From left to right clockwise: Dr. Michael Gavin of Delta College; Patricia A. McGuire of Trinity Washington University; Dr. Michael S. Roth of Wesleyan University, and Eric Mlyn, director of the Democracy and Politics of American Higher Education project at Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics.
Moderated by Eric Mlyn, director of the Democracy and Politics of American Higher Education project at Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics, the discussion featured Dr. Michael Gavin, President of Delta College; Patricia A. McGuire, President of Trinity Washington University; and Dr. Michael S. Roth, President of Wesleyan University.
McGuire, who leads the small, private Catholic University in Washington, D.C. outlined what she termed an “ideology of ignorance,” citing an assault on knowledge and expertise as foundational threats to higher education.
“Our business is knowledge,” she said. “We convey knowledge to students in order to build their expertise so they can become the citizen leaders of the future, and I look at the situation right now and I say, ‘How can I encourage my students to be as expert as possible?’”
The panelists explored how the incoming second Trump administration’s anticipated policies could create increased challenges for colleges and universities, specifically targeting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, accreditation processes and federal funding.
Gavin pointed to the implementation of a federal “playbook” from the previous Trump administration that enabled states to adopt policies aimed at marginalizing Black and Brown students.
“We've seen 176% more Black and Brown bodies on campus since 1980,” Gavin said. “We've seen in reciprocal fashion the same amount of orders that are coming either through the federal or state level legislation at different states—not all the states—in an attempt to marginalize people who have already been marginalized.”
Roth added that because of the persistent struggle between education and anti-intellectualism, higher education leaders should be calling on institutions to align more closely with democratic values and move beyond elitist paradigms.
“Why has it been so easy to get so many people to hate higher education?” Roth asked. “Now, in America, there's a long tradition of anti-intellectualism…But that's not an excuse. Our job, especially those of us who try to align higher education with democracy and not just with meritocracy or elitism, if we believe that higher education should be aligned with democracy, as I think we do, we should be asking ourselves, ‘Why have we failed to educate people in such a way that their expertise doesn't feel like condescension?’”
The discussion also addressed the role of higher education leaders in times of heightened scrutiny. Mlyn introduced the risk of anticipatory obedience to the conversation, which was explored by historian Timothy Snyder. Mlyn said that he’s “seeing lots of anticipatory obedience taking place in our sector right now,” but Gavin, McGuire and Roth agreed they are avoiding it at all costs.
“I'm making sure that everyone knows at our campus that our alignment towards completion and equity is unwavering and subsequently, we're not changing anything until it is absolutely required by law, or we lose our financial aid,” Gavin said about Delta College, the institution in Michigan, who like Trinity, has a social justice focus. “Those are the only ways in which we're changing.”
McGuire elaborated on this concept, sharing the challenges faced by marginalized communities, specifically undocumented students on campus.
“15% of our undergraduate students are undocumented…,” McGuire shared of Trinity Washington University’s student population. “We are working with immigration lawyers to be sure that if anything does happen, if anybody comes up and demands to see lists or whatever, that we know exactly how to respond.”
The panelists acknowledged that higher education institutions have their own shortcomings in addressing public perception. McGuire criticized the dominant focus on elite institutions in the media—most notably the. U.S. News & World Report’s yearly college rankings.
“We care too much about rankings,” McGuire said. “We care too much about inter-institutional competitiveness. It comes out of, I believe, the overwhelming influence of the athletics culture in the behavior of institutions,” she added.
“We want to get to the final four. We want to be in the bowl championship. Now we want to be in the first rank of U.S. News. Now we want to do everything possible to strip away the service we do to our students because we want to meet the other metrics,” she said. “This is where DEI comes in because if you're an adherent of DEI, as we are here at Trinity and we love it. But if you do that, you're not going to just score well on any of those ranking metrics.”
Gavin echoed McGuire’s sentiment and highlighted the need for community colleges and underfunded institutions to receive more resources.
“One of the solutions, and I've been on this bandwagon for about a year now, of a reimagination of what actual elite institutions are, needs to occur with funding following it in order for our higher ed promises to be made,” Gavin said. “I guarantee you that with more money coming into a community college like mine, I could transform lives in a higher level than ever before and that would be a different kind of imagination of what it means to be an elite institution.”