 Let me welcome everybody. Welcome you to the Future Trends Forum. I'm so glad you're here today We have a fantastic guest on a vital subject, and I'm really really delighted to explore Absolutely delighted to bring to the forum Virginia superior. She's a professor of political science at Boston University And in that capacity she's been studying among other things including voting She's been studying the history and politics of American higher education and she published recently a Fascinating paper on how and when colleges close and it's a fantastic document I really recommend diving into it You should have a link to it in the bottom left of your screen And that includes all the other things ways of thinking about higher education closures as part of the ecosystem as well as as part of a life cycle of Institutions it's a very deep paper which tells us a lot and gives us a lot of direction to go on and Today we're going to be exploring. So without any further ado, let me bring professor superior on stage low It's so good to see you. Thank you for coming long time. No see indeed. It's been an hour You know there's so many ways to introduce Faculty work in higher education and for me my favorite way is to ask you what you're going to be working on for the next year One of the big projects the big ideas the classes the papers the books and trips. What's what's next year for you? Okay Well, thank you everybody for coming good to meet you all and I'll look forward to our conversation I'm what I'm most looking forward to is retiring on June 30th And yes so I can For a whole variety of reasons one of which is so I can Work on this book a bit more. So let me say a little bit. I think it's important to know that not only Am I a scholar? I'm a political scientist and a researcher and a teacher But I spell spent well over a decade in higher education administration I spent Over 30 years on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Madison Where in my last number of years I was Vice provost for teaching and learning and I was interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs and then after that went over to the dark side And moved to boston university specifically to become dean of the college of arts and sciences and the graduate school of arts and sciences so so in in 2015 I went back to the faculty and took up teaching and research again But one of the major projects That I got involved in was to combine a whole lot of things that I've done for a long time To do a major work on the history of higher education in the u.s Looking at it as a political scientist would As a project of american Social and political development. I'm not interested in it for its own sake But really as it relates to the development of the american state and society So the paper that some of you may have seen and and that frames The conversation we'll have for today is not published. It's really a little working paper That I pulled out of a much much larger project really only because of the fact that in 2018 2019 people began to notice that There was a spike in the number of institutions that closed Um and in massachusetts in particular I think people became very very riveted because of the debacle that was mount ida college We have later had some other examples a much better one. We lock college that combined with my own institution um, but what disturbed me and what i'm continuing to work on now is how a historical Is the understanding of most people in higher education about our own sector My sense is that people know bloody little about The history and say some things that are really highly uninformed um And really understand institutions as all sorts of little individual organizations and not anything that connects with anything else So so this working paper was really an effort to pick things out of the news and to Frame it as I understand it. So what am I going to do? Uh in the next couple of years. Well part of the reason I decided it was time to retire at the ripe old age of 70 Is um, I really want to finish this book Um, which is going to be massive Um, it is based on about four years work in which I collected a set of discrete facts about every institution Of higher education this country and its history That was ever accredited at the baccalaureate or graduate degree. So that little outline is 700 pages I didn't intend to do that when I started out But I've always been a funky kind of scholar and once I get into something I really do it. Um, and so So this history is going to be a little different from most of the others Because I can actually build it from the ground up and think about institutional histories Um, so where it's going Um, just so you know when you can ask me anything about any of this is I've already done a large section of it Closing in on 150 pages or so, uh, which starts the book On higher education institutions and their communities Because almost all higher education institutions that were founded up through world one were founded by and in communities And so I I can talk a little bit more about that. I won't do that now I then turned to state and federal government But the core of the book the remainder of the book Will be through a set of chapters to ask a discrete set of questions that I think have Have challenged Higher education and determined its history Since the beginning in in the 1630s and that is higher education. What is it? Who gets it? How is it paid for and supported? What does it benefit and what does it have to do with the rest of the world? And who gets to be involved and so that those questions are going to frame the chapters And each one of those will be developed In a historical way so so there's that and I there's some other things but I guess I'd close by saying I farm about an acre of my 160 acres up here in New Hampshire I Work in two nonprofits. One is shelter music boston which sponsors 80 or so classical music concerts in 910 homeless shelters and rehab centers a year in boston And I helped to run a little nonprofit farm market that I found it and contribute to so so i'll have enough to do I think you'll have plenty Well, I would love to see that that book as it grows and when it's when it's done when it hits press We'd love to have you back Just to to talk about it. This is fantastic Friends, this is the part of the program where you all get to go I'm just the moderator. I'm just the mc the forum is for your questions your comments and your thoughts So if you have questions about farmers markets, we'll allow a couple of words This is a great time to ask about what happened to the higher education ecosystem What makes a college close and how that changes over time what forces they connect with And we already have a few questions and i'll bring up a couple of them right now Whoops to begin with this is one from phil katz Not too far from me here and a long time friend of the program The council of independent colleges and he says how does the analysis of the closure of colleges? Compared to the analysis of the closure of other cultural institutions such as museums or other charities That's a fabulous question. Um and I only have some Some ideas about it from my sideways glances. I've been looking at the history of higher education I know a lot more about how how Colleges and universities and their predecessors were founded In a context of the founding of other institutions for example museums and shatak was and And all sorts of things. Um I you know, my I would really have to be have to be making guesses There are a couple of things that come to mind though one is Neither other cultural institutions nor colleges and universities are paid for by the ticketing of their patrons in other words Originally no college or university has ever survived just on tuition Or has and never will Um, and that is the same of our as our other cultural institutions museums Aren't paid for just by those of us who you know pay the tab as we walk in or Certainly my ticket to the bs. Oh Doesn't support it. Um So all of these institutions which are public cultural goods survive and certainly survive at quality Only by having Important patrons whether that is Private philanthropy or increasingly since the 19th century The support of government Um, so I suspect that those other institutions that have have failed just as almost Is true of almost every College or university that's failed has done so because the other sources of patronage Have dried up And and and all of them I imagine spend some time trying to figure out the balance Between access and what they charge from its tuition Uh having other revenue streams I bought a set of masks today from the Peabody Essex Museum Because I need masks and I prefer to do it in ways that support cultural institutions Universities have all sorts of other things You know they do all sorts of things but ultimately If that patronage drives up Cultural institutions go down So patronage is crucial as is that kind of mixed model of multiple Sources of income. Yeah, do you have an idea of the answer? Um You asked it Oh, uh, phil ask it. Yeah, and phil if you'd like to follow up just click the raised hand We can bring you on stage Phil is an awesome fellow Among other things the background in american history And we uh, he wants to join us. Let's bring him up. Here you go phil In fact, I'll use the the fancy video format just to emphasize phil's coolness Well, now I see now I see myself You know, I I'm interested in this because I I also have a background in In the cultural world having worked for the american alliance of museums And there are some really interesting similarities in the history of The development of cultural organizations and the development of nonprofits generally And we could add to the list of things Um non-profit local hospitals. You might add to the list of things um church congregations So I do wonder whether the things you're talking about have more similarity to a cluster of Of non-profit organizations Or whether there are fancies with an analysis of businesses that go in and out of of business I guess in general my question is is There's something unique about The treatment of how we think about the closure of colleges Or are they a subset of some other thing? And if so, what is the what is the superset that they're part of? I'm going to keep notes on that because it's a question That I'd like to pursue more. I think it's a very important one And partly because you often get folks, you know, I've been on a board of trustees for a university And I've certainly had to deal with boards of trustees and very often you get business people Um, who will say, you know, these institutions are too important to be left to academics artists curators and so forth Business people know how to deal with them. And there's a substantial difference Between sustaining an institution that's a for-profit revenue organization and a non-profit And I and I suspect That that you are right because we're talking about institutions That are founded to serve And serve in a broad Range of ways we have to be businesslike. I mean to be a non-profit doesn't mean That all you're supposed to do is build up debt But being a non-profit means Core to the value is something other than profit And that they have a good full society that that needs to be Supported So I think those similarities are important. Can I add one more thing to the mix here? And I think Brian got out a little bit when he talked about sort of the ecosystem of higher education Because that is a really important issue. We're dealing with very locally based organizations as strip cultural organizations as well And we're talking national You know ecosystems, so I know that when you talk about something Like an art museum we'll go to the cultural sector. You know, there are some really interesting debates about what happens when you have You know say an art museum and a symphony And an opera company designed for a city of several millions like Detroit Which is now a city of several hundred thousands instead And how does that issue of sort of carrying capacity and national contribution You know play into these issues. I don't have an answer for that, but I think it's a really important you know consideration going from the the scale of the one institution, which of course those who Work there and go there and love those institutions. That's vital to them But there's also a larger national context I smile when you mention Detroit because my father is from there and my uncle Was the kind of house pianist for the Detroit Symphony when they didn't have anybody important Um You know, again, I think that's really crucial. There are there are institutions of higher education say in the 19th century That began to develop beautifully, but then the railroad was somewhere else or You know the waterway got silted up The town failed and the institution failed Um, but likewise in the late 19th century and I was just writing about this because of the chapter on on On communities birthing and nurturing institutions is, you know, if you know the rest of the Non-profit sector, you probably know very well that That many of those institutions which and hospitals which started out independent in the 19th century Found that they could no longer support themselves and hustled to be eaten up by An institution of higher education that certainly happened to hospitals Where most of them found that they could not support themselves anymore and they And especially after a national report that just slammed the quality of american Healthcare they hustled to find an university to adopt them um theaters Um in boston A good example is the constant relationship between the huntington theater and boston university Or between a piece of tanglewood and boston university where You know all sorts of questions that affect The non-profit so I think it's great to open with that With that link because I think you're absolutely right We have well, we have to be business like we have more in common with other non-profits and cultural institutions than with A pharma company at the same time. I should say before brian takes me down here takes off the screen not takes me down you know as as You know someone who works for the council of independent colleges We like to point down I'll point out here that of course the average age of a college that goes out of business is Decades decades longer than the average age of a business that goes out of business And you know, there's a real difference between A silicon value startup that flames out in three years and a small college that gives you 150 years before Closes so it's always important to keep that comparison in mind. Sure. Sure. Thank you phil. Thank you phil And I'm not going to pull you off of the hook. I'm just going to thank you Yeah, for everybody who is who is new to the forum This is an you've now seen both examples of how we have conversations You've seen a question popped up. You've also seen a questionnaire pop up And you can do either of those either by clicking the raised hand button or the question button and Professor Shapiro, thank you for that very very deep answer I actually have played in the youth symphony at Detroit's orchestra hall once so your father that memory just makes me very happy We have a whole stack of questions I want to give people a chance to bring up one comes from killed Dush long time friend of the program and he asked I'd like Dr. Shapiro's view of the role of higher ed's degree or job credential monopoly And credential inflation in artificially sustained demand, which is now threatened by alternative credential I'm going to put that back up in the screen because that was a deep question. It's a great It's a great question And one of those questions when I said that that the book is going to be framed around a set of essential questions The what's it for and what it achieves? Your question fits in there and it's really it's really one that's troubled higher education since Since the very beginning. What's it for? What is it credential? And especially toward the end of the 19th century as it became much more a credentialing system than it had been earlier um You know one of the things I find very interesting is it it's really very recent for both colleges and universities and american society generally to understand Colleges and university largely in their credentialing. That's not what it was for the first couple of hundred years and there is no essential reason why? um Colleges or universities Should even have a monopoly on the credentialing for much of the american economy All sorts of pressures led to that inflation that you were talking about Plenty of professions from the 19th century That you got into or one got into because of a for apprenticeship You didn't do a program for it slowly colleges and universities offered alternatives as for medicine Pharmacy a whole bunch of things and eventually they began law and and universities eventually became Basically the sole creditors Especially in the post-world war two period I frankly think that's nuts I think it devalues Really what a college education can be for? um And it leads to a lot of people feeling like they need a particular kind of higher education That they might not really need Um and could use something else entirely for for credentialing So I think we still have to sort that out once again What do you need a bachelor's degree for? Why is it once upon a time to be an occupational therapist? You needed to apprentice And then you needed two years plus Apprenticing and then you needed a four-year program and then when I was provost at the university of wisconsin The occupational therapy program told us you could no longer get a job in occupational therapy Unless you had a master's degree later They said a phd and they took exactly the same program characteristics Nothing different nothing upgraded and then petitioned to have it called first a master's degree and then a phd So we have professional phds The whole How do we balance? This is something I know we're all dealing with at different institutions. How do we balance? An understanding that that higher education Especially of the liberal arts and sciences part the training of the mind The expansion of exposure To cultures to literature and understanding of the workings of science of the arts. How do we balance? of you that that That kind of education needs to be made accessible Meaning available and affordable Because high school is not doing it And we need to make proper credentialing programs accessible um, but We shouldn't be wasting the time and the resources of institutions and people by Forcing them Through the garlic press where they don't need to be One of my big fears is whenever any of us say well, you don't need this credentialing It sounds to people like saying not everybody needs college You know We do need aspects of that and it's too little accessible not too much accessible But we've gone kind of nuts with credentialing Well, thank you for that great one last thing by the way One of the things that we're doing in colleges and universities and all of you associated with them have seen this Is we've injected more sensible aspects, but not something that's accessible for all our students In increasing the amount of hands-on and an internship work we offer Right so that even in liberal arts and sciences degrees We've integrated much more hands-on work Internship work apprenticeship work because we've recognized that neither apprenticeship alone Nor quote classroom education alone gives us everything we need The problem is it's not accessible Because we still structure it in a way. We're only our Wealthier students and better resourced students can afford to take a lot of those opportunities For all variety of reasons we could talk about likewise international study Mostly only our wealthiest students can afford to do that the way most of our institutions structure that This is a great question Kiel And and Gina. Thank you for taking that in several key directions I want to make sure that we have a few other questions Because they're coming in thick and fast And they come from different angles. Thanks to phil and thanks to kiel for these questions We have one from across the atlantic And this is from professor dolla clark at university of darby He asks colleges are good closures are error connections Populations shifts and graphics, etc. But as a number of institutions have grown error corrections have grown So our closures small appear I'm not sure I'd call them error corrections. I there's market response And that's not an error correction if if the world changes the world changes And if the market is no longer there the market is no longer there And and most of the closures I've seen The market has left sometimes long ago And It's less an error correction and more obsolescence You know, let me give you an example What's its name evergreen college or whatever it was in vermont? Oh Right. Yeah Great next time Little shishi place actually brought in mostly pretty wealthy students who were confident enough and thought they could afford to go And their parents thought they could afford to go to a college where they could study ecology and sing kumbaya And you know, they were way out in front um It's closed because there was no national market And it's not because there was no national market for student studying ecology. It's just there's Piles of institutions that do that better And actually have science in the curriculum and actually have good interdisciplinary studies. So You know Evergreen existed for a while because there was a purpose for it, but but there wasn't anymore. So it's not You know, it's small beer as you say luckily i'm married to a brit. So I know what that means um It's small beer If all you're doing is looking at it from a market point of view It happens But when an institution of higher education closes, it's not small beer because you have people who lose their jobs You have a community that loses People who would be living there. Otherwise you have shops that close you have restaurants that close you have the ethos of a town That is altered tremendously by the loss of any major cultural institutions. So I wouldn't go as far as small beer and I wouldn't say it's it's um You know just error correction It's it's something Deeper that has to do with markets and ecologies of institutions and communities Thank you. Uh, don't appreciate the question And don't also has a fantastic avatar of itself that he uses which is really disturbing um, and it was uh Evergreen excuse me. It was green mountain college green mountain. I knew it had green You know, I'm in new hampshire. What do I know about from up? I'm not going to go down that road I it's too dangerous. But what we have we have more. Thank you. Uh, again, june for the answers to that we have uh, another question that comes back to Both phil and keels Which is from a colleague of mine at georgetown who asks if credentialing is a reason that philanthropy contributes to higher ed To help the x youth compare employer if higher ed loses that monopoly does it then also lose full thropic support? so, um at b u while i was dean I was responsible for raising a hundred million dollars during our campaign And almost none of that came from people who are were narrowly interested in credentialing They uh, most of the people who actually gave to this non-profit institution Yes, they wanted our students to be able to find jobs later and they wanted to prepare them but They wanted skill building. They wanted opportunities They wanted a whole variety of places and things and most of the the institutions that have done Best in their development other than The portion that is the business school And maybe the portion that's the engineering school Are interested in the broader sense not of credentialing but of skill building or opportunities or whatever The institutions that are most narrowly focused on Credentialing and employment preparation Tend not to attract a lot of philanthropy though they may get grants and not a lot of philanthropists If people really wanted to donate to institutions That were credentialing they would give a lot more to community colleges Hmm Yes, those are credentialing You know, they serve two purposes basically one is to prepare students for four-year colleges And the other is to prepare People for job market and credentialing and so they'd be great places for people to donate That's not where philanthropy goes in education. And if they really wanted to donate well It wouldn't be so easy for harvard and stanford to do philanthropy It would be much easier for a lot of other institutions That are more likely to contribute to upward mobility than those two institutions Which are unlikely to contribute very much to upward mobility First a great question Nothing on rise against to harvard and stanford Another graphical collision. Thank you And we had the A couple more questions at point towards the future. I'm going to save those a question for the president We have one from the awesome saras hand Gregorio She's at montclair state where she's her phd and doing a thousand things at once because she's brilliant that way And she asks about a concept of life coins So I'm going to ask the question We're seeing more press on queen sacrifices happening because of coven relating financial excellencies Is an increase of the personnel moves a commentary on the outlook of colleges as a whole And the concept of queen sacrifice refers to when a college university removes tenure track faculty Using the analogy from chess where tenure track faculty are like the queens on the board So to you know to put that back up Is this a commentary seemingly to happen? Is this a commentary on the outlook of colleges as a whole? So the only thing I know about Uh chess comes from the queen's gambit um So so let me make sure I understand this is is Are you talking about here the moving away from tenure track faculty to Adjunct faculty or I'm not I've never heard the term. So I'm trying to To when a college terminates tenure track faculty Not not because of individual personnel issues of because of Accidency because they're closing a program. Um, there are not many institutions that have terminated tenured faculty Usually what they will do is terminate tenured faculty positions That occur naturally for example In one of the many moves that the wisconsin state legislature did to try to starve its university system Again, I don't want to sound biased about what what the state government did but When we had to figure out what to do, especially when they did that in the middle of a year We had to restrict somehow we did not fire tenured faculty We selectively figured out positions where when people left they would not be replaced That's happened much more often Mostly the institutions that have ended up firing any tenured faculty are in the process of shutting down Well, that's a that's a good, so that's a that's a clear answer. Thank you The most recent example we've got is from Western Oregon University where they Close their philosophy major and minor laid off for tenured professors and also Removed 11 non-tenured faculty members. Yeah. Yeah, the removal of tenured faculty is is uh, all Restructuring and reducing the quality and extent of the educational programs as a desperation act and many Folks have gotten into desperation acts of finding ways of restricting. You know You can't go beyond your budget You can you can spend some time eating The other thing that's more common Is in any institution that has an endowment to begin to eat the principal They'll do that first usually But firing tenured faculty if If it's an institution that depends on tenured faculty and especially a research institution That will surely take a spiral Because tenured faculty are not are there to teach But tenured faculty also contribute to the prestige of the institution in other ways They contribute to revenue in other ways, you know and so on and so forth They contribute to subvention of part of the program by bringing in grants So That doesn't happen as much what happens more is Shucking staff Which Contrary to a lot of business people out there who talk about us tightening our belts usually means we're reducing services to students Almost always means we're reducing services to students They will reduce adjunct faculty and contingent faculty Which almost always means increasing class size and reducing options But not as much tenured faculty I love this exchange between two of you sarah and jenna because sarah your question is such a Detailed precise probe and jenna not only did you answer it, but you also gave us a sketch about some of the different Should we say autumnal phases that a college can go through on its way to a winter? Thank you. Thank you both. We have two questions that build on both of these. I'll make sure that we get them Joellen parker a dear friend and also An incredibly experienced thought leader of education She follows on sarah's question and asks As professor subparo looked at these institutions that stay open But only by changing their nature Sure, and and there's a long history of of that of institutions Um, we've seen some let's just take the current area. They're they're plenty in the 19th century But the current era moving from um in-person classes to online classes moving from serving An undergraduate population of the normative age to serving adults That that has become very common. I've seen a couple. I can't remember who but in the last couple of years that's often a step before closure, but In doing those kinds of things in shucking Liberal arts and sciences programs and thinking that you can survive if you look useful and and Keep only the programs in Uh more applied subjects ask betger college about that and how it's going for them. Um Yeah, so so there's that's one of the many many ways people Institutions can go about reconceiving What they do very often they'll add Before they totally shift Um, so all of the programs in adult education as as institutions saw that That the population of the normative student age Was going to begin to shrink. We knew that was going to happen Of course, many places did what they could to try to attract More people who were older than that Um Around world war two there are whole bunches of institutions that were on track to to um Close because of the impact of the depression And the war saved them because they contracted with the federal government and became very involved in war training. So um Institutions that are good on their feet will look like other organizations will look at good opportunities for for Keeping their educational mission by doing it in a different way Speaking of which we have a question. That's a perfect perfect Connection, excuse me. This is from mark orbit wilson out of the west coast And mark asks any thoughts about elders wanting further education and the impossible requirements of these Contemporary university Um, i'm a great fan of institutions that open up to elders Maybe I should be because i'm an elder now, but but for many years I participated for example at wisconsin in the in the program They had for the community and b. U has lots of places have it where Classes that have seats The professor can give permission for a certain number of Elders from the community to to take the course Often at some reduced amount of tuition But we certainly have that and I love those programs and I've always loved Having some elders If we had more time, I would tell you a wonderful story about that, but I've I've loved having age integrated classrooms. Although sometimes elders are a little hard to control But uh, you know, they're generally not looking for credentials. They're looking for learning I've had people who've spent their their careers in finance and now They want to take my course on Gender politics and history because it's something new to them Fantastic. Thank you mark for the great question. Thank you for the heartfelt answer. So that's one way forward We also had a question That comes from the excellent michael haggins who asks clearly What do you which walks into you think small scale or size contributes to closures? I don't know what small is I mean, it depends it's The the real question is the the structure and the finances of a particular institution what it takes to sustain it um, what What often happens is that? That an institution is retracting and it gets to a point where it's too small to survive Um There are institutions that have attempted to go in the other direction and it and try to bring in more and more Students, especially those for example who have gone online and that is not always as successful because they're competing with other kinds of organizations. So I think it's more a matter of the mix of Of the mission the resources and how many people it takes to be sustainable Um You know how many how much again how much support outside of tuition dollars Thank you. Um, good question. Thank you We also have a very friendly question. I think from a sali mudiyamu important state And sali asks Do you have any comments on david larry's book the perfect mess? Which argues that us hyrae has always been influx and threatened and that is what makes it resilient It just does a quick note. We had david as a guest a couple months ago. He was fantastic. I agree Okay, next question I agree. He's he's one of my favorite writers In this because that kind of thinking and it's it's one of the major things that i'm interested in as well is Is you know people who say higher education has always been exactly the same And sometimes they have characteristics for what it's been like since the very beginning. That's always wrong Really really wrong Well, thank you for the question. Thank you for the admirably concise answer And I will actually show you how to find david's Video at the end of the program today. Good. Thanks. Now speaking the end of the program which is approaching This is the time where we try to look more and more at the future And we have two questions. I'm just going to flash them both because they They balance each other and I wanted to honor both of them for asking One of them comes from another previous guest at brad wheeler in indiana It says you reference mergers and closures as an end to an advanced institutions What is your foresight for more frequent closures or mergers and your views on that? Hang on one second because keep that the question is almost it's so close to this question Which comes from london from animery borg who asks how does the past history? Impact the future of higher ed. Where do you see us going? So two future oriented thoughts for you I see more flux and more change. How's that for a non answer? um you know the The closures mergers and shifting is Has spiked and it will continue to do so because we haven't yet completely played out the 2008 session that is is Still having an impact because all of those institutions that got pushed to the edge then have done the dance since then of finding every way of saving themselves and You know that's still playing out, but obviously the impact of of covet and the pandemic and And the tightening of economies around the world Is is going to drive this much Higher and so, you know, we have more institutions of higher education In this country and britain and others all sorts of institutions That didn't used to be colleges and universities were made so in the united states in the 40s and 50s and 60s in britain in the 60s 70s and 80s Under thatcherism there was an expansion of the number of institutions that were designated as universities And so You know, there's a lot more play for loss um there are a lot more institutions around and even if we We expand toward older people and so forth the number of people Who are going to be searching for? a basic Degree education, especially if they have to pay it especially if they have to pay Top dollar that that's shrunk And so especially the weaker institutions by which i mean the ones that have always Mostly been local And don't have a local population to sustain it Certainly the ones that are tuition dependent Those that have lost their external support base Will be gone and will Merge Some of that happens in the private sector But the public sector is driving it too because as everybody here knows um In the united states at least the amount of support the proportionate support That the public has given to higher education Over the course of the past decades has has been ravaged Um, and that is not going to do any of us any good The the great scholar of this is chris newfield Who just crossed the Atlantic itself california to britain? I recommend his the great mistake and also he was a fantastic customer on this program a couple years ago Can can I just ask a question to amplify brad's point of mergers in in your paper? you see several times Defining closure is kind of tricky because sometimes a closure means something is folded into another institution Like we look um, and and so that's a closure, but it's You know the people may consist kind of I mean, do you do you think we'll see we'll actually see public higher education mergers as well? Oh, yeah, look, there are a couple of new systems again I'm going to forget who I saw in the newspaper. Maybe somebody else will remember A couple of more states that are thinking of making systems Right. Well, that's a merger Um often not as radically merged as say wisconsin did it in the 1970s There are different kinds of systems But but there is some conversation about merging the systems including integrating the four years the research institutions and the two years There are some benefits to that I was involved in what I think was a wonderful program of trying to do More articulation between the two year and tribal colleges in wisconsin And anison and i'm actually pretty proud of being involved in those articulation agreements Um, but some of them, you know, some institutions just get buried in others becker college It's two most successful programs gaming and I forget what? Are being eaten by clark university my alma mater Which is very interesting because clark is one of those small Very tuition driven institutions that has to think very carefully about how it's going to survive And so they're taking on these very applied programs That's a thank you both for those questions and thank you for that great tour of the horizon We have a couple more questions I'll make sure we give her a chance before we run completely out of time And one of them comes from video from greg shuckman at the education commission the state's commission Hello greg Hang on a second Okay, where you come see a brian Where are you today? So, uh, I am enjoy. I'm in maryland and enjoying this gorgeous weather that we're having here outdoors. So Yeah Yeah, so dr. Superior and and brian sort of got to the question I was asking about about the future of publics because that's how you Ended your paper was That it was for another time, but since for the less selective publics Um, they're so demographic driven by by who's within 150 mile radius or so of them What do you think is more important the demographic changes in their communities or the state funding subsidies state funding I think the state funding is really crucial for the comprehensives Um And also the community colleges the local county and and state funding and and those are areas that Just needs so much rethinking Um, because they they are going to be much more the engines of mobility than most of the university campuses that are research universities and draw nationally Because they can be more selective they Uh, they offer so much More in some ways so much more value added. I mean, I've spent my career at at the research ones, but Comprehensives are value added in such important ways, but Not only have they been strapped but Those are where students take out loans that they default on You know, you know that anybody who's looked at this stuff the major research institutions the prestigious ones the ones that get rich kids Our students may take out big loans, but they pay them back because they can pay them back Because of the lack of mobility in the system the people who get strapped Are the comprehensive students where the graduation rate is known better than 33 percent They have big loans And they may not be able to pay them back because they haven't graduated And so there I think is the one of the biggest crimes of our system is Um to make those unattractive and Unuseful And to soak the students in a way in weird ways for few dollars Almost as badly as some of the the for-profits do Thank you Thanks a great question. Great Gina, thank you for the for the excellent answer We have time for one quick last question And this is a big one from heather mcmorrow, and I think this is a great one to end on How can higher education better make the case for its place in society? And how can we help refute the current cultural belief the private industry is the soul or a primary driver in a successful economy It's a great question, and it has been since the 18th century um Yeah, you know it it really has been You see it again and again and again with folks out there thinking, you know get out in the world and do something It's private industry that that makes the difference and not higher education I think we do have to keep um Keep adapting to the times and changing even when we talk about The core liberal arts and sciences Those are not the same as they were 50 years ago or 100 or 200 years ago So we continue to adapt what they look like But we have to be thoughtful so that we are still Holding on to our basic understanding of what an education is for We have to be those of us at the prestige institutions have to be not snooty About what it is we do and what we offer And how it gets integrated with quote the real world We have to use our alumni base um in very important ways and And keep finding new ways of telling the story but in in you know over 200 years That case has never been fully convincing to a lot of people it probably never will be And there's a degree to which we have to just keep buckling down and thinking about How we can do education and relate to our surrounding society in the best ways we can And how we can make the best difference we possibly can in the community What a fantastic answer and and and Heather what a terrific question And I think that is a perfect way to uh to to end today I hate to wrap things up, but we are at the top of the hour again And we have to thank you professor superior for being a fantastic fantastic guest. It was fun The delight having you here. What's the how can we keep up with your work in the in New Hampshire? Is you right should we just wait to hear until the book hits press or is there any So I have two two places to find out more about me. Um, I have a website which is, um I will send it this information to you and you can shift it out to people but blogs bu slash Has a lot of my stuff and all of that. Um, I'm also doing a regular blog right now called the retirement letters Mm-hmm. Dot wordpress.com Uh on July 1st last year. I started a blog that will end on June 30th Uh, yes, uh this year where I am reflecting on 45 years of being a scholar teacher higher ed administrator And gadfly. Um, and if people are more interested they can take a look at that and we can be in touch Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much and good luck with the writing and please enjoy spring in New Hampshire Thank you and thank all of you for coming and for your questions. They were great They are great, but don't go friends. We're explaining. They'll let you know what's happening over the next couple of weeks And uh, on the second of course, Gina's motion of complimenting you for these fantastic questions Looking ahead for the next few weeks. We've got sessions on A game that helps you think about ed tech and merging ed tech On campus about improving equity and education for black students as well as a session on accreditation If you'd like to go, uh, learn more or keep these conversations going rather We have spaces on facebook twitter linkedin and slack Facebook, I'm sorry twitter is usually the place to go If you'd like to go back into the past and look at our previous 250 Recordings including some of the sessions that were mentioned today. Just go to tiny world comm slash fdf archive And please subscribe so that we can like keep doing this In the meantime, thanks to everybody. Uh, thanks for your fantastic wide-ranging thoughtful questions This has been a great session. Above all, please all of you take care of yourselves I just got my second Vaccine so I am good to go. I hope all of you can be as well in the meantime. We'll see you next time and we'll see you online Bye bye