The Year Ahead: National Issues
The American Association of State Colleges and Universities has published its list of the top-ten policy issues that will be facing higher education in 2008. Here they are:
- Affordability
- States’ Fiscal Forecasts
- College Preparation
- Accountability
- Campus Security
- Immigration
- 2008 Presidential Election
- Affirmative Action
- Re-tooling State Financial Aid Programs
- Economic Development
During the last few months, we’ve spent considerable time at Keene State College on all of these (although AASCU has something different in mind with Number 7). We’ve spent a huge amount of time on issues of affordability, accountability, campus safety and economic development. We have had some amazing discussions and changed many things.
What intrigued me as I read the list is just how profoundly the national landscape for higher education is having an impact on what’s happening at Keene State College. We are certainly not alone in facing the issues confronting higher education. But we have tended to take them on at our own pace and in our own fashion. Barbara Brittingham, Director of the NEASC Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, once suggested to me that this was part of the “Live Free or Die” New Hampshire/New England tradition. I think there is truth in this.
So, what’s happening? I think we have come to a point where we have a president, campus leadership, and faculty and staff who have realized that we have a place in the national dialogue around higher education. We are beginning to embrace the national issues because we want to have a voice in the debate. And we should. We have strong leaders in many of AASCU’s Top Ten, and much to contribute.
It’s great to travel to conferences and hear people say, “I understand that great things are happening at Keene.” On several occasions, faculty and staff from my previous institution have emailed me to let me know how impressed they were with a KSC presentation they attended at a conference.
We’ve got people listening, and now we need to use our voice. We should be knowledgeable about the issues confronting higher education, we should embrace them, and we should respond locally and globally.