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Support our higher education institutions

Find out who your state and federal representatives are and reach out. Maimon has a lot of guidance for what we want to see change in U.S. higher education. Let them know you want to see positive reforms like making college affordable, ensuring campus safety and free speech, and advancing research opportunities. 

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Ideas We Should Steal Festival 2024

The perfect antidote to post-election blues. 

One day. 30 speakers. 30 ideas for a better Philadelphia. Did you secure your seats yet for the event of the year? It’s just under two weeks away!Here’s a sneak peak at just a few of the solutions our many speakers will address:

  • Actor/activist Debra Winger on ridding our politics of dark money
  • San Francisco YIMBY crusader Sonja Trauss on solving our housing crisis by…building more housing
  • Cleveland’s Devin Cotten on guaranteeing every working person a $50,000 income
  • New York’s Kathryn Wylde on how to mobilize the private sector in service of the common good
  • New Yorker writer Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on the future of politics in cities
  • Garrett Langley on using police car cameras to catch crime suspects — including would-be assassins — in cities
  • Austin’s Piper Stege Nelson on raising $10 million in one day for local nonprofits
  • Charlotte’s Mark Etheridge on strategically keeping rents affordable for all
  • Laurin Leonard on helping returning citizens by rethinking the criminal background check
  • Housing expert Bruce Katz on a roadmap for ensuring every American family has stable housing
  • Former mayors Michael Nutter of Philadelphia and Kasim Reed of Atlanta on how to really run a city

Higher Education in a New Trump Era

Universities must learn from this moment — and remain undeterred in fulfilling their essential role in a democratic society, a long-time university president urges

Higher Education in a New Trump Era

Universities must learn from this moment — and remain undeterred in fulfilling their essential role in a democratic society, a long-time university president urges

I have devoted a long career to teaching and leading in higher education with the strong belief that my efforts were serving the public good. During the presidential campaign, I was shocked to hear a vice-presidential candidate call people like me “the enemy.” And it was dismaying to realize that this negative attitude toward higher education was okay with American voters.

And yet in the midst of depression I celebrated one point of reassurance: Our electoral process was conducted smoothly, without protests or violence. I was inspired by Liz Cheyney’s statement on X Wednesday:

Our nation’s democratic system functioned last night and we have a new President-elect. All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results of our elections. We now have a special responsibility, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, to do everything we can to support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years. Citizens across this country, our courts, members of the press and those serving in our federal, state and local governments must now be the guardrails of democracy.

I want to add universities to Cheyney’s “guardrails of democracy.” Whether universities are under attack or supported by political leaders, we must be guided by the north star of our core values. These clear-eyed values in the form of policy recommendations are well articulated in an open letter that Ted Mitchell, President of the American Council on Education (ACE), addressed to both presidential candidates. I quote ACE’s list of recommendations in the context of higher education’s sustained role in serving the nation.

Making college affordable

Not every citizen will choose college, but everyone should have a choice, undeterred by financial concerns. Government has a necessary role in making post-secondary education accessible. Students should be able to select career/vocational training, but they should also have the opportunity to combine that with broad-based education in the liberal arts.

Supporting students

Every student needs access to physical and mental health services and relief from food insecurity.

Advancing research

Universities do more than communicate information. In labs and in libraries, professors, often working with students, create new knowledge contributing to societal progress.

Campus safety and free speech

Students deserve a safe place to study. But safety does not imply avoidance of challenging ideas, which may create the intellectual discomfort necessary for growth. Free speech and academic freedom must be protected. Civic engagement must be emphasized.

Higher education tax policy

Universities must retain special tax status in order to create more financial aid opportunities and support the institutions’ mission for the public good.

Support for international students

Offering opportunities for U.S. students to study side-by-side with classmates from all over the world enriches their experience. Attracting global talent contributes to this nation’s economic growth and innovation.

Whatever the politics, university leaders, with a special emphasis on those in Philadelphia, must be undeterred in supporting these ideas. But there are also lessons to be learned from the public response to higher education. Members of the working class in Philadelphia and in other cities have indicated in surveys and interviews an unfortunate resentment toward higher education.

Stop the snobbism

Support Governor Shapiro and other political leaders who have eliminated the requirement for a bachelor’s degree from many government jobs. Higher education should be an opportunity, not an obstacle.

Show respect for community colleges by forming real partnerships between elite institutions (like Penn) and the Community College of Philadelphia.

Help prepare kids at Philadelphia neighborhood schools to qualify for elite institutions (again, I’m looking at you, Penn).

Treat members of the Philadelphia community as partners from whom to learn, not merely as subjects to be studied and taught.

Improve communication

Invest resources in communicating with the general public about universities’ essential service to the public good.

Engage faculty members and students in working on problem-solving in the community.

Listen more actively to what citizens are saying—and feeling—about the universities and colleges in their midst.

The November 5 election has posed immense challenges to US higher education. Rather than bemoaning our fate, higher education leaders must continue the principled struggle to sustain colleges and universities as defenders and enactors of the Constitution of the United States.


Elaine Maimon, Ph.D., is an Advisor at the American Council on Education. She is the author of Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Her long career in higher education has encompassed top executive positions at public universities as well as distinction as a scholar in rhetoric/composition. Her co-authored book, Writing In The Arts and Sciences, has been designated as a landmark text. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum.

MORE FROM ELAINE MAIMON

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