colleges, universities, and and Michigan, doubling down on the exciting programs of study for their College Promise. momentum in these regions. Moving forward, Others, such as California, choose to instead the CPC aims to foster and support further

24 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 College Promise programs in the years ahead, we will do all we can to move our nation toward a better educated, more inclusive, more just, and more prosperous America. LE

NOTES 1. Anthony P. Carnevale, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl, Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements

Through 2020 (Washington, DC: Georgetown TOPIC FEATURED University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2013). 2. Laura W. Perna and Edward J. Smith, eds., Improving CONNECT WITH US Research-Based Knowledge of College Promise Programs Sign up for the CPC’s mailing list and stay (Washington, DC: American Educational Research in touch with us at collegepromise.org. Association, 2020). You can also keep up on the latest news in 3. Laura W. Perna, Delivering on the Promise: Structuring the College Promise world through our College Promise Programs to Promote Higher Education updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Attainment for Students from Underserved Groups, Penn LinkedIn. Alliance for Education and Democracy, October 2016, https://www.ahead-penn.org/sites/default/files/u2/ Delivering_On_the_Promise_Perna.pdf. 4. Alyssa Ratledge, Enhancing Promise Programs to Improve coalitions across the United States to create College Access and Success, MDRC, 2017, https://www. self-reinforcing communities of practice to mdrc.org/sites/default/files/DetroitPromisePath-Issue- grow the Promise movement. Focus.pdf. The College Promise movement’s early results 5. Celeste K. Carruthers and William F. Fox, demonstrate increases in progression, equity, “Aid for All: College Coaching, Financial Aid, and and achievement outcomes in well-designed, Post-Secondary Persistence in Tennessee,” Economics of Education Review 51, issue C (2016): 97–112. independently evaluated Promise programs. 6. Michelle Miller-Adams and Brad J. Hershbein, The CPC has several major projects in design to “Learning from a Decade of College Promise Scholarships,” support the movement going forward, including W.E. Upjohn Institute of Employment Research, an updated financial sustainability assessment October 26, 2017, http://research.upjohn.org/ and series of financial sustainability guidelines presentations/49/. for Promise programs; a value impact profile that 7. Laura W. Perna, Elaine W. Leigh, and Stephanie offers students, families, researchers, and policy Carroll, “Free College: A New and Improved State leaders the opportunity to locate and compare Approach to Increasing Educational Attainment?” American Behavioral Scientist 61, no. 14 (December Promise programs and provides general guidelines 2017): 1740–56. for improving overall program impact; and an 8. Mary Rauner, The College Promise in California: expansion of the Promise Ecosystems work to A Collection of Program Profiles, WestEd, 2016, https:// include more subpopulations of students. www.wested.org/resources/college-promise-california/. The CPC will continue to serve as the College 9. Michelle Miller-Adams, The Kalamazoo Promise and Promise movement’s national clearinghouse the Diffusion of a Private Policy Innovation, paper and systems integrator, supporting the growth presented at Midwest Political Science Association and quality of individual local and statewide Conference, Chicago, IL, April 2009. Promise programs while connecting Promise 10. G. William Hoagland, Shai Akabas, Kenneth Megan, Jinann Bitar, Kody Carmody, Elizabeth leaders and stakeholders from education, Middleton, and Mariette Aborn, A New Course for government, business, philanthropy, and other Higher Education: Strengthening Access, Affordability, sectors to beneficial Promise resources. and Accountability (Washington, DC: Bipartisan Policy Education has never been more important Center, January 29, 2020), https://bipartisanpolicy.org/ for social success and for the future of our report/new-higher-ed/. democracy. While the dream of a freely available college education might have been unimaginable only a decade ago, today it is already a reality for hundreds of thousands of students. By growing,

College Promise Campaign/The Detroit Promise Promise Detroit Campaign/The Promise College supporting, and improving our local and state

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 25 BRIAN MURPHY Democracy under Siege What are colleges and universities to do?

Version 1: Young people are registering in other hand, which language captures the depth record numbers, wanting to exercise the franchise and seriousness of the current passage through in this most fraught of elections. They look for which the country moves? Version 1 is safe, it clarity in the policies of the two parties and for distributes blame widely, it has no named ene- FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED candidates who speak to the issues most on young mies of democracy. It reassures us, subtly, that people’s minds: climate the system isn’t really in peril, merely marked change, inequality, and by “divisiveness” and bad behavior. It implies access to and the cost equivalency between the parties and political What can colleges and universities do of education. Young leaders. It implies an answer: engage in civil to better prepare our students for people are repelled by discourse, be polite, educate, vote. democratic action in the face of conflict the hyperpartisan Version 2 has the virtue of saying what is and ever-sharper disagreements? drama in Washington actually on my mind and names the proximate Why have we buried our civic commitments and don’t know what threat to democracy. It allows me to talk about so much that they don’t even register to make of the deepen- the very real possibility that the president of in accounts of the “public narratives” ing chasm dividing the the United States will not honor the results of regarding higher education? country. They, and we, an election that goes against him, just as he decry the lack of civility. refused to participate in a legitimate congres- sional impeachment inquiry. This all hints at Version 2: The 2020 elections hurtle toward authoritarian tendencies that most of us recog- us under a cloud of fear and uncertainty. An nize. While avoiding too many rhetorical ges- impeached president, supported by a party tures to Weimar, it sees the current struggle as indifferent to his crimes, wages a campaign an existential moment for American democracy. that smacks of old newsreels from the 1930s. Version 1 avoids the partisan trap. If the Meanwhile, outside his base, hundreds of thou- threat to democracy is the alienation of our sands of voters across the country struggle to people from government, the loss of faith in register in the face of Republican efforts to politicians, or the ignorance of voters—all narrow the franchise and the vote. Can the true—then we can act as if no agents are work- rhetoric of white supremacy and nativism ing to end or limit democracy. If we begin with capture the electoral college? What happens to the public opinion findings over the past two the rest of us if it does? decades—only a third of American adults can name a branch of government, one in six Amer- Which of these versions is most likely to begin icans now believe military rule is acceptable, an essay in a higher education journal? On the only a bare majority vote1—then the answers are long-term and (happily) almost curricular. BRIAN MURPHY is president emeritus of De Anza If the issue is structural inequality and low voter

College. turnout among low-income citizens, we can West/Alamy Jim

26 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 In 2016, 50.8 percent of millennial voters (20 to 35 years old at the time) cast a ballot, up from 46.4 percent in 2012 (when they were 18 to 31), according to the Jim West/Alamy Jim Pew Research Center. believe others outside the academy will address government—all are issues of enduring danger it. Our job stays the same as it has always been: and also form the ground on which actual the education of our students, best-case scenario, enemies can act. And, the willingness of the in the facts and arts of democracy. Republican Party to abandon principle to But what if democracy is in peril because maintain power, to distort reality in the name of powerful political forces are actively working to what the Polish writer Ryszard Kapuściński called limit the franchise, maintain the hegemony of the Great Yesterday,4 means the partisan divide big money and corporate power, and create a in the country is actually more than bad behavior politics of minority rule by oligarchs? What if and bad opinion. One party depends on expand- FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED the threat to American democracy is part of a ing the franchise and widening democratic multinational, faux-populist attack on liberal engagement; the other depends on narrowing democracy itself, and Donald Trump is only one it. One embraces the demography of the new actor (and symptom) in a much larger struggle America; the other appeals to a resentful nativism. being waged across Europe, Turkey, India, Brazil, and elsewhere by antidemocratic forces? Facing the crisis If these are the stakes, how are we to act? How A struggle between worldviews do institutions committed to the broadest liberal The belief that we are engaged in a worldwide education of students respond to “democracy battle between liberal democracy and autocracy under siege”? Does it matter what kind of crisis is advanced by both Russia and the more candid this is? Maybe colleges and universities will act of the alt-right theorists. In their view, liberal in expected ways no matter what the nature of democracy is a dying system, the crisis. All of us can do far more corrupt and weak, to be replaced Our default position, if you’ll excuse me, is by authoritarian regimes. Steve to duck and cover. Or, more charitably, to fall this electoral season to make Bannon is not some peripheral back on our traditional nonpartisanship, avoid the election matter, to bring figure on the fringes of the any explicit engagement with campaigns or public urgency to the issues fake-news world. He was, after candidates, and then provide some small support that matter to us individually. all, the chief strategist for Trump for programs to register students, help efforts to and now among the chief get out the vote on and off campus, and believe consultants working the far-right across Europe. that the system can survive without our public Bannon and his colleagues are nothing if not voice or any other institutional initiatives. clear that the current struggle is between different That’s not enough this time around. worldviews. He appears entirely familiar with Let me suggest two things. First, of course, the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite commitment to nonpartisanship is not just cul- theorist of the new world order—Aleksandr tural; it’s mandated by regulation. Our avoidance Dugin—and his chief theoretical antecedent, of a direct institutional critique of one party or the Italian fascist Julius Evola.2 the other is born of more than prudence; it’s These are the theorists of “traditionalism,” legislated. We threaten our funding and our polit- who see the current political struggle as between ical support if our colleges or universities favor a secularist liberalism and a Judeo-Christian one party or another, one candidate or the other. patriarchy needing to assert its authority and fight This is not trivial. But is it all there is to say? against both Islam and modernity.3 What a Second, it is possible that colleges and uni- happy coincidence for the international alt-right versities might not actually have much of a that one of theirs actually has state power in the role in defending democracy during an imme- United States and appears determined to hold diate and urgent crisis. If the crisis is, at least on to it by any means necessary—including in part, the emergence of a reactionary populist accepting the active intervention of a foreign demagogue thoroughly disinterested in demo- totalitarian state. cratic values or norms, higher education can’t It is, of course, entirely possible that both do much about it. Even if we are under funda- versions of the “crisis of democracy” could be mental threat (to academic freedom, institu- simultaneously true. The levels of alienation tional autonomy, science, the independent and anger animating contemporary politics, judgment of scholars and teachers), we depend the lack of commitment to democratic institu- on the political mobilization of others outside tions, the distance ordinary citizens feel from the academy to protect us.

28 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 In the 2020 election, members of Generation Z, on track to be more racially and ethnically diverse than previous generations, are projected to make up one in ten eligible voters, according to the Pew Research Center. FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED

But, within the confines of institutional us individually: writing op-ed pieces, giving nonpartisanship, and with a certain modesty public speeches, participating in demonstrations, about our role, what might we do this electoral engaging in nonviolent and civil disobedience. season? However dire we see the circumstances, It’d be encouraging to see university and college what can we do? We can do a lot more than leaders who really do believe the climate crisis we’ve been doing. We can act as if we actually is an existential threat take a much more public believe there is a crisis. stand to draw attention to the crisis (perhaps First, of course, we can find ways to make joining the demonstrations with Jane Fonda or clear our policy preferences: we support DACA, the Extinction Rebellion).5 we oppose deportations of undocumented stu- In short, we should not be silent or passive dents, we believe in science and support initiatives on issues that matter to us personally. Our to address the climate crisis, we want increased moral obligation to speak out for social justice access and lower fees for students, we support and equity, the rule of law and democracy itself, student voting and want polling places on our may come into tension with our institutional campuses, we oppose white supremacy and commitment to nonpartisanship. But during misogyny and expressions of hatred even while this political passage, we must err on the side of supporting free speech. These are all appropriate expression and principle. institutional positions, in keeping with our Third, with regard to our institutional practice, commitments to a robust liberal education. we have to do much more to educate and Second, even if we have to avoid institu- engage students in the issues and the campaigns, tional partisan expressions for any particular however last-minute and hurried our efforts. candidate, university and college leaders do There will be roughly six to ten weeks between not have to remain silent in our personal the start of classes and the election this fall. capacities. All of us—faculty, staff, administrators, The election ought to be the centerpiece of presidents, chancellors—can do far more this campus life for all those weeks: public forums electoral season to make the election matter, to and debates, local candidate and referendum

adamkaz/iStock bring public urgency to the issues that matter to events, massive voter-registration drives, and

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 29 Younger Americans are more concerned about climate change than older generations. In a 2018 Gallup poll, 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-old respondents said they “worry a great deal/fair amount about global warming,” FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED compared to only 56 percent of respondents 55 and older.

the establishment of polling places where it’s accounts of the “public narratives” regarding legal to do so. Institutional resources can go to higher education? 6 student interns and student-run events. If colleges Nowhere is this more critical than the climate and universities can (and will) spend hundreds of crisis. This issue clearly matters to our students, thousands of dollars for temporary staff for foot- and candidates who address the climate crisis ball season, we can spend a share of those dollars will disproportionately gain the support of for voter registration and voter education. young voters. What more might we do to better Then, go further. How can colleges and prepare them for the tough political choices universities use the urgency of the campaign to that will be forced by the climate crisis? How spark substantive learning on what’s at stake? many are familiar with the science with which What are the policy priorities of the two parties? we understand the largest existential threat to Can students learn to discern fake news? What the planet? None of this can be addressed ade- historical analogies help us understand the quately in the run-up to the 2020 election, but emergence of antidemocratic movements? the election can surely be a time when we assess Looking forward, can this election cycle prompt how well we’ve done in developing curricula a review of the degree to which our programs that educate all students in understanding the prepare young people for the political debates climate crisis. that will dominate the next This pivot from the immediate decade? This pivot from the Protecting a democratic future to the long term will matter immediate to the long term Our role in sustaining democracy in the face of if we actually make the pivot will matter if we actually long-term cultural and ideological confusion can to “centering” the civic and make the pivot to “centering” comfort us. It really does matter, it turns out, if political in our work. the civic and political in our students graduate with a broad liberal education. work. No matter who wins, Even if they don’t know the difference between democracy will continue to be contested ter- 1.5 and 3 degrees Celsius, they have a deep and rain. We might use the postelection moment intuitive sense that climate catastrophe is threat- to reflect on what we wish we had done better ening their world. Poll after poll shows that to- long before we reached this difficult moment. day’s students celebrate their diversity, support What can colleges and universities do to better expanded rights for groups and persons long prepare our students for democratic action in the marginalized, and believe in democracy. They face of conflict and ever-sharper disagreements? want to protect these values, and they will be Why have we buried our civic commitments among those who protect a democratic future.

so much that they don’t even register in They are a massive voting block for democracy. Halfpoint/iStock;(This emarto/iStock page) (Opposite)

30 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 That is, if they vote. Our role is to do every- thing we can to facilitate their political education, facilitate their engagement, and be clear about what we care about. This time around, the stakes could not be higher. Can you imagine four more years of relentless attacks on equity, diversity, the rule of law, the climate, and the institutions of democratic governance themselves? LE FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED

AFTERWORD This essay was written before the country was struck by the coronavirus pandemic and before higher education was convulsed by the sudden need to exercise social distancing, close campuses, and move to online learning. Sadly, nothing in the essay’s main argument has changed. Indeed, the crisis only makes more pressing the need for broad democratic engagement among our students, as the national election will come upon us no matter what stage of We Voted! “recovery” we are in. The challenge for higher education will be how to devote the resources and Check out these resources energy required to encourage students to engage to get students to the polls: national political issues—and vote—when campuses are absorbed in the daunting logistics of recovery. ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge allinchallenge.org/how-it-works/ how-work/# NOTES 1. See Yascha Mounk, The People vs. Democracy: Campus Vote Project Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It campusvoteproject.org (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019), esp. 4. 2. See Jason Horowitz, “Steve Bannon Cited Italian Fair Elections Legal Center Thinker Who Inspired Fascists,” New York Times, February 2, 2017. fairelectionscenter.org 3. See Aleksandr Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory (St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2009). Center for Information and 4. See Adam Hochschild, “Another Great Yesterday,” Research on Civic Learning New York Review of Books, December 19, 2019. and Engagement Hochschild, following Kapuściński, points to the at Tufts University similarities of populist movements that hark back circle.tufts.edu to a mythical past of supposed virtue and (usually) a racial and/or ethnic identity. Institute for Democracy 5. The Extinction Rebellion movement began in the United Kingdom, advocating civil disobedience to and Higher Education at Tufts bring attention to the climate crisis. idhe.tufts.edu/electionimperatives 6. Debra Humphreys, “Reframing Narratives of Value in the New Media Landscape,” Lumina Foundation, Rock the Vote presentation of research commissioned by Protagonist, rockthevote.org Inc., at the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Forum for Presidents and Foundation TurboVote Leaders, January 2019. turbovote.org/register

U.S. Vote Foundation usvotefoundation.org

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 31 MARISOL MORALES AND JACQUELINE PEREZ VALENCIA Seeding the Garden

More than four hundred years ago, on July The conversation about democratic engage- 30, 1619, the Jamestown Colony in Virginia ment is often reduced to voting rates. News opened its General Assembly. A few weeks later, reports on voter participation in communities in August, the first enslaved Africans arrived of color and among youth too often employ a in the colony. These events marked the begin- narrative of apathy and disengagement and ning of both representative government and attempt to shame people into voting. While it slavery in English-speaking North America. is true that people died for our right to vote, it That both events occurred as part of the found- is also true that people of color have died for just ing of the United States is evidence that the existing and that these narratives are neither nation’s democracy has not served all equally. accurate nor consider the entire picture. In the Despite or because of this, the commitment 2018 midterm elections, for instance, all major to the construction of a diverse and equitable ethnic groups saw a historic increase in voter democracy is even more imperative than ever participation, with the voting population the given our changing demographics, growing most diverse, both ethnically and racially, ever for inequality, and the eroding of gains of the civil a midterm election, according to the Pew Research FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED rights movement. For instance, we’ve seen the Center. The turnout rate for black voters was criminalization of com- 10.8 percentage points higher than in the 2014 munities of color, with midterm elections. The 2018 rate of participa- Blacks imprisoned five tion among Asian voters, at around 40 percent, There are many ways beyond voting to take times more than Whites, increased from 2014 by 13 percentage points. part in democratic action, and educators and Hispanics nearly The Latino voter turnout went from 6.8 million can, for example, motivate young people twice as likely as Whites in 2014 to 11.7 million in 2018, nearly doubling.4 to participate in social activism and to be imprisoned, The youth vote was also up in 2018. Voter serve as election poll workers. according to the US participation among college students (with an Census.1 Since the 2013 average age of 24) was 40 percent in 2018, up Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. from 19 percent in the 2014 midterms.5 Holder, which invalidated the coverage formula This momentum challenges the notion that in the Voting Rights Act and limited the law’s people of color and students are apathetic to enforcement tools, voter suppression has been voting. It also strengthens the ability for insti- on the rise.2 In 2018, according to the FBI, hate tutions of higher education to become realms crimes hit a sixteen-year high.3 All of these of democratic practice that develop civic leaders examples indicate the need for drastic change and an informed and engaged citizenry. There if we are to reconstitute a nation that embod- are many ways beyond voting to take part in ies its ideals. The most direct path to that is democratic action, and educators can, for through community empowerment and civic example, motivate young people to participate action—especially for communities of color. in social activism and serve as election poll workers. A study looking at how the youth of MARISOL MORALES is vice president for network different racial and ethnic backgrounds leadership at Campus Compact, a national coalition become civically engaged found that providing of colleges and universities supporting campus-based students with the opportunity to engage in civic engagement. She was previously director of democratic activities offers them tools and civic and community engagement at the University examples on how to challenge the systemic of La Verne. JACQUELINE PEREZ VALENCIA, a and structural racism in their lives and commu- University of La Verne alumna, is a code as a nities.6 Pathways to civic engagement, accord- second language coordinator at the Hispanic ing to the study, vary between youth of color Heritage Foundation and a state fellow at the and their White counterparts, and most models

Women’s Policy Institute. for civic engagement are structured around Morales Marisol

32 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Civic transformation and youth of color stepping into their power

University of La Verne students participate in the Cesar Chavez Pilgrimage in Pomona, California, organized by the Latino and Latina Roundtable of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valley. White experiences. To increase civic participation and Community Engagement. In working with among youth of color, the study recommends Jacqueline, I watched the process of awareness, that educators include content and curriculum agency, and action occurring within her. We that speak to structural racism in communities remained in touch after she graduated, and it and issues youth face in their own communities. has been fulfilling to see her civic transformation, Organizations like Mikva Challenge and passion, and love for her community continue Generation Citizen empower youth to identify to develop. challenges in their commu- While our paths to civic engagement had The class and the community nities and to learn about different beginnings—mine, academic, and FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED experience allowed me to better civic strategies to address Jacqueline’s, cocurricular—the critical frame- understand my family’s need those challenges. Educators works showing discrepancies between our lived to migrate and their subsequent at colleges and universities experiences and prominent narratives about encounters with racism and can tap into the community American democracy, as well as mentorship housing discrimination. cultural wealth that students and opportunities to practice engagement, of color bring into the class- were all crucial for our success. Below, we share room, connecting community experiences to our own stories of civic transformation and structural racism and policy issues. how they are seeds in a garden that cultivates Educators must also create spaces for students and harvests the fruits of a diverse democracy. to lead and personalize civic engagement— everyone cares about something, so how can we Marisol’s story use that to reimagine what civic participation Community engagement as a tool for civic means? As an educator, community activist, transformation and higher education professional, I, Marisol My involvement in civic and community Morales, have witnessed the sort of transformation engagement began the spring quarter of my I experienced with my own students. Jacqueline sophomore year at DePaul University, while I Marisol Morales (left) Perez Valencia was one of the first students I was taking a course on the US colonialization and Jacqueline met when I began at the University of La Verne of Puerto Rico. That class changed my life. It Perez Valencia as the founding director of the Office of Civic transformed me from a disconnected student on the verge of dropping out to an engaged student and community activist. It sparked my intellectual curiosity, exposed me to people in the community who were challenging systems of oppression, and gave me a better under- standing of my own family history. This class also exposed me to the history, culture, politics, and economics of Puerto Rico, something I had never learned in all my years of schooling. The class assignments included a commu- nity service component. I was tasked with volunteering at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School in Humboldt Park, Chi- cago. I provided classroom support to a teacher and tutored students in writing. I also learned about alternative education, Paulo Freire, and culturally relevant curriculum. The high school was created to address the high drop-out and push-out rates affecting the Puerto Rican com- munity. It affirmed our Puerto Rican culture and taught students their history as a matter of pride and empowerment. I also learned about how communities that engage in institution building to meet their self-determined needs

develop resilience and civic power. Daisy Perez

34 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 The classroom and community components higher education professional, I sought to take of the course opened my eyes to my own iden- the lessons I’d learned as a community partner tity and ignited a deep appreciation of what to engage authentically with communities to people coming together could do. It was my create meaningful experiences for them and first real exposure to the power of democracy. for our students. Community as co-educator It helped me see the differences between what should be about relationships and real voice was happening in the United States and in and decision-making. Both the community and my community and what I was told to believe the educators need a clear understanding of about the United States. The class and the the restraints and possibilities that can make community experience allowed me to better the partnership fail or thrive. Conversation TOPIC FEATURED understand my family’s need to migrate and and communication are incredibly important their subsequent encounters with racism and for creating real and sustainable partnerships. housing discrimination. The class exposed me to I was able to take seeds of social awareness and the injustice of colonialism and how it continues civic action that were planted in me and share to affect Puerto Rico. It also taught me about them with students, especially students of color, the discrimination and racism that Puerto Ricans to realize their own agency. faced when first migrating to Chicago, as well as about Puerto Rican political prisoners and Jacqueline’s story campaigns for human rights. How do we activate civic engagement? The class gave me the knowledge and tools When I was younger, I never raised my hand to exercise my own agency in shaping the world in class even when I knew the answer. At the I lived in—the point of democracy and demo- thought of speaking in front of an audience, I cratic participation. I joined campus Latino would turn tomato red. When I entered college, student leadership programs, created cultural I knew that I had to lose the imposter syndrome programming, and worked with other Latino no matter how scared I was in order to get as students to push the university to create a much out of my higher education experience as Latino cultural center. Although we did not I could. I couldn’t afford to fail. The pressure succeed in our bid for the Latino center, the as a first-generation student to walk across the university did create a multicultural center, stage with my degree in hand was always present. which still exists today, and dedicated funding The sacrifices made to get me there were a for student organizations to offer cultural constant reminder to keep going, because there programming. was no other option for me. I also became active off campus, taking During my first semester at the University part in efforts for immigrant rights, affordable of La Verne, I decided to join as many clubs housing, the release of Puerto Rican political and organizations as possible. I challenged prisoners, voter registration, and get out the vote myself to break away from my shyness and try campaigns. I gained confidence and grew as an new things. No longer could I live in the shadows activist as I learned to organize, lead, and and be voiceless. Even though my hands got speak publicly. Along the way, I had powerful sweaty and my legs trembled, I approached the mentors—professors, community leaders, elected leadership of organizations that interested me. officials, nonprofit leaders­—who were some of I began to attend meetings for the Interfaith the most hard-core and committed Puerto Rican Club, Latino Student Forum Club, and College activists in Chicago. Democrat Club. They were all welcoming and As I became more involved, I saw that a challenged me to be a student activist and career in education and community engagement ambassador. A semester later, I was serving as was my calling. It was my ikigai, the Japanese director of fundraising on the board of the concept that speaks to the intersection of your Latino Student Forum and as secretary of the life’s purpose and what you are good at.7 Working College Democrats. I was eventually elected for community-based educational programs president of the Latino Student Forum due to like the Lolita Lebron Family Learning Center, my love for the organization and commitment where I served as director for five years, allowed to its members. I collaborated with the organi- me to partner with higher education to create zations’ boards to create and run programming, transformative service-learning experiences present at conferences, and research scholarships like the one I had in college. When I became a and internships for students. I helped run

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 35 Students from Marisol Morales’s course “Farm Workers and Grassroots Activism” at the University of La Verne meet with activist and labor leader Dolores Huerta (in white hat) during a four-day trip to FEATURED TOPIC FEATURED Bakersfield, California.

civic-engagement events like a Cesar Chavez First-Generation Club had the social responsi- community day. I never took my positions in bility to not let such a heartbreaking moment either club for granted. I was tasked to bring pass unnoticed. In less than forty-eight hours, heritage and voter engagement to campus and we organized a rally in honor of the missing knew that I had to be creative to fight against students and invited the media, students, faculty, student apathy. In the Latino culture, breaking and staff. Despite initial push back to host an a pinata brings a sense of pride and joy, and so I event during dead week, nothing stopped us decided to combine a voter registration drive from sharing space to express the pain we felt. with a piñata-breaking celebration. After multiple conversations with different I also took part in organizing a rally of support administrators, we garnered support for the for the forty-three students from a teacher- event and made it happen. We learned an training school in Ayo- important lesson: when advocating for change, Living 2,292 miles away from tzinapa, Mexico, who we need to understand that we will face oppo- home, being surrounded by were abducted in Sep- sition but must continue to fight for what we people that didn’t always tember 2014 and have believe in. When people see why what you are understand my culture, taking up yet to be found. In doing matters, they will support you. space in places like the Capitol December 2014, the In fall 2012, I was selected to attend a con- where you don’t see many Latinos, media exposed the fact ference in Washington, DC, as an ambassador all taught me to be comfortable that, after two months, of the La Verne Interfaith Club. I was invited with being uncomfortable. no progress had been to have lunch with Marisol and the president made on finding the of La Verne, who were also attending the con- students. When this news broke, it was a cam- ference. I told them what I was passionate pus “dead week,” which meant that because of about, and they believed in me so much that finals we couldn’t schedule any events. This they offered me a work-study position at La also prohibited us from using any school chairs, Verne’s new Office of Civic and Community speakers, or other resources and equipment. Engagement, where Marisol was the director. Although I agree that students should focus on I wasn’t really interested in politics or policy our studies during finals, as campus leaders, before entering college, but Marisol encouraged

members of the Latino Student Forum and me to apply to programs and take a chance on Nora Dominguez

36 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 learning something new. During my junior my supervisors at Solidarity Strategies (a year, I was selected to be one of twenty-two Latino-owned and operated political consulting students from around the country to represent firm in DC), and a family that keeps me grounded my community as an intern at the US Capitol in my culture have encouraged me to take risks. for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Without the guidance and encouragement of (CHCI). That semester was the most enriching other powerful Latina women, I wouldn’t be in of my undergraduate career because I learned the rooms I am privileged to stand in, and I and experienced firsthand how federal legisla- take that with great honor and responsibility to tion is created and passed. Living 2,292 miles represent mi comunidad. LE away from home, being surrounded by people TOPIC FEATURED that didn’t always understand my culture, taking up space in places like the Capitol where you NOTES don’t see many Latinos, all taught me to be 1. Leah Sakala, “Breaking Down Mass Incarceration in comfortable with being uncomfortable. Unfor- the 2010 Census: State-by-State Incarceration Rates tunately, interning in DC isn’t something that by Race/Ethnicity,” Prison Policy Initiative, May 28, many people of color can afford to do. If it hadn’t 2014, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html. been for the paid internship through CHCI, I 2. “The Effects of Shelby County v. Holder,” Brennan Center for Justice, August 6, 2018, https://www. could never have afforded to move cross-country. brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/effects- I learned how privileged I was and took it as a shelby-county-v-holder. responsibility to be brave and take a seat at 3. Adeel Hassan “Hate-Crime Violence Hits 16-Year the table. High, F.B.I. Reports,” New York Times, November 12, After graduating, I moved back to DC to 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/ begin my journey into the politics and policy hate-crimes-fbi-report.html; “2018 Hate Crime Statistics,” world. Fast-forward to three years after graduat- Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2018/ ing with my bachelor of science in sociology hate-crime. and business management: I have worked on 4. Jens Manuel Krogstad, Luis Noe-Bustamante, and congressional and mayoral campaigns, taught Antonio Flores, “Historic Highs in 2018 Voter Turnout civics and government to middle school stu- Extended across Racial and Ethnic Groups,” Fact Tank dents, worked at an affordable housing unit as News in the Numbers, Pew Research Center, May 1, 2019, an administrative assistant, served as a full-time https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/ historic-highs-in-2018-voter-turnout-extended-across- volunteer immigrant rights organizer, and man- racial-and-ethnic-groups/. aged programs that expose more Latinx students 5. Nancy Thomas, Adam Gismondi, Prabhat Gautam, to careers in technology. and David Brinker, Democracy Counts 2018: An Analysis Recently, I was selected to be part of the of Student Participation (Medford, MA: Institute for Women’s Foundation of California’s 2019–20 Democracy & Higher Education, Tufts University’s Women’s Policy Institute. This will give me Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, 2019). the opportunity to work on a state assembly 6. Joshua Littenberg-Tobias and Allison K. Cohen, bill with colleagues from throughout California. “Diverging Paths: Understanding Racial Differences in Civic Engagement among White, African American, With the goal of increasing access to noncustodial and Latina/o Adolescents Using Structural Equation checking and savings accounts for working minors, Modeling,” American Journal of Community Psychology this bill sets baseline requirements for financial 57, no. 1–2 (March 2016): 102–117. institutions to offer quality checking and sav- 7. Thomas Oppong, “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a ings accounts paired with financial education Long and Happy Life Might Just Help You Live a More programming at a school or youth agency. Fulfilling Life,”Medium , January 10, 2018, https:// Going to college, participating in clubs and medium.com/thrive-global/ikigai-the-japanese-secret- to-a-long-and-happy-life-might-just-help-you-live-a- organizations, and taking internships and job more-fulfilling-9871d01992b7. opportunities all allowed me to hone skills in the policy, political, and nonprofit worlds. These experiences set me up to be a lifelong, civically engaged learner. It isn’t easy entering the predominantly white male field of policy- making, but it is crucial to defy the odds and ensure that our policies are reflective of a

Nora Dominguez diverse democracy. Mentors like Marisol,

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 37 STEPHEN KAPLAN Combating Transition Stress among Student Veterans Building a community from the ground up

Everyone has heard about the problematic a typical full-time college student takes fifteen and sometimes tragic post-traumatic stress credits, leaving countless hours of the day and disorder (PTSD) that affects many among our week unstructured and at the discretion of the military and veteran populations. There is no student, and we can see how different the question that this nation needs to more fully collegiate life is from the structured, cohesive address PTSD. What is less known, but statistically life of military service. Combining all of more prevalent, is transition stress.1 Leaving the these factors, one begins to sense the roots of PERSPECTIVES military and entering civilian life presents serious transition stress. challenges. The military Relying on friends or peers can mitigate such is highly structured; stress, but the predominant entering class of time is not one’s own; eighteen-year-olds is not the natural peer group There is no question that this nation group cohesion is para- for student veterans. Crudely put, while the needs to more fully address PTSD. mount; reliance upon typical entering student may be searching for What is less known, but statistically others is a necessity; phony documents to go drinking, our student more prevalent, is transition stress. and a shared mission is veterans are very often seeking to catch up for sine qua non. missing academic years. Peers who can provide Entering civilian academic life, in particu- classroom assistance, emotional support, and lar, presents a radically different environment knowledge about how to navigate college proce- from military life. Typically, and certainly at dures are not easily found for student veterans, Manhattan College (MC), a veteran’s entering who may be reluctant to self-identify as such. classmates are eighteen years old, away from To give more support to student veterans, home for the first time, and just out of high MC has spent the past five years building a school. Those entering college directly from student-veterans program from the ground up. high school are in immediate recall of the We began a series of interrelated programs under processes of high school math and acclimated the umbrella Veterans Success Program. One to studying for exams and writing papers—all component of that endeavor is called Veterans at of which may be a distant memory for a vet- Ease, which brings first-semester student veterans eran who has been out of high school for four, together in a required college course and then six, or more years. Add to this list the fact that offers them the opportunity to participate in a multiday retreat program, at no expense to them. STEPHEN KAPLAN is professor of Indian and The Veterans at Ease program and other aspects comparative religions at Manhattan College. of the Veterans Success programs are aimed at His scholarship, including books and journal articles, fostering a sense of community among our student focuses on Indian philosophy of mind, both Hindu veterans, building a peer group that supports and Buddhist. His research has frequently engaged each other academically, socially, and emotion- holography as a heuristic device and involved ally. These efforts are aimed at reducing student comparative analysis with the neurosciences. veterans’ transition stress and promoting their He is the founder of the Veterans at Ease Program academic retention to lead to their graduation

at Manhattan College. and a successful postcollegiate life. NarvaezNicholas

38 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Manhattan College student veterans gather at a barbecue, just one of several social, service, educational, and career-oriented events that allow veterans to connect with each other and the campus community. During a multiday introduced me to a group of incoming student retreat, Moses veterans. Twenty minutes into that meeting, Asomaning and we decided to enroll all eight of those students other Manhattan College student in my introductory religious studies course, a veterans learn yoga required MC course with a syllabus that included postures, breathing a section on yoga. practices, guided Since I was already scheduled to spend spring meditations, and break at the Sivananda Yoga Retreat in the other techniques to PERSPECTIVES manage stress. Bahamas, I asked William Clyde, provost and executive vice president at MC,3 if I could take these eight students to the Bahamas for four days, explaining that such a trip fit MC’s mission and would enhance retention of these students. Despite the fact that I was then merely dream- ing this stuff up, Clyde thought it was a great idea, told me to make it a program, and we were off to the races. We have not looked back, con- tinuing to build component upon component of an evolving and enriching veterans program.

Successful integration The foundation of our Veterans Success Program is a required introductory course. At MC, each Support and serendipity undergraduate is required to take three courses Manhattan College, located in the Bronx in in religious studies, including the 100-level course, New York City, is a Catholic college in the Nature and Experience of Religion. This course, Lasallian tradition with nearly 3,300 under- which introduces students to the diversity of graduates and 600 graduate students. While ways to study religion and to the diversity of MC has a long and rich history of serving religious experiences within the world, provides veterans, dating from the Civil War and continu- us with the platform to place student veterans ing through all the major conflicts of the past together. Each semester, we offer more than century,2 we did not have a veterans center twenty sections of this course in a variety of nor a designated professional formats, including a writing-intensive option, The Bhagavad Gita provides a whose sole responsibility was listed as RELS 151. We now also offer two sections, forum for a discussion of the overseeing student veterans designated RELS 161, specifically for student meaning of duty, or dharma, programs. That has all changed veterans. These sections give veterans the but also introduces three during the past five years. As opportunity to meet other veterans. Each RELS 161 our programs grew over this section shares a common time and classroom types of yoga to manage the period, our support system has with a general education section, RELS 110. restless, anxious mind of concomitantly grown. We now Approximately half of the total classroom Arjuna, the main character. have a Veterans Success Center, population of twenty-five students is made up a director of the Veterans Success of student veterans and the other half consists Program, a director of Veterans at Ease, a coor- of traditional undergraduates. The union of these dinator of Veterans at Ease, two graduate assis- two sections helps assimilate veterans to the tants, and eighteen Veterans Affairs–funded traditional student body. We want a successful work-study students. This is a story of growth integration, not an isolation. and serendipity. Syllabi for all sections of the Nature and Five years ago, a student veteran came to Experience of Religion provide an introduction me, a professor of Indian religious thought. to at least three different religious traditions, After his last deployment, his commanding officer including one non-Western tradition. As such, had taught him and a group of his peers some educators have ample latitude to introduce ideas yoga, and he wanted to know more. Days later, about the nature of mind and techniques to I was introduced to the new director of transfer calm the mind—an essential process in dealing

admissions at MC, Troy Cogburn, who then with all sorts of stress. Frequently, I have used Organization Veterans Student College’s Manhattan

40 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 the Hindu classic the Bhagavad Gita, a battle- The latter focuses on how our minds experience field story of a warrior anxiously facing his stress and offers a variety of techniques to manage enemies, in this case his uncles and cousins. stress. On the retreat, student veterans experience The text not only provides a forum for a dis- yoga postures, or asanas, a dozen or more breath- cussion of the meaning of duty, or dharma, but ing practices, guided meditations, and the ritual also introduces three types of yoga to manage life of a yoga retreat center. All of these activities the restless, anxious mind of Arjuna, the main are resources for the students’ term papers. The character. The parallels between this story and retreat also offers group bonding time, which

the issues confronting all human beings, and includes the simple acts of sharing meals together, PERSPECTIVES our student veterans in particular, are obvious. swimming in the ocean, joking, more joking, This text allows student veterans to reflect and a half-day excursion such as a snorkeling on these ideas, knowing other student veterans boat trip. (The latter is the fiscal responsibility have their back, and also allows traditional of the individual student veteran.) students and veteran students to share their One of MC’s partners in this project has insights with each other. For example, when been Warriors at Ease, a nonprofit founded in discussing the need to breathe properly accord- 2008 with a mission of bringing the healing ing to yogic theory, one student veteran somberly power of yoga and meditation to military, vet- indicated that the failure of some of his men to eran, and traumatized communities. Robin breathe properly during a firefight might have Carnes, cofounder of Warriors at Ease, has tragically led to their inability to react and to their been our beloved and admired program archi- death. He clearly wished he had learned about tect, who also runs our daily activities, such as yogic breathing techniques before his extensive guided meditations, a variety of different military career. (It should be noted that as an breathing techniques to calm and to energize, academic course, we examine the theory behind lectures to explain the neuroscience behind the different types of yoga with no expectation the issues of stress, and other barrier-breaking of practice or belief in these theories.) activities. The Sivananda Yoga Retreat has been our other partner. The senior leadership Beyond the classroom includes Israeli citizens who have served in The requirements for my sections of the Nature their country’s military, and their concern for and Experience of Religion include a term paper. and graciousness to our US veterans are palpable. Each student must attend a variety of out-of-class Sivananda provides the daily asana practice and events—such as visits to places of worship or a peaceful, beautiful natural setting for our practice, museums, and on- or off-campus student veterans, faculty mentor, and Warriors lectures. Integrating the knowledge acquired at at Ease trainers to bond with each other. these events with the material studied in class “We now have people we can trust,” one is the foundation for the paper. Given our New participating student veteran wrote about York City location, students often incorporate attending the retreat. “I’ve always been a very trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where anxious and hyper person due to my ADHD. they can view centuries of Christian art and The meditations and breathing techniques compare that to a series of Christian creeds, have helped me clear my head since we’ve spanning centuries of theological development, gotten back.” that we discussed in class. Others incorporate “I want to say that I am happy, and I do not visits to the museum’s South Asian galleries, know the last time I was happy for no reason,” which include artifacts representing Hindu wrote another student veteran after going on deities, and reflect on these images in relation the retreat.5 to the ideas about Hinduism about which the students have read. A cohesive community Since one part of the Veterans at Ease pro- The common religion course and the retreat gram is a multiday trip to the Sivananda Yoga have served as a foundation upon which MC Retreat run each semester for only those student has added other programs to build a cohesive veterans enrolled in RELS 161, the retreat can student-veteran community from the ground up. serve as the required outside events for their Over the past five years, MC has more than papers.4 The course subject matter offers a strong tripled its student-veteran enrollment, growing platform for the goals of the retreat program. from approximately 40 student veterans in 2015

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 41 to approximately 130 in 2020. It seems that in creating a vibrant student-veteran community admissions recruiting efforts, word of mouth, and that is essential in combating transition stress. the attractiveness of a vibrant student-veteran The most recent comprehensive tracking study, community for those who visit the campus have conducted in fall 2018, shows that 91 percent been positive factors in our increasing enrollment. of “student veterans who attended a retreat” Narrative evaluations—eighty-six to date—of have either continued their education or gradu- the retreat have been overwhelmingly positive. ated, and 84 percent of “student veterans who Each semester, the numerical evaluations to our enrolled in RELS 110” (SV 110) have continued 6

PERSPECTIVES questions about the value of the retreat experi- their education or graduated. In a 2018 online ences consistently rates around 9.2 or higher on survey conducted by the MC Student Veterans a scale of 10. Organization (SVO), 81 percent of the retreat Five years ago, when this endeavor started, I participants report using the Veterans Success assumed that the yoga, meditation, and breathing Center, and 91 percent of retreat participants techniques would be the most important take- report using one or more stress reduction tech- aways from the retreat. Back then, I assumed that niques since returning from the retreat.7 PTSD was the issue. I was ignorant and oblivious This survey also revealed that 28 percent of to the more ubiquitous transition stress that seeps retreat participants have joined non-veteran into the daily life of those going from the military organizations and clubs—an indication that to college life. Now I believe that the bonding student veterans are becoming integrated that occurs on the retreat, combined with the into the wider college community. During the stress-reduction techniques and the continued 2018–19 academic year, our SVO chapter classroom interactions, has been instrumental ran or cosponsored more than sixty events

How can other institutions similarly support student veterans? 1. The MC curricular model, with a required religious studies course, will not be applicable to many colleges. Other institutions need to find a course or list of courses that nearly all student veterans would be required to take. This list could include an English, math, or introductory science course, or a combination of such courses that suit the nature of your student-veteran population and your institution’s curricula. Different retreat programs with different locations and different lengths of time can be tailored to the specific curricular goals of the courses. Explore your options; there are many. 2. Others might proclaim that their school could never afford to pay for a retreat program. MC derives 82 percent of its revenue from tuition and has a modest endowment, which does not afford the Veterans Success Program any funding. Therefore, to implement this program, focus on return on investment. • Become a Yellow Ribbon Post 9-11 institution. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) currently reimburses Yellow Ribbon schools up to $24,476 of a student veteran’s annual tuition. A Yellow Ribbon institution also receives 50 percent of additional tuition costs if that institution matches the additional VA dollars, above the $24,476. Compare this revenue stream with your institution’s average discount rate and calculate the difference that can be put aside to help fund these retreats. • Consider the extra costs an investment, not charity. These retreats help retention and graduation numbers, thereby ensuring that your student veterans stay enrolled and are successful—all part of ROI. • The VA does not reimburse for student-veteran travel, nor for room and board on such travel. But educational costs, such as laboratory fees, instructional fees, and museum fees, can be added to the costs of a college course and, therefore, submitted to the VA. These reimbursable fees can help defer some of the costs of this program. • Don’t be shy about fundraising to help student veterans successfully manage transition stress. Show people that you are helping veterans, and see if they will help you. 3. People have asked whether we’ve seen “jealousy or hostility” from our traditional RELS 110 students, who might also want to go on the retreat. To date, we have not been confronted with this situation. Our traditional students are supportive of MC’s service to our student veterans. 4. Finally, proudly affirm to your colleagues that your institution will “do well by doing good,” and see who supports you in your efforts to build a program that can ease transition stress for student veterans.

42 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 highlighting the vibrancy of a community willing to support each other and speak out. NOTES Each semester, our student veterans have orga- 1. “One of the primary reasons for past failures in nized several academic panels on such topics as veteran treatments, arguably, is that the dominant focus “War and Peace,” “Women Who Served,” and on PTSD has obfuscated other, often highly pressing “Challenges of Engineering and Mechanics in transition issues. Research has documented, for example, that many returning veterans may struggle regardless of the Military.” These panels, cosponsored by whether they have PTSD or not. Recent population academic departments, are presented to other survey studies have suggested that 44% to 72% of veterans

students, faculty, and administrators and highlight experience high levels of stress during the transition to PERSPECTIVES the service and voices of our student veterans. civilian life.” Meghan C. Mobbs and George A. Bonanno, Other events are social and include barbecues, “Beyond War and PTSD: The Crucial Role of Transition Stress in the Lives of Military Veterans,” Clinical holiday parties, and an “open table” at a local Psychology Review 59 (2018): 137–144, https://doi. coffee house/pub, where a faculty member org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.11.007. On this topic, see also invites all student veterans to get together once Corri Zoli, Rosalinda Maury, and Daniel Fay, Missing a week to talk, socialize, and share a glass. Perspectives: Servicemembers’ Transition from Service to Other events are career-oriented, such as Civilian Life—Data-Driven Research to Enact the Promise of the Post-9/11 GI Bill (Institute for Veterans & résumé-writing sessions and sessions with job Military Families, Syracuse University, November 2015). recruiters seeking veteran applicants. Service 2. MC archives has a photo and the July 19, 1865, events, including Adopt-a-Highway clean-ups, discharge papers of Private Ernst Spanger, who served relief fundraising events for a hospitalized vet in the Civil War before enrolling at MC. or a national hurricane crisis, the 22 Push-Up 3. I must express my sincere gratitude to Manhattan Challenge for suicide awareness, and Toys for College for its support of this program. Troy Cogburn, Tots gift distribution, have become routine. Bill Clyde, and Tiana Sloan, hired as director of the Our annual participation in the New York City Veterans Success Program, have been the most dedicated and wonderful people to work with and the Veterans Day Parade and our on-campus Veterans success of this program rests on their shoulders. Day Appreciation Luncheon bring the commu- 4. For a variety of reasons, including work and family nity together. We also invite a Warriors at Ease obligations, not all student veterans choose to attend representative to campus during midterm and the retreats. Those who do not attend the retreats finals weeks for “stress buster” sessions. Each write their term papers like the traditional RELS 110 hourlong session includes introductions, a students. In the statistics provided later in the article, the distinctions between these two groups are noted by breathing exercise, a guided meditation, and a SV@R, for those taking the RELS 161 and attending bit of food for socializing. the retreat, and SV 110, for those who take the All of these events bring together different concomitant RELS 110 section and do not attend the segments of our student-veteran community, retreat program. and this togetherness eases transition stress. 5. These two quotations first appeared in Robin Carnes The success of this program is palpable when and Stephen Kaplan, “Fostering Veteran-Student Health student veterans openly declare their apprecia- through Stress Management: Creating Belonging and Success in a College Setting through the Veterans at tion of MC in front of the entire MC board of Ease Program,” Bulletproofing the Psyche, edited by Kate trustees and when faculty from across academic Hendricks Thomas and David L. Albright (Santa Barbara, disciplines continually say how much they CA: Praeger, 2018). enjoy having our student veterans in their 6. Our extensive study regarding retention in college classes. Five years ago, twenty-five years ago, includes students who enrolled in our program and faculty did not notice our student veterans and then continued their education either at MC or another college, the latter often due to a change in did not comment about their presence in class. major or to relocation. Included are only those for They were an anonymous cohort. That is no whom we could verify continued educational status. longer the case. LE 7. Students in the School of Continuing Education were not included in the numbers tabulated here. Students in the other five schools at MC responded to a non-required survey at a 61 percent rate.

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 43 RICHARD A. CHERWITZ Seeing Is Believing Timely lessons from communication research in the wake of COVID-19

Throughout its long and storied history, Worth a thousand words the discipline of rhetoric has documented the Perhaps I am naïve but, at the end of the day, power of the spoken and written word. Of late, the answer depends in part on whether and how however, we are being reminded about the the media and photojournalists do their job: to rhetorical significance of visual images—that share, no matter how graphic and difficult to pictures, videos, and other visual works also are view, the horrific reality of what’s happening part of what Aristotle called the “available on the ground. From a rhetorical perspective, PERSPECTIVES means of persuasion.” Visual imagery also may the more we “see,” the better the chances are provide a good test of that those who are cavalier and uninformed whether, as some will be shocked into a nonpartisan rationality scholars have argued,1 and become accountable for their behavior. It is essential for more scholars to rhetoric can create It frequently is said that a picture is worth a leverage their knowledge for social reality and truth, a thousand words, that seeing is believing. good and to educate the public— thesis my own research This oft-repeated adage is more than a cliché. to expand their classrooms beyond over the past four Several years ago, Lester Olson, Cara Finnegan, the walls of academic institutions. decades has disputed.2 and Diane Hope, scholars in communication, There is no better wrote Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication example of the power of visual rhetoric than and American Culture.3 The book presents a critical the current coronavirus pandemic devastating our perspective that links “visuality” to the academic country and the world. And there may be no discipline of rhetoric, helping readers unpack better illustration of how persuasive resources the meaning of visual images in American his- have the potential to lessen the negative outcomes tory and understand the persuasive force of of this crisis. imagery. This research is especially timely and For example, many Americans worry whether informative today. our leaders at the state, local, and federal levels For instance, photos during the Vietnam will begin to more clearly and accurately address War—including hundreds of flag-draped caskets the seriousness and magnitude of the COVID-19 being flown into Delaware’s Dover Air Force pandemic in their policies and rhetoric. Base on a daily basis and images of soldiers The question is, Will the country survive fighting with little success in the jungles—had this pandemic with as few fatalities as possible? an enormous persuasive impact. The images Put differently, What are the available means resulted in CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, of persuasion and how might scholarly research regarded as the nation’s most trustworthy help us? voice, to declare to an audience of millions on February 27, 1968, that the United States RICHARD A. CHERWITZ is the Ernest A. Sharpe could not win the war. These kinds of images Centennial Professor Emeritus, Moody College of also ultimately helped persuade the country, Communication, and founding director, perhaps more than the words of politicians Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium, of the opposing the war, that it was time for American

University of Texas at Austin. boys to come home. Ciera Carhart/Cayuga Health System

44 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Ciera Carhart/Cayuga Health System Cornell University turned its Bartels Hall gymnasium into a surgical asurgical into gymnasium Hall Bartels its turned University Cornell masks a day for local medical workers and emergency responders. emergency and workers medical local for aday masks and Cayuga Health System staff have been sewing thousands of of thousands sewing have been staff System Health Cayuga and mask–making factory.mask–making Cornell employees, community members,

PERSPECTIVES

A sign in front of Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton, Georgia, honors medical staff as they serve patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, I think—though cannot prove— the current crisis. Only then will people fully grasp that photos and videos showing the shocking the actual reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. reality of the consequence of the COVID-19 Moreover, the politics surrounding the pan- pandemic ravaging New York and many other demic are a good test of the argument advanced states will hold our leaders’ feet to the fire and by scholars in many disciplines that rhetoric turn the tide against ineffective approaches to can literally create not just perceptions of reality the pandemic. Put simply, visual images— but reality per se. The COVID-19 pandemic including photos and graphics—provide a offers an example of how at some point, we will truthful understanding of what is happening. learn the hard way that politicians, no matter They can also change individual behavior—for how rhetorically proficient, cannot conceal or example, the widespread “flatten the curve” even construct the truth on vitally important graph has helped convince people to stay home issues—that visual rhetoric intrudes, can over- and take seriously the whelm, and can be more persuasive than words. The question is, Will the country safety measures needed to As my own research on communication and slow the pandemic. epistemology contends, rhetoric is essential to survive this pandemic with as To be clear, I am not discovering the truth—but it cannot literally few fatalities as possible? Put advancing the partisan create truth.4 differently, What are the available argument that visual means of persuasion and how rhetoric will or should Scholars in action might scholarly research help us? change the popularity of Regardless of the outcome of the COVID-19 public figures. That is a pandemic, I hope this crisis will provoke more political irrelevancy. However, visual rhetoric academics to follow the lead of Lester Olson, might just be what produces policies and Cara Finnegan, and Diane Hope by studying behaviors to help us emerge from the pandemic the significance of visual rhetoric. Other aca- with a lower death toll than originally expected. demic disciplines—including history, political It is reasonable to assume that some citizens, science, and psychology, to name just a few— elected officials, and political pundits will con- remain poised and uniquely positioned to help tinue to back faulty and inaccurate policies until explain what is transpiring in the current polit-

they personally see and feel the consequences of ical environment. Historians, for example, can Eyemark/iStock

46 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 provide perspective, showing us how crises and public, it will be possible to shape and improve problems were successfully resolved in the public policies. Given the seriousness and past. Similarly, political scientists can delineate complexity of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well the available institutional mechanisms and as other problems in the twenty-first century, resources that might assist government officials in engaged scholarship is essential. LE addressing a national crisis. And psychologists can highlight the frailties and tendencies inherent in the human condition that often compromise NOTES

our response to adverse conditions—responses 1. Barry Brummett, “Some Implications of ‘Process’ or PERSPECTIVES that if acknowledged might be placed in check. Intersubjectivity: Postmodern Rhetoric,” Philosophy Finally, as I argued in a previous essay in and Rhetoric 9, no. 1 (Winter 1976): 21–51. Liberal Education, it is essential for more scholars 2. Richard A. Cherwitz and James W. Hikins, to leverage their knowledge for social good and “Rhetorical Perspectivism,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 69, no. 3 (1983): 249–66. to educate the public—to expand their class- rooms beyond the walls of academic institutions.5 3. Lester C. Olson, Cara A. Finnegan, and Diane S. Hope, eds., Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication For example, in the past few years, the National and American Culture (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2008). Communication Association (NCA) has spot- 4. Richard A. Cherwitz and James W. Hikins, lighted how the work of communication faculty Communication and Knowledge: An Investigation in informs our understanding of a variety of current Rhetorical Epistemology (Columbia, South Carolina: political and personal issues confronting the University of South Carolina Press, 1986). public. NCA’s “Communication Currents” 5. Richard A. Cherwitz, “Why Become a Public draws on published articles and ongoing research Intellectual: Reflections of a Communication Scholar,” to help the public and press understand the Liberal Education 105, no. 1 (Winter 2019): 38. significance and relevance of scholarship to 6. “Communication Currents,” National Communication 6 Association, accessed May 11, 2020, https://www. issues in the world. I continue to believe that, natcom.org/communication-currents. if we use our academic research to engage the Eyemark/iStock

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 47 NANCY CANTOR Transforming the Academy The urgency of recommitting higher education to the public good

In his 1990 book Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities vision of intellectual and social possibili- of the Professoriate, Ernest L. Boyer set a stage of ties—a community of scholars—that the PERSPECTIVES precedents for what we now see as the pressing four dimensions of academic endeavor challenges for higher should lead.”1 education, particularly Transforming the academy, as Boyer asks us to as we urgently and collectively strive as a do, is a hard problem, requiring both cumulative Transforming the community of scholars to (re)commit higher work and all hands on deck. This approach academy is a hard education to the public good. Consider the is the opposite of what we often lionize as problem, requiring following points from that groundbreaking “disruptive innovation,” which involves a both cumulative treatise: search for quick outcomes-focused approaches work and all hands 1. “A new vision of scholarship is required, to reversing what Charles Tilly called the on deck. one dedicated not only to the renewal of the “durable inequalities” of our world.2 But the elite, academy but, ultimately, to the renewal of detached, monastic model of the university society itself.” developed over generations, and we will not 2. “Now is the time to build bridges across the counter it with a model of engaged, inclusive, disciplines, and connect the campus to the anchor institutions overnight. In the same vein, larger world. Society itself has a great stake the architecture of segregation and durable in how scholarship is defined.” inequalities are just that—architected to be 3. “The conclusion is clear. We need scholars durable—and so the promise of the university as who not only skillfully explore the frontiers an engine of social mobility and social justice of knowledge, but also integrate ideas, connect (that is, for equitable growth in communities) thought to action, and inspire students.” will only be fulfilled brick by brick, scholar by 4. “One last point. This report has focused scholar, generation by generation. largely on faculty members as individuals. But professors, to be fully effective, cannot Universities as public goods work in isolation. It is toward a shared Boyer—who served as chancellor of the State University of New York, as US commissioner NANCY CANTOR is chancellor of Rutgers of education, and as president of the Carnegie University–Newark. This essay is adapted from Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching— her keynote address presented upon receiving the called for “a new American college that is Ernest L. Boyer Award from the New American connected and committed to improving, in a Colleges and Universities at the 2020 annual very intentional way, the human condition.”3 meeting of the Association of American Colleges Taking off from this appeal, I’d like to consider

and Universities. how close institutions of higher education can Rutgers University–Newark

48 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Ashaki Rouff, an earth and environmental sciences faculty member at Rutgers University–Newark, helps remediate soil pollution in a community garden. get to being public goods, if not in a purely boundaries within the academy and between technical sense, at least in the spirit of an the academy and the world, with an eye toward aspirational metaphor. In economics, a public the collective work to advance equity and impact good is non-rivalrous and non-excludable, and cement the identity of our institutions— meaning one person’s consumption of the good each in their own way—as indispensable partners does not prevent or make it impossible for in improving the human condition. another person to consume it. A public good is I suggest that there are four inextricably inter- also non-rejectable—once it is supplied, people twined aspects to the necessary transformation, 4

PERSPECTIVES cannot refuse it. Therefore, although technically all aimed at the public good. First, we need to “higher education is not a pure public good,” as diversify the student body and faculty (building Sandy Baum and Mike McPherson have written, a critical mass of representation). Second, we clear positive externalities benefit the public need to recognize and reward publicly engaged beyond those for whom it is also a private good.5 scholarship (giving, as Boyer said, “scholarship Today, the public needs us to be much closer a richer, more vital meaning”). Third, we need to a public than a private, purely market-driven to cultivate genuinely reciprocal, sustained good. This is true both in terms of access for relationships between our universities and our more of the talented public (to the university) communities (as stable, committed anchors of and in terms of contributions (beyond the equitable growth and opportunity). Fourth, university) by our community of scholars— we need to learn to overcome our competitive producing positive externalities, benefitting the instincts and collaborate across an ecosystem collective good beyond just of institutions, organizations, and sectors (all Institutional transformation those who pay for it. committed to a movement of change). By contrast, recent national begins with who is sitting at public opinion polls suggest that Resetting our institutional tables the various tables of our the current public view of Institutional transformation begins with who is institutions, which simply higher education is that it both sitting at the various tables of our institutions, must include a genuine excludes too many (making it which simply must include a genuine represen- representation of the public. exclusive) and hoards opportunity tation of the public. At both the student and only for those connected to it faculty levels, the trend has been to look for (making it rivalrous). In turn, therefore, if we “exceptional children” rather than recognize can move closer to the public-good end of the the massive demographic shifts and the accom- continuum by opening more, working in public panying imperative to genuinely reset the ho- more, and benefiting the public more, we may mogeneous tables we typically set.6 As the late actually help defuse some of the legitimacy crisis Katherine Phillips compellingly urged, it is reflected in those polls. So how do we transform time to ask why we so passively accept homo- our institutions, our mores, our practices, our geneity as the default norm for our institutions, disciplines, our student bodies, our professoriate when we endlessly ask for justifications of the to be in line with this model? value of diversity.7 The need to reset the full table of represen- Four aspects of transformation tation at the student level is urgent and espe- Boyer argued that universities are actually often cially poignant as higher education is such a driven by external concerns, just the wrong ones. critical lever for social mobility.8 Our institutions, One need only think of the ranking wars, the even our major public institutions, simply are narrowly defined dimensions of merit for students not meeting the mandate.9 Not surprisingly, and for faculty (both as defined by standardized public distrust is growing, as too many low- tests and by disciplinary norms) to see how much income students and students from communities we fall prey to what social psychologists call an of color—all of whom face systemic obstacles “exclusion mindset” of competition, distancing us in the way of cultivating their many talents— further and further from the full public. Moreover, are being repeatedly sidelined by business as usual. this seems exactly what needs changing if we are We need to get serious, quickly, about resetting to realize in any way the idea of universities as the student table in higher education as the institutions that provide some good to everyone. composition of America dramatically changes. We need institutional transformation (from The need to substantially reset the table at the outside in), as Boyer argued, to transcend the faculty level is equally urgent. Even in the

50 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 face of genuine proclamations of commitment much attention to questions of importance to diversity, and even as, for example, the STEM that emanate from the “outside in” as to those fields produce a reasonably diverse potential talent seen as internally critical by our disciplines. pool for the professoriate in many disciplines,10 We need to shift from the tendency to we have seen painfully slow shifts in the com- privilege what others in the field have found as position of the professoriate. Small numbers of interesting to what the public wants to know. diverse faculty (along many dimensions, but As a social psychologist, I have seen my field certainly along gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, somewhat obsessed of late with the quick

ability, and nationality) leave underrepresented answers about social behavior that an MRI PERSPECTIVES students without sufficient role models and produces, and I say this with no animus in mind. mentors to encourage belongingness, and, as By contrast, I look to the great tradition of Kurt critically, underrepresentation leaves diverse Lewin and action research that emanated in faculty endlessly subject to the scrutiny of part from the burning need of a shocked public “solo status” and “stereotype threat” in their to understand the intricate and hard-to-measure departments and disciplines.11 dynamics of group behavior in the wake of the Inclusion of a new, more public-facing diverse Holocaust and the fascist domination of conti- demographic in the up-and-coming professoriate nental Europe.15 This tradition involves any- adds enormous value for publicly engaged thing but quick, hard-and-fast answers, and, as scholarship. As George Sanchez argued in his Lewin noted, the best way to understand some- piece on civic engagement and the retreat from thing is to try, difficult and time-consuming as inclusiveness, “The very ‘public’ in the United it may be, to change it. Accordingly, we would States we will seek to engage in community all do well today in this divisive national and partnerships will shift dramatically, and will global moment to pause and think deeply about look less and less like the faculty in our colleges what the public needs us urgently and patiently and universities over the next 25 years.”12 If we to study and to teach the next generation. do not assertively recruit and reward this active We also need to re-envision how we produce and engaged talent pool, and do it soon, as scholarship, who produces it, and where it lives immigration and birthrate trends make obsolete on. While the lone genius has never been the our normative professoriate, we will fall short model of how we actually produce scholarship, as authentic partners in evidence-informed especially in fields likeSTEM , the reward system social change.13 in the academy still acts as if that myth is reality. We cling to it in promotion and tenure evalua- Recognizing publicly engaged scholarship tions, looking for instances when the scholar As we genuinely reset the table of our campuses “really” was the lead contributor. Moreover, there to represent a much broader and more diverse is a parallel to the hegemony of “inside-out” public, we should expect and welcome an evaluations of quality and interest (discipline expansion of the ideas, interests, questions, to the world versus world to disciplines) in who and innovations that become the focus of we consider an important scholarly partner in scholarship and pedagogy. As Boyer argued, cocreation. This is a debate, for example, fre- “It is our central premise, therefore, that other quently seen as scholars evaluate, reward, and forms of scholarship—teaching, integration, support community-engaged science, which and application—must be fully acknowledged increases the inclusive representation of scientists and placed on a more equal footing with and improves the science produced.16 Analyses discovery.”14 This is particularly true as more of climate change effects provide a trenchant questions of public interest, seen through more example of the value of broadening our under- varied lenses, are brought to the table for standing of who, how and where knowledge/ consideration, and a diverse “community of discovery occurs, as vividly demonstrated in experts,” including frontline community partners, recent work at the National Science Founda- is engaged in the cocreation of knowledge. tion in which indigenous populations play a key We are also, then, likely to expand our default role in understanding the “new Arctic.”17 definitions of what constitutes “discovery.” Similarly, where the scholarly product The expansion of what counts as knowledge appears also figures in the valuation of its worth, and productive scholarship also requires a as seen in the comparison between peer-reviewed genuine mindset shift, as we need to pay as articles in top journals and K–12 curricular

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 51 modules or policy reports for community use. Creating ecosystems for impact We see the value of a wide range of scholarly As potentially trusted agents of opportunity products all the time, even if promotion and and equitable growth, universities as anchor tenure committees may still lag behind in fully institutions also best serve the public good embracing it.18 Placing, as Boyer desired, when we eschew the goal of competitive, individ- other forms of scholarship on an equal footing ualistic success (embedded in the rankings war, by necessity must mean that we expand our for example) and embrace a collaborative model appreciation of what scholarship looks like of “stackable institutions” to maximize impact.

PERSPECTIVES and where we see it in action. As Boyer noted, “The team approach, which seems so necessary for individuals, applies to Anchor institutions as community institutions, too.” He also called for “diversity collaborators with dignity in American higher education—a Fully realizing the anchor institution model national network of higher learning institutions requires a thorough change in attitude, shifting in which each college and university takes from the university (and those in it) as the pride in its own distinctive mission and seeks leader, expert, and progenitor of solutions to to complement rather than imitate others.” being a coequal partner with our community. This fourth dimension of institutional It requires responding to suggestions from transformation into actors within an ecosystem all sectors—cultural, business, government, inevitably means even more democratization of community—about critical issues to work on, higher education. This calls for working together and being willing to see across the continuum of educational impact Highlighting the voices and the challenges through (pre-K–20) and across types of institutions a broad racial and eco- (school districts, community colleges, univer­ legacies of the citizens of nomic equity lens of sities), as well as across sectors (private-public, Newark is a large part of what we systemic discrimination. educational-business-nonprofit), and across need to do as cocreators of Moreover, to reckon locations (schools, prisons, neighborhood centers, change in a seamless two-way with history, we need to libraries) to enlarge the circle of opportunity. street between Rutgers–Newark be willing to step forward Additionally, as we broaden this reach, we and the City of Newark. as place-based institutions redefine place-based work as expansive not only and understand the spe- in its networks of actors and institutions but also cifics of the (racialized) inequality map of our in the resonance of its implications, from communities. For history plays out differently local to national to global. We are seeing this in each place, as we see if we compare the resonance, for example, in the engagement of narratives today between urban and rural com- global partners in the Anchor Institutions munities, even as shared economic insecurities Task Force and the Talloires Network of should unite, not divide, the largely white rural community-engaged institutions.21 and black and brown urban centers. Not to forget, as we too often do, the particulars of An equitable growth identity the narratives of our many indigenous Native The work that we have been doing at Rutgers American communities profoundly affected by University–Newark is an attempt to tie all four the racist history of our country. aspects of transformation together via an insti- Much as colleges and universities have tutional identity as an anchor institution com- traditionally adopted a distanced relationship mitted to creating social mobility and public with their communities, veering more to the impact as two sides of a single coin—equitable monastery than the marketplace, we have been growth. When we are at our best, we hope this especially allergic to tackling the thorny ques- equitable growth identity permeates top-down and tions of local racial equity (broadly defined) at sideways in the institution and in the community. home.19 This is true even as many of our disci- It informs the diversity of the backgrounds of plines rightly support and reward such efforts the academic leadership we hire and the publicly abroad, as seen in the recent, uplifting award engaged faculty members whom departments of the Nobel Prize in economics to three econ- recruit. It underlies the commitments we make omists who study solutions to inequality in to hiring local citizens and procuring our goods global contexts.20 from local women-, minority-, and veteran-owned businesses. It energizes the research centers

52 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Rutgers students conduct ecology research in the New Jersey Meadowlands. PERSPECTIVES

we support, including those providing data all around the city.25 It is what happens when and new models to city hall and those using the archivists of our world-renowned Institute evidence-based research to advocate statewide of Jazz Studies and our creative writing faculty for social justice. For example, this work includes and graduate students team up with the jazz support of undocumented populations, of those artists and arts presenters of Newark’s New Jersey entangled in the criminal justice system, of the Performing Arts Center and the educators of need for diverse and inclusive public schools.22 Newark Public Schools.26 Our faculty and staff work tirelessly with part- It is often all about raising the voices already ners from all corners of the city, including the there, which brings me to the kinds of major Newark City of Learning Collaborative, the commitments that travel the other direction of city’s Equitable Growth Advisory Commission, the two-way street—from the community into the Newark 2020 Hire-Buy-Live Local Collective, the university. Our team has been very deliberate the Newark Public Safety Collaborative, and in trying to set and reset our institutional table Express Newark, a university-community arts to bring the broad public inside, as well as collaboratory, located in a 50,000-square-foot taking our show “outside” (even as we eschew space for cocreation in downtown Newark.23 those geographical boundaries). For example, Highlighting the voices and legacies of the when we made a significant institutional com- citizens of Newark is a large part of what we mitment to create a “revolutionary” Honors need to do as cocreators of change in a seam- Living-Learning Community (HLLC), it was less two-way street between Rutgers–Newark dedicated to local citizenship in a global world and the City of Newark. This is so clear when and accordingly recruits a highly diverse set of our faculty, students, and staff team up with the students on the basis of their social justice Newark Public Library and the New Jersey leadership potential to engage and change the Institute for Social Justice in our Campus Center equity map locally, nationally, and globally.27 for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation These future leaders include local citizens (supported by the Association of American (61 percent are Newark residents) from a city Colleges and Universities)24 to hold intergener- with an ethnic-racial makeup tied to generations ational dialogue circles and community artists’ of American migration and immigration from

Rutgers University–Newark events in the Healing Sounds of Newark program all over the world. They include those journeying

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 53 Jersey Institute for Social Justice and the Vera Institute of Justice, our publicly engaged faculty and staff in NJ-STEP advocate for voting rights, train re-entry entrepreneurs, and push the state and our nation to step up to the plate and provide equitable growth pathways, especially for those Rutgers University– from communities of color disproportionately Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor experiencing the criminal justice system.

PERSPECTIVES at AAC&U’s 2020 annual meeting Blurring the line between private gain on a pathway at odds with higher education’s and public good usual strangleholds of intergenerational wealth As we create this ecosystem of educational and privilege, as 76 percent of the HLLC stu- opportunity and anchor institution engagement, dents are eligible for Pell Grants, 46 percent the line between private gain (for some) and are first generation, and 30 percent transferred public good (for all) blurs, as does the false from community colleges. These students bring distinction between education for a career and the authentic knowledge of lived experience, education for citizenship, between scholarship including but not limited to having been in and service, between research and pedagogy, prison, living with the fears of an undocumented and between local and global. Indeed, Boyer family, representing faith communities often argued that higher education had a responsibility shunned as outsiders, aging out of foster care, to enable students to live responsibly: “This and raising families of their own. point, properly understood, warns against making It is important to note that these students too great a distinction between careerism and the are not rare birds fitting the “exceptional child” liberal arts, between self-benefit and service.”29 model. Instead, we see such local talent with Ultimately, if we succeed in intertwining global roots and vision for an equitable future all these four aspects of a model of a university over our region. Our Rutgers University–Newark aimed toward maximizing the public good, Talent and Opportunity Program (RU-N to the then we will come closer to what Boyer envi- TOP) financial aid program (providing last-in sioned in Scholarship Reconsidered. As he said, full tuition and fees scholarships to any Newark “A new vision of scholarship is required, one resident or New Jersey community college associ- dedicated not only to the renewal of the academy ate’s degree transfer student with an adjusted but, ultimately, to the renewal of society itself.” family income of $60,000 or less) has helped It also means that the aim of equitable growth Rutgers–Newark increase the representation in communities is to spread the map of opportu- of students from Newark to 14.5 percent of nity as widely as possible, redefining quality and undergraduates (a hundred percent increase merit as inclusive (not exclusive) and recognizing since 2013). Our multifaceted institutional the dynamics of progressive growth that takes programs for financial aid and legal and social a windy road toward progress in the face of support of our undocumented students are in line entrenched institutional practices and historically with New Jersey’s landscape as the third-most defined community challenges. This is hard but immigrant-dense state in the nation. We have worthwhile work, and I deeply believe that we owe substantially grown the support and opportunities it to Boyer and our current and future students for New Jersey DREAMers with the on-the-ground to try to make it happen. LE advocacy and engagement of students, faculty in our legal clinics, student affairs staff, and partners in the immigrant rights advocacy community.28 NOTES Similarly, our New Jersey Scholarship and 1. Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of Transformative Education in Prisons (NJ-STEP) the Professoriate (New York: Carnegie Foundation for program, coordinating multiple “stackable the Advancement of Teaching and John Wiley & institutions” across the state to teach in six Sons, 1990). New Jersey prison facilities, is also bringing 2. Charles Tilly, Durable Inequality (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998). generations of formerly incarcerated students to gain bachelor degrees at Rutgers. Working 3. Ernest L. Boyer, “Creating the New American

College,” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, 1994. Ferguson Michael together with nonprofit groups like the New

54 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 4. “Economics A to Z,” Economist, accessed March 23, 18. See Julie Ellison and Timothy K. Eatman, 2020, https://www.economist.com/economics-a-to-z. Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure 5. Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson, “Is Education Policy in the Engaged University (Syracuse, NY: a Public Good or a Private Good?” Chronicle of Higher Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, Education, January 18, 2011. 2008). See also Nancy Cantor and Steven D. Lavine, “Taking Public Scholarship Seriously,” Chronicle of See William H. Frey, Diversity Explosion: How Racial 6. Higher Education, June 9, 2006. Demographics Are Remaking America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015). 19. See Nancy Cantor and Steven Schomberg, “Poised Between Two Worlds: The University as Monastery Katherine W. Phillips, “What Is the Real Value of 7. and Marketplace,” EDUCAUSE Review 38, no. 2 Diversity in Organizations? Questioning Our Assump- PERSPECTIVES (March/April 2003): 12–21. tions,” in Scott E. Page, The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy 20. Jeanna Smialek, “Nobel Economics Prize Goes to (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), Pioneers in Reducing Poverty,” New York Times, October 223–45. 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/ business/nobel-economics.html. 8. See Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan, “Mobility Report 21. See Sjur Bergen and Ira Harkavy, eds., Higher Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Education for Diversity, Social Inclusion and Community: Mobility,” National Bureau of Economic Research A Democratic Imperative, Council of Europe Higher Working Paper no. 23618, July 2017. Education Series no. 22 (Council of Europe, August 2018); “The Talloires Network,” Tufts University, accessed 9. See Anthony P. Carnevale, Martin Van Der Werf, March 30, 2020, https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/. Michael C. Quinn, Jeff Strohl, and Dmitri Repnikov, Our Separate & Unequal Public Colleges: How Public 22. “The Inclusion Project,” Rutgers University–Newark, Colleges Reinforce White Privilege and Marginalize Black accessed May 26, 2020, http://theinclusionproject. and Latino Students (Washington, DC: Center on rutgers.edu/. Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University, 23. See a summary article on many of our anchor 2018). institution engagements, “Tackling ‘The Two Americas’ 10. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in with City-Wide Collaboration in Newark,” Journal on Science and Engineering (Alexandria, VA: National Anchor Institutions and Communities 2 (2019). See Science Foundation, National Center for Science and also, Express Newark, accessed May 26, 2020, https:// Engineering Statistics, 2015). www.expressnewark.org/. 11. Claude Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes 24. “Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Affect Us and What We Can Do (New York: Norton & Campus Centers,” Association of American Colleges Company, 2010). and Universities, accessed March 26, 2020, https:// 12. George J. Sanchez, “Crossing Figueroa: The www.aacu.org/trht-campus-centers. Tangled Web of Diversity and Democracy,” Foreseeable 25. “Healing Sounds of Newark,” Events, Rutgers Futures, no. 4, Position Papers from Imagining America: University–Newark, March 22, 2018, www.newark. Artists and Scholars in Public Life, from 2004 Dewey rutgers.edu/events/healing-sounds-newark. Lecture, University of Michigan. 26. “Listen Up! NJPAC, Rutgers-Newark to Amplify 13. Stephanie A. Fryberg and Ernesto J. Martinez, eds., Newark Voices through Jazz and Poetry with $1.5 The Truly Diverse Faculty: New Dialogues on Diversity in Million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant,” News, Higher Education (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Rutgers University–Newark, October 3, 2019, https:// 14. Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered. www.newark.rutgers.edu/news/listen-njpac-rutgers- newark-amplify-newark-voices-through-jazz-and-poetry- 15. Kurt Lewin, Resolving Social Conflicts: Selected 15-million-andrew-w. Papers on Group Dynamics (1935–1946), ed. Gertrude W. Lewin (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948). 27. See David Kirp, “An Honors College That Honors Grit,” New York Times, May 22, 2018, https://www. 16. Ira Harkavy, Nancy Cantor, and Myra Burnett, nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/honors-college-rutgers. Realizing STEM Equity and Diversity through Higher html. The piece featured the Honors Living-Learning Education Community Engagement, January 2015. See Community, concluding, “Imagine what would happen if also Biennial Report to Congress 2017–2018, Committee this model went nationwide.” See also “Where Academic on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, Excellence Requires Passion for Social Good,” PBS https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/activities/ceose/reports/ NewsHour, October 16, 2018, https://www.pbs.org/video/ CEOSE_ReportToCongress_RP_FVmp_508.pdf. rethinking-college-1539725787/. 17. The NSF program on “Navigating the New Arctic” 28. “Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project calls for proposals with diverse community partners and (RICAP),” Rutgers University–Newark, accessed March the reports to our CEOSE Committee on the New Artic 26, 2020, https://law.rutgers.edu/rutgers-immigrant- work were very encouraging in including indigenous community-assistance-project-ricap. populations. See “Navigating the New Arctic,” National Science Foundation, accessed May 26, 2020, https:// 29. Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered. www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=505594. Michael Ferguson Michael

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 55 STEPHANIE KRUSEMARK AND GEORGE WHITE Relationships Drive Success How peer mentoring empowers students PERSPECTIVES This year, the global COVID-19 pandemic Strada Gallup Alumni Survey data shows that changed every area of the higher education college graduates are two times more likely to experience, from enrollment to commencement. be engaged at work if they had a mentor in One of the greatest threats has been to rela- college who encouraged them to pursue their tionships and community. Without classes, goals and dreams.2 Another study found that dorms, dining halls, clubs, and study groups, “mentorship can have a positive impact upon college students lack the points of social connec- the learning experience by improving assess- tion integral to student satisfaction and success. ment performance, reducing stress and anxiety, Peer mentorship is a solution: a location-agnostic enhancing participation and engagement in support network in which every student is the academic community and [adding] value to empowered to form the relationships they need student outcomes.”3 Based on this and other to build resilience, self-efficacy, and a sense of research, peer mentorship should not be con- belonging in a chaotic time. sidered an optional service but a required pillar of an institution’s student success strategy.4 What peer mentorship is and is not Mentor Collective (MC) partners with Within higher education, mentoring is often universities to match students with relevant used interchangeably with other strategies, trained peers, professionals, or alumni mentors such as advising, counseling, and coaching, through MC’s customized online platform and though the goals of these strategies are all dis- program team. Since its founding in 2014, MC tinct from the goal of peer mentorship.1 Faculty has conducted extensive research on more than advising is a directorial, hierarchical relation- forty thousand peer mentoring relationships to ship in which students often do not feel com- isolate the value of peer mentoring. While fortable admitting challenges. Some students typically underfunded relative to other student seek mentoring through support structures, peer mentoring often has an A peer mentor/mentee relationship LinkedIn or alumni net- outsize impact on student success, particularly provides students with someone who working platforms, but when institutions leverage technology and design offers empathy, trust, some core these tools offer little a program to fit the size and needs of their specific knowledge and understanding of the opportunity to establish student population. institution, and a shared point of view structured personal rela- In February 2020, MC conducted a often lacking in traditional advising. tionships over time. meta-analysis across fifteen of its programs from Students may consider their academic tutor a 2016 to 2019, investigating the impact of mentor- mentor, but the goal of that relationship is ship on retention. The institutions with the solidly rooted in academic coursework, often programs varied in size and type, from small, pri- with no other areas of a student’s life addressed. vate liberal arts colleges to large, public state A peer mentor/mentee relationship provides schools, with a total sample size of 9,203. In students with someone who offers empathy, analyzing the effect of mentorship on mentored trust, some core knowledge and understanding and unmentored populations, MC found that of the institution, and a shared point of view on average retention increased 3.84 percent. often lacking in traditional advising. The 2018 Peer mentorship at Lehigh University STEPHANIE KRUSEMARK is vice president of university In the fall of 2017, Lehigh University’s Center relations and innovation at Mentor Collective. for Student Access and Success conducted a GEORGE WHITE is professor emeritus of education series of focus groups with first-generation, and inaugural managing director of student access lower-income, and other underrepresented and success (retired) at Lehigh University. students. The goals of the focus groups were to

56 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Lehigh University bringing, and connecting, allstudentsto the through theonlineplatform. logged morethanfivethousand conversations program, a70percentopt-inrate. Thesepairshave mentor/student matchesin the undergraduate program atLehighboastsmore than1,110peer within twenty-fourhours. financial troubles,andthehelpdeskresponds student maybefacing,suchasacademicor alert administratorstolargerchallengesa to content. Mentorscanalsousetheplatform aswellotherrelevantresearch-based guides, provides accesstomorethanfortydiscussion between studentsandmentors.Theplatformalso online platformfacilitatedeasycommunication After thematchingprocesswascomplete, concepts likeself-efficacyandactivelistening. on settingexpectationsandunderstanding mentor attendedaliveonlinetrainingfocused the benefitsofhavingamentor. Everyvolunteer campaigns engagedstudentsandcommunicated first-year students.Emailandtext-message mentorship programforall1,500incoming Lehigh University. vice presidentforequityandcommunityat and thatwholefirstyear,” saysDonaldOuting, help guidethemthroughthoseearlyweeks experience andtraining,someonewhocould a deeprelationshipwithsomeoneolderwhohad because studentsfeltdifferentanddisconnected. that transitioningtocampuslifewasdifficult tracking, andassessment,couldaddressfeedback ized peermentorshipprogram,withcleargoals, campus, Lehigh’s leadershipdecidedthataformal of informalmentorshipexistedthroughout large-scale peermentorship.Whilesmallpockets were enrolled.Abigtakeawaywastheneedfor how toincreaseasenseofbelongingoncestudents high schoolandbeginningofthefallsemester students duringthesummerbetweenendof determine howtoreducethelossofprospective “We installedtheprogram asakeytoolin Now, initssecondyear, thepeermentorship Lehigh partneredwithMCtodevelopa “We wantedtheincomingstudentstohave

- Communicatio Mentees’ Self-Efficacy,” “Mentoring ProgramasanInstrument ofEnhancing Zaiedy, AsmuniAb Ghani,andNajihahOmar, Azman Ismail,Nor’AinAbdullah, NorshaffikaIzzaty Business andPsychology Success: ASocialExchangePerspective,” Support, Satisfaction,andPerceptions ofCareer Step-Ahead, andPeerMentoringonProtégés’ and SusanE.Murphy, “ComparisonofTraditional, See additionalresearch:EllenA.Ensher, CraigThomas, 4. and LifelongLearning Retention andAcademicSuccess,” and PositiveEffectsonStudentMentor Mentee Michael SnowdenandTracey 3. Hardy, “PeerMentorship com/education/194264/strada-gallup-alumni-survey.aspx. Gallup, accessedMarch24,2020,https://www.gallup. 2. “MeasuringCollegeandUniversityOutcomes,” https://journals.psu.edu/mentor/article/view/61280/60913. The Mentor:AnAcademicAdvisingJournal of DevelopmentalRelationshipsinHigherEducation,” “Advising, Counseling,Coaching,Mentoring:Models 1. AllisonE.McWilliams andLaurenR.Beam, lets meplanoutmystepsmorecarefully.” can relateto,”hesays,“allowsforlessstressand path ofstartingcollege.“Havingsomeoneyou been ahelpfulguidedownthechallenging small andbigthings,”saysoneLehighstudent. someone toturnforhelpandguidanceboth peer mentors.” of engagementbetweenmenteesandtheir ticularly excitedtoseethetremendousquality Lehigh campus,”Outingsays.“We werepar NOTES Another studentsaysthathismentorhas “It’s beenreallycomfortingtoknowIhave L a r e b i 9,no.1(2015): 14–32. l

E tion o i at c u d 14(2012):76–92. 15, no.3(2001),419–43; Acta Universitatis Danubius W r e t n i Widening Participation /S g n i r p 15 (2013), Journal of 2020

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- 57 opt-in rate. rate. opt-in a70 percent had has first-year students for incoming mentorship program Lehigh University’s

PERSPECTIVES KEVIN P. REILLY Get a Job and Get a Life— with James Joyce Why reading the “jocoserious” Joyce is useful fun

The last time I taught James Joyce was in 2010, when the questioning of the “usefulness” of the humanities was already underway. A bit before then, the University of Wisconsin System and the University of Wisconsin–Madison both had developed purposeful statements on what baccalaureate-degree earners ought to know and be able to do. These essential learning outcomes included ethical reasoning, international knowledge and competence, critical and creative thinking, and other valuable traits and abilities the humanities can help foster. When I asked the thirty-five or so bright Madison undergraduates in the course if they had any acquaintance with these learning goals, my heart sank amid the solid silence. So instead of talking in that class session about why Finnegans Wake does not sport the possessive apostrophe, we discussed what studying James Joyce had to do with developing qualities and capacities college graduates would find useful in the world beyond the campus. We scrutinized the moral paralysis in Dubliners to get at ethical reasoning, also discussing the determination of the anti-hero Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to “forge . . . the uncreated conscience of my race.” We talked about how ethical living for the budding artist Joyce required him to fly by what he saw as the “nets” of conventional Irish nationality, language, and religion. What more dazzling way to cultivate MY VIEW the international knowledge and competence outcome than to struggle We can forget that our job as with the many languages in Finnegans Wake—which the border-hopping Joyce said was “basically English” but is filled with multilingual puns? educators is not only to help ensure For the critical and creative thinking learning goal, what about analyzing the livelihood of our students but how the structure of Ulysses transposes the challenges and lessons of also to enhance their liveliness in Homer’s Odyssey to a modern urban setting? Students reading Ulysses all its human manifestations. for the first time are often amazed at how Joyce’s working the ancient Greek epic poem into his radically new novel exploded future expectations of this modern genre. You get it. You can acquire knowledge, understanding, and habits of mind by studying Joyce that are invaluable in a variety of ways and that many employers would like to see in their employees. What multinational organization, for instance, does not want professionals who, blending accepted wisdom with forward thinking, can critically assess business problems and find creative solutions—ones that do not compromise the organization’s ethical standing in a complex, diverse global economy? And what are some of the grander, more satisfying and stimulating reasons one might want to take on this difficult author? Are the big rewards commensurate with the degree of difficulty? I say they are. The big rewards are profoundly vivifying. At the end of Portrait, Stephen Dedalus proclaims: “Welcome, O life!” Molly Bloom, the larger-than-life female lead of Ulysses, closes the novel with her lusty embrace of life and sex and love: “and yes I said yes I will Yes.” When some criticized Joyce for writing dirty books, he retorted: “If Ulysses is not fit to read, life is not fit to live.” With all the focus in higher education these days on job preparation, we can forget that our

job as educators is not only to help ensure the livelihood of our students but also to enhance their Ryan Bloom liveliness in all its human manifestations. We can forget that these two purposes are mutually reinforcing in helping students find their way in the world. So, in this context, what makes Joyce so worth reading? Why do I like him so much? I’ll mention three reasons, each triggered by a snippet of his own language.

KEVIN P. REILLY is president emeritus of and regent professor in the University of Wisconsin System. He is also a senior fellow with the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

58 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 Get a Job and Get a Life— with James Joyce MY VIEW

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 59 1. Joyce encourages us to not take ourselves while asserting his pride in identifying with or our place in the universe too seriously and the country to which his family immigrated. to see the individual’s connections to the “Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life regeneration of the life around us. for men and women, insult and hatred.

MY VIEW a way a lone a last a loved a long the And everybody knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life. riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius What? says Alf. vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite and Environs. of hatred. . . . The first quotation is the ending ofFinnegans By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will.” Wake, the final words on its last page. The (said by the nationalist Irish “Citizen”) longer, second quotation comprises the first words on the book’s opening page. To read For the slippery Joyce, this passage is a disarm- Finnegans Wake, we have to start at the end ingly straightforward, explicit declaration by and end at the start. As the First Woman of Bloom of his attitude toward humankind. the Wake, Anna Livia Plurabelle, is passing Bloom makes it a sharp poke in the eye of the away alone, while her anonymous “Citizen,” a modern version of the Reading Joyce now can help watery parallel, Dublin’s one-eyed Cyclops, who in Homer’s Odyssey young Americans form their own River Liffey, is passing out eats two of Odysseus’s sailors and threatens to considered positions on how into Dublin Bay to begin consume the rest. Lacking the perspective that their nation should relate to the the recirculation cycle of two eyes provide, the Cyclops-like Citizen is a water. The individual may brute of a man who sees in his limited, insular variety of its residents and to die, but life and renewal way the world divided into us and them. Bloom, other peoples around the globe. in other individuals and a Jewish Irishman whose father was a Hungarian in the natural world go on immigrant, is definitely “seen” as one of “them” in (indeed, Anna Livia is thinking about her Celtic Catholic Ireland. The irony of the strongly children right to the end). Catholic Citizen wanting to crucify his Jewish The form of Finnegans Wake is circular. countryman is not lost on Bloom. Nevertheless, Things come round again. New Finnegans wake. when the Citizen tauntingly asks him what nation That’s why the title has no apostrophe. It’s is his, Bloom retorts emphatically: “Ireland. . . . about the big-picture comedy of new begin- I was born here. Ireland.” nings, not the tragedy of the unbending, Joyce has lots of fun with references to eyes unconnected, singular straight line. throughout this Cyclops chapter: “He rubs his It’s a roundly un-self-centered book. It sug- hand in his eye” and “with his cod’s eye on the gests we need to look beyond ourselves to make dog” and “the sight nearly left my eyes.” Allud- sense of the world. In a time when technology ing to Odysseus’s final blinding of the Cyclops enables our students to create increasingly by driving a pointed stick into his eye, Joyce customized bubbles of their own interests, their has Bloom say to the Citizen: “You don’t grasp own friends, their own beliefs—maybe even my point.” their own facts—it insists on the power of Joyce came from an Irish nationalist family constantly renewing wider horizons. who were avid supporters of the nineteenth- The optimal way to read the dense language century Irish Parliamentary Party leader Charles of the Wake is out loud as part of a group. Stewart Parnell. One of the most famous pieces of Bringing multiple eyes, voices, and ears to Joyce’s writing, the Christmas dinner scene in make sense of its sounds—ideally with people Portrait, is a fierce debate over the meaning of with knowledge of different languages—opens Irish patriotism. Though a voluntary exile on the its wonders and sparks roiling discussions. Continent, Joyce looked back to Ireland through- out his life, even as his physical vision failed. 2. Joyce has his main character in Ulysses, As Seamus Heaney’s poem “Gravities” has it: Leopold Bloom, stare down the threat of Blinding in Paris, for his party-piece narrow, ethnic- and religion-based nationalism, Joyce named the shops along O’Connell Street

60 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 But he warns, with eye jokes that mock the in some moisture from the atmosphere. Students one-I/one-us-alone mindset, that blind patrio- are often impatient with the old. They can press tism of the Citizen’s variety is ignorant and to know just how much of the past—history, self-defeating. dead languages, geology, old grammatical forms, At this very moment our students find and so on—they need to absorb in the course of themselves in the middle of a virulent shouting their education to clearly see their way forward. MY VIEW match about what it means to be an American. Joyce’s friend Ezra Pound famously said: Does a true American patriot welcome or turn “Make it new.” Joyce was determined to take away immigrants? Should America play a larger the form and substance of literature to places or smaller part on the world stage? What roles, they had never gone before. He was, in today’s if any, should race, ethnicity, and religion have parlance, an unparalleled “disrupter,” and a in determining just how genuinely American gleeful one at that. Yet he understood that one is or can become? The thoroughgoing hard-won knowledge of tradition is the ground internationalist and committed Irish patriot for serious innovation. To wring in the new, Joyce, who started his life in an Ireland that you need to know something about the old had been in revolt against English colonization you’re wringing out, or what’s a college for— off and on for centuries and who lived most of whether it’s Joyce’s University College Dublin his life as an emigrant in a Europe riven by two or the University of Wisconsin? world wars, had sophisticated views on these Thinkers like Heraclitus, Pound, and Joyce kinds of questions. Reading Joyce now can were always thinking through what they knew help young Americans form their own consid- to grasp at what new thinking they could build ered positions on how their nation should upon it. It’s a habit students can learn from the relate to the variety of its residents and to likes of them. other peoples around the globe. 4. Only more games 3. Joyce relishes the old, reaches for the new, Joyce’s wife Nora would scold him about drinking and charms with his language and learning. too much on nights when the parting glass never seemed to arrive. But Jim could never swig enough Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! alcohol—or life. His fellow Irish modernist and disciple, Samuel Beckett, said that while he These words are from a scene in Finnegans Wake himself was “working with impotence, ignorance,” in which two Irish washerwomen perch on Joyce was “tending towards omniscience and either side of the River Liffey, gossiping as they omnipotence.” Indeed, the title of one of Beck- wash out their employers’ clothes and dirty ett’s more famous plays makes the point about sheets. They are airing their dirty linen in public, how he saw his own artistic material: Endgame. so to speak. Always the ardent and supple punster, For Joyce, there is no endgame, only more games. Joyce undoubtedly has variants of this exchange Reading him always reminds me of two lines in mind: “Bring on the close. Then start anew.” from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden Specifically, he echoes here: “Ring out the old. of Verses: “The world is so full of a number of Ring in the new.” That catch phrase refers to things / I’m sure we should all be as happy as the New Year’s practice of ringing church bells kings.” Joyce seemed to want to name more than to send out the old year and welcome in the his fair share of those things, to show us in new one. The calendar makes time new when language things that had not been shown that it marks the beginning of another twelve-month way before, in all their glory and folly. Struggling cycle. Just as laundering is a way to make clothes to comprehend the what, how, and why of that new to be freshly worn again, Joyce’s punning is kind of very human, yet herculean, effort is no a way to fill old language with new meaning. small part of getting a good higher education. Flowing water is always new. The Greek Incidentally, it can help students in preparing philosopher Heraclitus proclaimed that when for a demanding job, too—one that might well you stepped into the same spot in a river a sec- require an other-centered emotional intelligence, ond time, it was new water and in effect a differ- an international perspective, an eye for the future ent river. But in dewy Dublin, when the based on an understanding of the past, and an washerwomen pull the clothes from the river to appreciation for the fluidity of language. wring them dry, they can’t avoid wringing back Thank you, Jim. LE

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 61 Cantor, Nancy. Transforming the Academy: The INDEX Urgency of Recommitting Higher Education to INDEX TO VOLUMES 105 (NO. 1–3/4) the Public Good—106 (1/2): 48 AND 106 (NO. 1/2) Cherwitz, Richard A. Seeing Is Believing: Timely ISSUE THEMES Lessons from Communication Research in the Wake of COVID-19—105 (3/4): 44 Vol. 105 No. 1 (Winter): The Confounding Promise of Cherwitz, Richard A. Why Become a Public Community: Why It Matters More Than Ever Intellectual? Reflections of a Communication for Student Success Scholar—105 (1): 38 No. 2 (Spring): The 2019 Annual Meeting: Chung, Leeva C., and Daniel McArdle-Jaimes. Raising Our Voices: Reclaiming the Narrative The Real World in the Classroom: Community on the Value of Higher Education Engagement Meets Hands-On Career—105 (1): 24 No. 3/4 (Summer/Fall): Work and the Purpose Davidson, Cathy N. Why We Need a New Higher of College Education: We Have a Responsibility to the Next Generation of Students—105 (2): 6 Vol. 106 No. 1/2 (Winter/Spring) Democracy in Action Ensign, Margee. The National Security Threat We Are Ignoring: The Failure of American Education to Prepare Students for the Future—105 (3/4): 24 Anderson, Kyle David, and Kyaw Moe Tun. Liberal Education for a Troubled Democracy: Esquilin, Marta Elena, and Timothy K. Eatman. Cultivating Change Agents at Myanmar’s Parami Cultivating Publicly Engaged Scholars: Rutgers University—105 (3/4): 48 University–Newark Is Revolutionizing Honors and Leveraging Local Talent—105 (1): 12 Allison, Chris. A Liberal Arts Approach to Business: Beating the Competition through Constant Finley, Ashley. A Confounding Promise—105 (1): 4 Adaptation—105 (3/4): 12 Heffernan, Kerrissa, and Mary C. Wright. Aragoni, Christen. Democracy in Action—106 Collective Muscle: How Partnerships between (1/2): 4 Faculty Members and Athletic Coaches Can Serve Our Academic Missions—105 (3/4): 54 Aragoni, Christen. How to Get to NASA and Other HIP Advice: Librarian Caroline Coward Imad, Mays. Reimagining STEM Education: Talks about What the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Beauty, Wonder, and Connection—105 (2): 30 Looks for When Hiring—105 (3/4): 18 Jones, Tiffany, Victoria Jackson, and Jaime Ramirez- Aragoni, Christen. Raising Our Voices—105 (2): 4 Mendoza. Borrowing while Black: Understanding What Makes Student Debt a Crisis for Black Aragoni, Christen. Welcome to Our House—105 Students—106 (1/2): 14 (2): 20 Kaplan, Stephen. Combating Transition Stress Aragoni, Christen. Work and the Purpose of among Student Veterans: Building a Community College—105 (3/4): 4 from the Ground Up—106 (1/2): 38 Bitar, Jinann. The Higher Education Act: Kanter, Martha, and Anjana Venkatesan. The Opportunities for Bipartisan Reform—106 (1/2): 8 Promise of College: Opening New Pathways to Bolling, William T. Making the Policy Case: the American Dream—106 (1/2): 20 A Former State Politician Offers Insight on How Keating, Jennifer. R. U. Robot Ready? Carnegie Higher Ed Can Better Convey Its Value and Mellon University Students Face the Societal Mission to Lawmakers—105 (2): 50 Implications of AI—105 (3/4): 42 Bouchard, Jen Westmoreland. A Meeting of Cultures: Normandale Community College’s Internationalization Initiative—105 (3/4): 33

62 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 King, W. Joseph. A Creative Legacy: To Serve Pandith, Farah. A Seat at the Table: The World Is Generation Z and Beyond, Liberal Arts Colleges Counting on Women to Speak Up—105 (2): 22 Must Redouble Their Efforts to Build on Their Pasquerella, Lynn. Game of Thrones and Educating Imaginative and Innovative Foundations—105 for Democracy—105 (1): 2 (1): 43 Pasquerella, Lynn. The Future of Higher Education Kington, Raynard S. Getting to Shared Goals: and Our Democracy in a Post-COVID-19 Alternative Ways to Achieve Social Change on World—106 (1/2): 2 Campus—105 (2): 56 Pasquerella, Lynn. The Purpose of Higher Education Krusemark, Stephanie, and George White. and Its Future—105 (3/4): 6 Relationships Drive Student Success: A Call to Scale Peer Mentoring Programs—106 (1/2): 56 Pasquerella, Lynn. The Value of Liberal Education in a Post-Truth Era—105 (2): 2 Lawrence, Frederick M. For the Love of Learning: Nonpartisan Advocacy and the Mission of the Quintero, Amanda, Geoffrey Buhl, Michelle Pajka University—105 (2): 44 Hasendonckx, Carolyn Inouye, and Joshua Ramirez. Ventura beyond the Campus: Outreach Propels Leary, Carol A. Leadership Lessons: Perspectives CSU–Channel Islands’ Work to Promote a Col- on a Twenty-Five-Year Presidency—105 (3/4): 59 lege-Going Community—105 (1): 18 Leggett, Jason. The Community in Technology: Reilly, Kevin P. Get a Job and Get a Life—with How Collaboration Drives Virtual Spaces—105 James Joyce: Why Reading the “Jocoserious” Joyce (1): 28 Is Useful Fun—106 (1/2): 58 Levine, Peter. Another Time for Freedom? Reynolds, Nedra. Something to Talk About: Lessons from the Civil Rights Era for Today’s The University of Rhode Island’s Multilingual Campuses—105 (1): 6 Graduates Go Global—105 (3/4): 30 Manninen, Bertha Alvarez, and Jack Mulder Jr. Rhodes, Terrel. The Changing Nature of Work The Philosophy of Conversation: We Owe and Careers: Higher Education as a Hub for Estab- It to Our Students to Teach Them How to lishing a Lifelong Learning System—105 (3/4): 6 Disagree—105 (1): 32 Smith, Ann Kowal. Shakespeare on the Shop Floor: McNair, Lily D. Advancing Our Vision: Breadth, Literature at Work and in the Community—105 Depth, and Impact of Diversity and Inclusion (2): 38 Work—105 (2): 14 Mintz, Evan. Take Your Ideas Mainstream: An Opinion Pages Editor Offers Tips on Writing for a Broader Readership—105 (1): 41 Morales, Marisol, and Jacqueline Perez Valencia. Seeding the Garden: Civic Transformation and Youth of Color Stepping into Their Power—106 (1/2): 32 Morgenstern, Erin. The Work College Way: Work Colleges Offer Ideas about Providing an Affordable Liberal Education and Equipping Students for Professional Success—105 (3/4): 36 Murphy, Brian. Democracy under Siege: What Are Colleges and Universities to Do?—106 (1/2): 26

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D o n o r R e c o g n i t i o n

AAC&U gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the individuals, foundations, corporations, and other organizations that have made a gift or grant to the association between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019.

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Philanthropic support makes a significant difference in enhancingAAC&U ’s capacity to serve our members and champion our mission of advancing the vitality and public standing of liberal education by making quality and equity the foundations for excellence in undergraduate education in service to democracy. We are truly grateful for all that you do to further our shared objectives. —Lynn Pasquerella, President, AAC&U

Philanthropic support has been crucial to my longtime work in faculty development, curriculum reform, and preparing future faculty in hundreds of colleges and universities. Thank you for joining me in supporting this blue-ribbon association that provides leadership for all of higher education. —Jerry G. Gaff, Distinguished Senior Fellow, AAC&U

CONFERENCE AND MEETING EAB The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi SPONSORS Google, Inc. Incheon National University Hispanic Recruitment Services, Inc. Interfaith Youth Core Platinum HP, Inc. Interfolio, Inc. Charles Koch Foundation Kaplan University Partners Johns Hopkins University Press Strada Education Network Mentor Collective Knack Technologies University of Richmond Kognito Gold OneClass Carnegie Mellon University Additional Sponsors Parchment The Chronicle of Higher Education Academic Keys, LLC PebblePad Diverse: Issues In Higher Education Ad Astra Information Systems, LLC PeopleGrove Emsi AGB Search, LLC Scantron Inside Higher Ed Art & Science Group, LLC Scholars at Risk InsideTrack Association of College and University SMART/LMI Instructure Canvas Educators Society for Values in Higher Education Microsoft Digication, Inc. Student Opportunity Center Tyton Partners Educational Testing Service Stylus Publishing, LLC United Airlines Extension Engine, LLC Technolutions University of Pittsburgh EYP Architecture & Engineering U.S. News & World Report Watermark Handshake The Washington Center for Internships and Hanover Research Council Academic Seminars Silver Harvard Graduate School of Education Wiley Education Services Bay Path University Higher Education Research Institute Worcester Polytechnic Institute Connecticut College Higher Education Resource Services (HERS) Desire2Learn HigherEdJobs

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PRESIDENTS’ TRUST Joanne E. Berger-Sweeney, Trinity College Grant H. Cornwell, Rollins College The Presidents’ Trust, established in 2008, Joseph A. Bertolino, Southern Connecticut William A. Covino, California State brings together national and international State University University–Los Angeles leaders in higher education from institutions Constance Ledoux Book, Elon University William J. Craft, Concordia College–Moorhead of every type and size to advocate for liberal Victor J. Boschini, Jr., Texas Christian Raymond W. Cross, University education and inclusive excellence. Trust University of Wisconsin System members, individually and collectively, Wallace E. Boston, Jr., American Public Ronald A. Crutcher, University of Richmond provide a public voice for the values and University System Janine Davidson, Metropolitan State practices that advance quality, equity, and Thomas J. Botzman, Misericordia University University of Denver student success in higher education. Presidents’ Randy Boyd, University of Tennessee Elizabeth Davis, Furman University Trust members give annually to AAC&U. System Office Sean Decatur, Kenyon College Elizabeth Howe Bradley, Vassar College John J. DeGioia, Georgetown University Makola M. Abdullah, Virginia State University Jonathan Brand, Cornell College Gregory G. Dell’Omo, Rider University Noura Al Kaabi, Zayed University Daan Braveman, Nazareth College Deanne H. D’Emilio, Gwynedd Mercy Michael B. Alexander, Lasell University George S. Bridges, The Evergreen State University Jonathan R. Alger, James Madison University College Mauri Ditzler, Albion College Barbara K. Altmann, Franklin and Marshall Kelli Brown, Western Carolina University Bethami A. Dobkin, Westminster College College Quintin Bullock, Community College Chris E. Domes, Neumann University Carmen Twillie Ambar, Oberlin College of Allegheny County Peter M. Donohue, Villanova University Teresa L. Amott, Knox College David W. Bushman, Bridgewater College Sandra J. Doran, Salem College Robert E. Anderson, State Higher Education Alison Byerly, Lafayette College Helen Drinan, Simmons University Executive Officers Nancy Cable, University of North Carolina Margaret L. Drugovich, Hartwick College David P. Angel, Clark University Asheville Charlene M. Dukes, Prince George’s Jeffrey D. Armstrong, California Polytechnic Ángel Cabrera, Georgia Institute Community College State University–San Luis Obispo of Technology Donald R. Eastman, III, Eckerd College John Arnold, Arizona Board of Regents Nancy Cantor, Rutgers the State University Jacqueline Edmondson, Penn State Matt Arthur, Technical College System of of New Jersey, Newark Campus Greater Allegheny Georgia Robert L. Caret, University System Taylor Eighmy, University of Texas Rebecca Ashford, Chattanooga State of Maryland at San Antonio Community College David M. Carlisle, Charles R. Drew University Janet Eisner, Emmanuel College Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Carleton University of Medicine and Science Susan J. Ellspermann, Ivy Tech Community MaryAnn Baenninger, Drew University Lori J. Carrel, University College James D. Ball, Carroll Community College of Minnesota–Rochester Marcheta P. Evans, Bloomfield College Victoria L. Bastecki-Perez, Montgomery Andrea E. Chapdelaine, Hood College Scott E. Evenbeck, Stella and County Community College Rita Cheng, Northern Arizona University Charles Guttman Community College Michael A. Baston, Rockland Community Dong-Sung Cho, Incheon National Carole Falcon-Chandler, Aaniiih Nakoda College University College Bradley W. Bateman, Randolph College Hiram E. Chodosh, Claremont McKenna John H. Feaver, University of Science Denise Battles, State University of New York College and Arts of Oklahoma at Geneseo Carol Tecla Christ, University Gregory L. Fenves, University of Texas Kimberly A. Beatty, Metropolitan Community of California–Berkeley at Austin College Donald P. Christian, State University Paul Ferguson, Azusa Pacific University Gayle D. Beebe, Westmont College of New York at New Paltz Jacquelyn S. Fetrow, Albright College Michelle Behr, University of Minnesota–Morris Lawrence S. Clark, Louisiana State University Mary C. Finger, Seton Hill University Sian Leah Beilock, Barnard College Shreveport Verna M. Fitzsimmons, Higher Education Michael T. Benson, Eastern Kentucky Shirley M. Collado, Ithaca College Resource Services (HERS) University Katherine S. Conway-Turner, Buffalo State Pamela R. Fox, Mary Baldwin University College William Fox, St. Lawrence University Paul Coreil, Louisiana State University Michael Frandsen, Wittenberg University Alexandria Lisa C. Freeman, Northern Illinois University (Continued)

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PRESIDENTS’ TRUST John I. Jenkins, University of Notre Dame Andrew D. Martin, Washington University (Continued) Alex Johnson, Cuyahoga Community College in St. Louis Kenneth R. Garren, University of Lynchburg Michael D. Johnson, John Carroll University Carolyn A. Martin, Amherst College John H. Garvey, Catholic University Paula A. Johnson, Wellesley College George E. Martin, St. Edward’s University of America Lucille A. Jordan, Nashua Community College Tisa Mason, Fort Hays State University Barbara Gellman-Danley, Higher Learning Sandra J. Jordan, University Michael A. McDonald, Great Lakes Colleges Commission of South Carolina Aiken Association Sheila Gestring, University of South Dakota Tuajuanda Jordan, St. Mary’s College of Michael McDonough, Raritan Valley Gloria J. Gibson, Northeastern Illinois Maryland Community College University Jann Luciana Joseph, Georgia Gwinnett Ann McElaney-Johnson, Mount Saint Mary’s Howard Gillman, University College University of California–Irvine Ellen Junn, California State David W. McInally, Coe College Berton Glandon, College of Western Idaho University–Stanislaus Michael A. McRobbie, Indiana University Philip A. Glotzbach, Skidmore College Marisa J. Kelly, Suffolk University James F. Mellichamp, Piedmont College David Gómez, City University of New York William G. Kelly, United States Coast Guard Joshua D. Merchant, Buena Vista University Hostos Community College Academy W. Richard Merriman, Jr., University Jonathan D. Green, Susquehanna University Thomas L. Keon, Purdue University Northwest of Mount Union David Greene, Colby College Harvey Kesselman, Stockton University Belinda S. Miles, Westchester Community Jorge Haddock, University of Puerto Rico Timothy L. Killeen, University of Illinois College Jeremy Haefner, University of Denver System Fayneese S. Miller, Hamline University Lesley M. Hallick, Pacific University W. Joseph King, Lyon College Scott D. Miller, Virginia Wesleyan University Dennis M. Hanno, Wheaton College Raynard Stuart Kington, Grinnell College Tanya Millner-Harlee, Manchester Colleen M. Hanycz, La Salle University John C. Knapp, Washington & Jefferson Community College Maria Harper-Marinick, Maricopa County College Thomas J. Minar, Franklin College Community College Anne Kress, Monroe Community College Steve Minkler, Middlesex Community Kathleen E. Harring, Muhlenberg College Thomas Krise, University of Guam College James T. Harris, III, University of San Diego Bruce Kusch, Latter-Day Saints Business Thomas M. Mitzel, Dickinson State Dianne F. Harrison, California State College University University–Northridge Amirlan Kussainov, Kazakh-American Christopher Molloy, Rutgers the State Marjorie Hass, Rhodes College University University of New Jersey, New Brunswick Susan S. Hasseler, Muskingum University Frederick M. Lawrence, Phi Beta Kappa Campus Nathan O. Hatch, Wake Forest University Carol A. Leary, Bay Path University Tomás D. Morales, California State Brian O. Hemphill, Radford University Paul J. LeBlanc, Southern New Hampshire University–San Bernardino Sue W. Henderson, New Jersey City University University Jere W. Morehead, University of Georgia Gregory Hess, Wabash College Douglas G. Lee, Waynesburg University Barbara Jean Morris, State University Junko Hibiya, International Christian Daniel E. Lemons, Herbert H. Lehman of New York College at Oneonta University College–City University of New York Maureen Murphy, College of Southern Christopher E. Hopey, Merrimack College Laurie A. Leshin, Worcester Polytechnic Maryland Guiyou Huang, Edinboro University Institute Kathleen M. Murray, Whitman College of Pennsylvania Devorah A. Lieberman, University of M. Duane Nellis, Ohio University Anthony Iacono, County College of Morris La Verne Mark R. Nemec, Fairfield University George K. Iwama, Quest University Canada Ronald D. Liebowitz, Brandeis University Christopher Norton, The Washington Center Joseph G. Jabbra, Lebanese American Hilary L. Link, Allegheny College for Internships and Academic Seminars University Brian Linnane, Loyola University Maryland Elsa Núñez, Eastern Connecticut State Cynthia Jackson-Hammond, Dennis Sheldon Littky, College Unbound University Central State University Cheryl D. Lovell, Adams State University Robert K. Nye, Finger Lakes Community Joyce P. Jacobsen, Hobart and William Smith John R. Loyack, Alvernia University College Colleges Joanne C. MacLean, University Haifa Reda Jamal Al-Lail, Effat University of the Fraser Valley Jimmy R. Jenkins, Sr., Livingstone College Elaine P. Maimon, Governors State University Mary B. Marcy, Dominican University of California

66 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 D o n o r R e c o g n i t i o n

PRESIDENTS’ TRUST Celeste M. Schenck, The American Ramon S. Torrecilha, Westfield State (Continued) University of Paris University Eduardo M. Ochoa, California State Melvyn D. Schiavelli, Northern Virginia Melinda Dawn Treadwell, Keene State College University–Monterey Bay Community College Ashish Vaidya, Northern Kentucky University Judy Olian, Quinnipiac University Mark Schlissel, University of Michigan Lori E. Varlotta, Hiram College Santa J. Ono, University of British Columbia Mary Schmidt Campbell, Spelman College Framroze Virjee, California State Donal O’Shea, New College of Florida Claudia Schrader, City University of New University–Fullerton Linda Oubré, Whittier College York Kingsborough Community College Kerry Walk, Marymount Manhattan College Troy D. Paino, University of Mary Washington William T. Scroggins, Mt. San Antonio Suzanne Walsh, Bennett College Al M. Panu, University of South Carolina College Jenifer K. Ward, Luther College Beaufort Andrew J. Seligsohn, Campus Compact Patrick Gregory Warden, Franklin University Mary Papazian, San Jose State University National Office Switzerland Thomas Parham, California State University– Brian J. Shanley, Providence College Dwight C. Watson, University of Dominguez Hills Dennis J. Shields, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core Wisconsin-Platteville Adam S. Weinberg, Denison University Bart Patterson, Nevada State College Patricia Sims, J.F. Drake State Community Jann Weitzel, Cottey College Robert W. Pearigen, Millsaps College and Technical College Alisa White, Austin Peay State University M. Lee Pelton, Emerson College Ronald A. Slepitza, Avila University David Wilson, Morgan State University Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, Oakland University Rodney D. Smith, University of The Bahamas Ed Wingenbach, Hampshire College John J. Petillo, Sacred Heart University Valerie Smith, Swarthmore College Meredith J. Woo, Sweet Briar College Sarah Pfatteicher, Five Colleges, Incorporated Barbara R. Snyder, Case Western Reserve Gregory S. Woodward, University of Hartford Dianna G. Phillips, Harford Community University David Woolstenhulme, Utah System College Christine J. Sobek, Waubonsee Community of Higher Education John A. Pieper, St. Louis College of Pharmacy College Daniel A. Wubah, Millersville University DeRionne P. Pollard, Montgomery College A. Clayton Spencer, Bates College of Pennsylvania Mark Poorman, University of Portland Deborah Stanley, State University Leocadia I. Zak, Agnes Scott College Paul C. Pribbenow, Augsburg University of New York at Oswego Mark L. Putnam, Central College G. Gabrielle Starr, Pomona College Kelly Quintanilla, Texas A&M University– David Steele-Figueredo, Woodbury University THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT Corpus Christi Carolyn J. Stefanco, College of Saint Rose AAC&U would like to recognize the Tim Rahilly, Mount Royal University Joseph Steinmetz, University of Arkansas following donors for their commitment Sabah Randhawa, Western Washington at Fayetteville to advancing liberal education and University John Stewart, University of Montevallo inclusive excellence in higher education. Edward J. Ray, Oregon State University Larry Stimpert, Hampden-Sydney College John C. Reynders, Morningside College Kumble R. Subbaswamy, University Yolanda B. Anderson Richard M. Rhodes, Austin Community of Massachusetts Amherst Brooke Barnett College District Steven Sullivan, American University Pearl W. Bartelt Kathy Brittain Richardson, Westminster in Bulgaria Katherine Bergeron College Kent D. Syverud, Syracuse University Derek Bok Christine M. Riordan, Adelphi University Donald Taylor, Cabrini University Elizabeth S. Boylan Larry A. Robinson, Florida A&M University Cynthia Teniente-Matson, Texas A&M David F. Brakke Isabel Roche, Bennington College University–San Antonio Paula P. Brownlee Havidán Rodriguez, University at Albany, Lewis Thayne, Lebanon Valley College Nancy Budwig State University of New York David A. Thomas, Morehouse College John W. Chandler Katrina S. Rogers, Fielding Graduate Aaron Thompson, Kentucky Council Alma R. Clayton-Pedersen University on Postsecondary Education Lee Ann Clements Rodney Rogers, Bowling Green State John Thrasher, Florida State University William J. Craft University Jill Tiefenthaler, Colorado College Mary Crowe Brian Rosenberg, Macalester College Mary Todd, The Honor Society Ronald A. Crutcher William N. Ruud, Marietta College of Phi Kappa Phi Beth A. Cunningham Nayef H. Samhat, Wofford College Christopher C. Dahl Kim Schatzel, Towson University (Continued)

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 67 D o n o r R e c o g n i t i o n

(Continued) William Davis Mays Imad Robert L. Pura Judith A. Dilts Carrie Johnson Edward J. Ray Timothy K. Eatman Tuajuanda Jordan Gary Reiness Royce C. Engstrom David Kanis Cristina Rios Scott E. Evenbeck George D. Kuh Shadow Robinson Ann S. Ferren Paul G. Lannon Carol Geary Schneider Amy Ferrer Carol A. Leary Pamela E. Scott-Johnson Ashley P. Finley Pamela M. Leggett-Robinson Judith R. Shapiro Andrew Flagel Laurie A. Leshin Susan Singer George B. Forsythe Lisa B. Lewis Beverly Daniel Tatum Jerry Gaff Theodore E. Long Orlando L. Taylor Philip A. Glotzbach Mary Majerus Christopher Thaiss David Theo Goldberg Saundra McGuire Mary Ann Villarreal Jonathan D. Green Tia Brown McNair Tamily Weissman-Unni Richard Guarasci Brian Murphy Ralph Wilcox R. Stanton Hales Sylvia F. Nadler Frederick A. Winter Lilia C. Harvey Elsa Núñez Kathleen M. Woodward Marjorie Hass Mary Papazian Elisabeth A. Zinser Mary Dana Hinton Lynn Pasquerella Debra Humphreys Gregory S. Prince, Jr.

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68 L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 2020 AAC&U BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair Jonathan R. Alger David Theo Goldberg Robert L. Pura William J. Craft President, Director, University of California President Emeritus, President, Concordia College James Madison University Humanities Research Institute Greenfield Community College; Senior Fellow, Community Vice Chair Brooke Barnett Marjorie Hass College Leadership, University Lenore Rodicio Dean of the College of President, Rhodes College of Massachusetts Boston Executive Vice President and Communication, Mary Dana Hinton Provost, Miami Dade College Butler University Mary Ann Villareal President, Vice President for Equity, Past Chair Katherine Bergeron College of Saint Benedict Diversity, and Inclusion, Carol A. Leary President, Connecticut College Tuajuanda C. Jordan University of Utah President, Brandon Busteed President, St. Mary’s College Bay Path University Ralph Wilcox President, of Maryland Provost and Executive Treasurer Kaplan University Partners Paul G. Lannon Vice President, Alex Johnson Nancy J. Cable Partner, Holland & Knight University of South Florida President, Cuyahoga Chancellor, University of Community College Laurie Leshin Kathleen Woodward North Carolina at Asheville President, Lockwood Professor in the President of AAC&U Ronald A. Crutcher Worcester Polytechnic Institute Humanities and Professor of Lynn Pasquerella President, English; Director, Simpson Mary A. Papazian Ex Officio, University of Richmond Center for the Humanities, President, Interim Chair, University of Washington Timothy K. Eatman San José State University ACAD Board Inaugural Dean, Honors Living- Paula O’Loughlin Learning Community; Associate Provost and Dean of Faculty, Professor of Urban Education, Coe College Rutgers University–Newark

LIBERAL EDUCATION EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Katherine Bergeron Lane Earns Adrianna J. Kezar Seth Pollack Connecticut College University of University of Southern California California State University– Wisconsin–Oshkosh Monterey Bay Nancy Budwig Thomas Nelson Laird Clark University Reza Fakhari Indiana University Benjamin D. Reese Jr. St. Francis College Duke University J. Micheal Crafton Daniel J. McInerney University of West Georgia Sandra Flake Utah State University Jesús Treviño California State Leadership in Diversity Group Gwendolyn Jordan Dungy Yolanda T. Moses University–Chico NASPA–Student Affairs University of Administrators in Cheryl Foster California–Riverside Higher Education University of Rhode Island Terry O’Banion Paul Hanstedt League for Innovation in Washington and Lee University the Community College

L i b e r a l E d u c at i o n W i n t e r /S p r i n g 2020 69 Association of American Colleges and Universities

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