It is probably not healthy to be spending so much time alone, pondering the current state of affairs. The last few weeks have been unsettling at best. I haven’t been in the thick of the “Dear Colleague” letter discussions like many senior staff members on campuses across the country have been. But I have been dealing with sudden mandated changes to a national Campus Compact/AmeriCorps program for which I serve as a host site supervisor and with the fall-out from the holds on federal grant funds. The latter has implications for the Center that I direct, for non-profits that I am involved with, and for my own scholarship. Undoubtedly, students (current and prospective) are reading the news about the executive orders on the environmental legislation/regulation/agency jobs in our country and the impact of loss of funding for scientific research especially for early career folks. As if they weren’t anxiety-ridden enough about their future, they now have much more to worry about.
I am reminded of a time years ago when a PA governor banned the use of the term “climate change." I was at a different institution at the time. Then, and during the first Trump administration, campus administrators "advised" me not to broadcast too publicly the work I did on climate change. They questioned whether I should continue to teach my climate change course. I was actually asked for descriptions of what I taught in the course and whether I was presenting “balanced” viewpoints. My response was that I taught the science of climate change and that students could debate possible responses to this global environmental challenge. In contrast, state employees who had been working on a climate adaptation plan and were now banned from doing so, held clandestine meetings (with their non-government partners, including some of us researchers) in venues outside of Harrisburg in order to keep the momentum of the work going in hope of better days in the future. They took great risk to do so. As someone who had always been a rule-follower, I admired their determination to do what was right. In contrast, I was disappointed in campus administrators who were afraid of offending the conservative trustees or some other stakeholders. We are currently witnessing much more serious issues -- with attempts to dismantle DEI initiatives, attacks on civil rights and science, etc., but I can't help but think back on those previous times.
Earlier tonight, I listened to Jane Fonda’s acceptance speech after she received a lifetime achievement award at the SAG award ceremony last night.
Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. And by the way, 'woke' just means you give a damn about other people.Fonda went on to talk about the way Hollywood stood up to McCarthyism at the very beginning of her career and called on actors to once again do the right thing.
Last week, I was on a virtual meeting for my alma mater’s alumni board. When one of the members (who also works in higher ed) asked the staff what is being done on campus to support students of color and in the LGTBQ community, the response was that they didn’t know. Like many schools, the administration is probably struggling to figure out how to respond to the “Dear Colleague” letter, and apparently, the relatively new president and provost at the institution haven’t yet put out any correspondence to the campus community.
For some reason, I was reminded of the book “Mad Cows and Mother's Milk: The Perils of Poor Risk Communication” which has a chapter on communication voids or vacuums. From AI:
A "communication vacuum" when it comes to risk communication can lead to significant perils like widespread misinformation, heightened public anxiety, distrust in authorities, poor decision-making, and potentially even escalated crises, as people fill the information gap with rumors and unverified details when accurate information isn't readily available from reliable sources.There are, of course, risks in communicating prematurely, our in these times, speaking up at all. But there are also risks in not communicating what steps are being considered as the quote generated by AI alludes to.
Today, a friend who is both an alum from the same institution I attended and a state legislator in MI, shared that there are other legislators trying to overturn the legality of same-sex marriages:
Many of us have seen the news story about the woman being forcibly removed from a Republican-sponsored town hall meeting in Idaho for speaking up. Terrifying.
These attacks on constitutional rights and on democracy that are happening at lightning speed are even more terrifying. I don't think we can be silent or quick to comply with potentially illegal or unconstitutional orders. Two recent articles caught my attention and I am curious to see whether higher ed, like Hollywood, will be willing to stand up for what is right.
- Standing up to the New Segregationists, Inside Higher Ed, 2/24/25
- A college president offers a class in standing up to Trump, Washington Post, 2/18/25
