As we begin week one, I want to spend some time with you walking through a
series of slides that provide a context for the readings throughout the semester.
This presentation will be broken into a number of subsections, but throughout the
presentation I will discuss the major policy themes that undergird the current
conversation on higher education. Policy themes that will be repeated throughout
the semester as you move through the assigned readings. So as we look to this
first slide, what I want to draw your attention to on the first slide are the
long-standing public purposes of American higher education. From our roots
in the morel act, to the work that was done post-world war two through the GI
Bill, to the advent of the community colleges, to the growth and proliferation
of regional institutions, to the true massification of education in the two
thousands. From my perspective, these broad public purposes have remained
constant. So while presidents have changed, governors have changed, systems
heads' have changed. Systems have been born, adjusted, altered, refined, and these
items have remained constant. These items are my perspective on the public
purposes of higher education. So the first is access, that institutions
provide access opportunities to ensure that students have the chance to realize
their dreams and that post-secondary education is the vehicle for the
transformation of American society. That vehicle is the set of institutions,
two-year, four-year, public, private that comprise the nation's post-secondary
system. Second long-standing public purpose is that of equity that through
our nation's system of institutions' long-standing barriers to participation,
should be removed. These barriers were removed to the federal level in Brown
versus Board of Education, subsequent Civil Rights Act of 1964, here in the
state of Tennessee. The proceedings that shaped the implementation of the Guyer
court case that defined higher education in our state from the late sixties until
the early two thousands. As we are moving into an election season with a
critical conversation about equity, inclusiveness, diversity, etc. This goal of
equity has been and continues to be one of the significant and signal public
purposes of the Academy. The third affordability as you track the system
and policy trends over time, I reference the GI Bill, the advent of the pell
grants, more recently broad-based lottery scholarships, or here in the state of
Tennessee ,the promise program. All of those are public investments in the
Academy to ensure that our institutions remain affordable and you see that
diversity of federal state and institutional aid packages coming
together to promote that broad goal of affordability for our nation's post
secondary systems. The fourth is the goal of quality, that students should have the
highest quality educational system afforded to them that's quality from a
systems perspective, from an institutional perspective, and from an
individual course perspective, but that focus on quality undergirds the nation
system and its that focus of quality that you will see as a repeating theme
as we move later into the semester with conversations about performance funding.
The next is public service going back to the land grant mission, our institutions
were created to make a difference in the lives of the people in their service
areas. Here at East Tennessee State University we were founded in nineteen
eleven for singular purpose, to improve the quality of life for the people of
our region. That mission of service, that mission of outreach is part of the
three-legged tool teaching research and service, and it's one of the foundational
public purposes of the Academy. And then something that has evolved on from the
fifties forward is the focus on research and economic development. That
institutions be they land-grant institutions, major research institutions,
universities such as ETSU, community colleges, or the TCATs, all of those
institutions as of system of post-secondary universities, colleges, etc
have a responsibility to drive research and economic development either through
through the creative process, through the entrepreneurial process, or through
working with business and industry to meet the needs of local service areas.
But those are the broad public purposes of higher education and their public
purposes from my perspective that
have been constant since since the foundation of public universities more
than two centuries ago. As we transition into the new millennium, we are
witnessing changing expectations for the nation's post-secondary system. I want to
take these changing expectations back a few years however, and point to the
Nation at Risk, a report that came out during the Reagan administration. The
Nation at Risk was a clarion call for educators to examine quality. What that
report, that seminal report indicated, is that the nation's secondary system of
institutions K through 12, was failing the country, and unless we raise the bar held our
secondary systems accountable that future generations of Americans would
fall behind in an internationally competitive global economy. That mindset
of accountability outcomes put the pressure from the public perspective
that was focused on the secondary system through the Nation at Risk
over the course of the past 35 years has found its way to our system, the
post-secondary system of institutions in the state of Tennessee, and across the
nation. During the 2000s, group lead by Pat Kalin, National Center for Public Policy
Studies produced reports called Measuring Up, which provided grades to
states A through F on their ability to meet access affordability and other
elements that were contained within the report card in their documents. If you
have some spare time, go out on the web and do a google search for Measuring Up
reports. I remember when I was a TX working for Dr. Rhoda when this report
first came out. The state received an F in the affordability grade and we spent
a significant amount of time, at a staff level, digesting the report, analyzing the
metrics, and trying to really respond publicly, to how we as a state received a
failing grade.
What measuring up did from my perspective, is to change the focus away
from institutions towards States. Pat Kalin, the Director of the Center, quite
often would ask the question," How are institutions serving the broad needs of
states, rather than how are states serving the needs of institutions?" and that was a
critical question, because for the better part of 30 - 40 years, the focus was always
how can states, how can legislatures, how can governor's meet the needs of
institutions,
meet the needs of ETSU, MTSU, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, etc. Kalin
flipped that equation saying "How can those institutions help make the states
that they're based in better places to live?" That flipping of the equation has
remained constant ,and is now a central question that's asked with great
frequency in the halls of legislators across the nation. How are universities,
community colleges, and technical institutes serving the needs of the
people for whom investments are made in the form of tax dollars? You then see a
broad series of reports from the College Board, you're all familiar with the US
News and World Report rankings, despite their flaws
that's what students and parents turn to when they're making decisions on where
to invest their scarce resources in the future of their children from an
educational perspective. Some of the other items on this chart, National
Council state legislatures, National Governors Association, and other entities
have all jumped onto the bandwagon of examining higher education and
recognizing that higher education is the vehicle through which economic
development will occur. Much of the work in Tennessee from the drive to 55
perspective traces its roots to work done by the National Governors
Association in the early two thousands when the then chair of the NGA joe Manchin
decided to make college completion his centerpiece agenda as chair of the NGA. I
was on the governor's staff at the time and I recall vividly when i received a
call from the governor asked me to come to his office.
I had no idea what you want to talk to me about; when I walked in there was
Travis Rendall and a group of others from the National Governors Association. He
said "Brian have a seat,
I want to share with you what I just shared with the group here. I want to
make college completion my hallmark agenda as chair of the National
Governors Association." I was a moment when I set in my seat and slumped a
little bit because I realized my job is going to get a little bit more difficult.
But all kidding aside from Governor Manchin, to Governor Haslam, to governors
across the country. They are all focusing on completion because they recognize the
critical role that it plays in driving the state's economy. Complete College
America is now a think-tank helping to drive a lot of that agenda work, and then
finally Gates, Lumina, and other
foundations are making their investments in elements that drive that public
policy agenda of enhancing the educational attainment level for a
nation. In the past you look to foundations to seed your ideas, now
foundations look to you to drive their agendas. Once again all part of the
signal shift that occurred as a result of from my perspective the publication
of a Nation at Risk.
I want to step back and talk some about a chart here that contrast the public
policy challenges facing the nation in 2016, and the public policy challenges
facing the nation's system of higher education in 2008. In the assigned
readings for next week's portion of the course, you have the Askew report from
2015.
This slide provides a highlight of that assigned reading outlining the public
policy challenges as defined by the American Association of State Colleges
and Universities for 15 -16 and what they defined as the public policy challenges
for the 78 academic year, and what's striking to me is the parallel and
simple and similar nature of issues from eight to sixteen. Eight as you recall was
at the height of the Great Recession. So at the height of the Great Recession
college affordability was the number one issue on their radar screen, 2016 it
remains the number one issue. State financial forecast was number two. If you
look down within the elements there in 16 I would say that aligns with state
economic needs at number four, but as you look from campus security, guns on
campus, the 2008 election cycle, I guarantee when they put out the
report for this fall the 2016 election cycle will be on that list. But just a
striking similarity across those two sets of list, hide recession,
post-recession. Which really underscores for me the stability of the challenges
facing our nation's system. A stability around access, affordability, and quality.
So this is simply a frame for which you can digest that reading material next
week, but it's also a frame from my perspective that defines the stability
of the issues facing our institutions and facing you and your respective
rolls on your campuses. Going to pause for second before diving into the
next section of the powerpoint, so I look forward to moving through the next
section of material with you in a subsequent video.