This Project 2025

It's been a year. A year of new experiences: singing with friends, buying a new home, becoming a grandmother. A year of adventures: visiting children in Alaska, indulging in a songwriting retreat, joining the board of an arts organization. A year of reading in new fields (mostly economics) and watching the political landscape with a worried eye. A year since I wrote my last column as provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Transitioning out of a role in which your every waking moment is filled with problems to solve, goals to achieve, ends to make meet is not easy. I am a busy person by nature, so I had to find ways to fill my days. I am a curious person by nature, so filling them wasn't hard, but not thinking about higher education was impossible.

I thought I'd try for a clean break, but very soon I was invited to participate in a fun panel sponsored by the New York Society for General Semantics. My home discipline is communication - well media ecology, which is a long conversation for another day - and general semantics is one of the founding areas of study in this field. The panel was inspired by the work of Neil Postman's book Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk, in which he defines both terms (one malicioious the other merely ignorant) and provides examples for explanation. Our panel - inspired by the summer olympics, with medals at stake - was to present an argument for the craziest and stupidest talk recently heard. Well, it was the start of the election season, so topics were easy to find. My examples were all about the legislation attacking Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I took a gold.

Very soon I found myself writing a paper for the New York State Communication Association Conference. This time I was focused on music, folk circles to be exact. I was trying to shift away from thinking about the functioning of a university, and toward the topics that inspired me to pursue a Ph.D. in the first place. I have spent years performing in and hosting music sessions that are designed for full participation of all in attendance. Folk circles (not always focused on folk music) are a place were musicians, beginner and advanced, come together to play with and for each other. Organized in a cirlce, the rules are to help where you can, listen with kindness, and make sure that everyone is heard. It was a fun topic to explore, but of course, it brought to mind all kinds of things that exemplify great teaching and learning experiences. The connection was made, I was back to my old habits.

Most recenlty, I have had a manuscript accepted for publicaton by ETC: A Review of General Semantics. The article was written shortly after I left my position, and I fear the tone may reflect that moment of emotional strain. Nevertheless, I note that my heart and mind were still fully engaged with questions of the purposes of higher education. The article explores some of the ways in which we are constraining and conflating definitions of education and its goals. Clearly, I have not stopped thinking about higher education.

So, here we are at the start of a new year and a continued set of questions about what constitutes quality education, who can access that education, and why we need it. There are all sorts of fears - financial, political, demographic - some of which stem from the agenda of a new president, a proposed closing of federal department of education, and yes, Project 2025. Those fears are fair and those of us who care about higher education must speak up and offer assessments of each new idea, law, or strategy proposed. But, there is more to consider here than how to respond to perceived attacks on academic institutions.

It is time to re-frame our work. We have all encountered the strategic plans of our colleges and universities. These planning documents ask for growth, improved outcomes, and once in a great while, a vision for becoming an exemplary institution. Fine, they can be a little helpful. But it is time to look up and outside the not-so-ivy-covered-walls of higher education and remember what they need to do for a democracy that a) requires a citizenry that can contribute to societal decisions in thoughtful and meaningful ways, and b) for graduates who need paths to fullfilling and economically viable lives. A lot of talk has been about b, not so much about a.

But an informed citizenry matters just as much as a path to a career, even for those who are aspiring to be citizens, and those just visiting. We all need to understand our complicated histories, develop an awareness of vexing social problems, explore paths to new ideas, insights, and inventions, and build a foundation of skills and knowledge that will help us learn long after our formal education is complete. This is the only way that we can have meaningful debates about the issues we care about. This is the only way we can build an economy that serves the many, not just the few. This is the only way we can re-invent those institutions that no longer serve us, without stepping backward into a demonstrably problematic past. This is the only way to make democracy real.

It's 2025 and there are problems for the nation to solve. It will be a project, indeed. Higher education must be part of the plan for solving those problems, because higher education is not just a nice to have. It is the strategic plan for making a democratic society work.