We discuss the difference between the Frist Amendment, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy. Patrick O'Rourke, former chief legal counsel for the University of Colorado system, is our guest.

How will higher education adapt to help meet the needs of the workforce? What are the policies that colleges and universities need to adapt to help students earn credentials while not compromising quality? We discuss this and more with Chauncy Lennon, Vice President for Learning and Work at the Lumina Foundation, our guest. https://www.luminafoundation.org/

Our guest is Kyndra Wilson. She is a brand and marketing strategist who has been working with higher education institutions on brand strategy, research, and marketing planning for the past 20 years.

Like most businesses, at some point, a college or university wants to go through a branding exercise. While most people think it's just updating the logo, a good branding exercise takes a good look under an institution's hood. We discuss the opportunities and pitfalls this represents college and university leaders and boards.

We cover a lot of ground with former New Jersey City University president Sue Henderson—the importance of dual admit programs, helping social mobility, fundraising, how to support a president, finding good board members, the role of the NCAA, accrediting bodies for American colleges and universities, and more.

What gets measured gets done. Higher education leaders face challenges in understanding what key performance metrics (KPIs) should be used, determining qualitative and/or quantitative instruments, what the results mean, how to use the results to help drive continuous improvement, how to deal with unintended consequences, and ensuring people are not gaming the system.

Our guest is Jennifer Mersmen, PhD, the Assessment & Research Officer at California State University, San Bernardino. She is an expert in program evaluation.

How do colleges and universities respond to new opportunities? What is a learning management system? What are Esports, and is that a real thing? Our guest is Danielle Rourke, Senior Higher Education Strategist for Dell Technologies. She works with Dell to help educators and educational institutions bring new and innovative technology and opportunities to their students.

The research mentioned in the episode:

https://www.ijesports.org/article/59/html

Danielle's contact information

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellerourke/

https://twitter.com/HiEdDanielle

Our guest is Mary Ann Cutter, a Professor of Philosophy, who has a focus on Biomedical Ethics, among other topics. Trustees often don't know what happens at the most critical unit of a college or university—the department. Mary Ann talks about the role of the department and the department chair, teaching scholars and tenure, how engaging with the community can support the faculty and enrich students, and more.

Eighty percent of all tenure and tenure-track faculty at Ph.D. granting institutions come from a subset of just 20 percent of universities; 5 to 23 percent of faculty members were employed at universities more "prestigious" than their own doctoral-granting institution.

Prof. Aaron Clauset discusses what this means for institutions trying to reach faculty diversity goals, how this trend is often fueled by a "prestige economy," and what trustees and regents should think about when asked to approve new Ph.D. programs.

This episode's guest is Ken McConnellogue, the former head of communications for the University of Colorado, a four-campus system with a $5.2 billion annual budget, and he provides excellent advice about media and public relations for college and university trustees. (Since we recorded this, he has come out of retirement to temporarily serve as acting Vice President in the same role).

Our conversation includes tips on dealing with the news media and social media, the importance of message discipline, and why being mindful of all written communication is essential for college and university board members.

Scott Van Pelt is the coauthor of The Great Upheaval: Higher Education's Past, Present, and Uncertain Future. Higher education is facing significant challenges on a number of fronts, including changing needs of learners, demographics, and funding pressures. We discuss how we got here and what can be done to move forward.