I’ve mentioned before a topic I won’t cover today: how the public has no idea as to how much the current administration is attacking higher education. “Flooding the zone” like a wave of Mongol hordes.
Life has changed since the majority of US representatives decided they believed, hook, line and sinker, in “Trumpism.” It’s like those 1950’s movies where the aliens invade by mind-controlling key government officials and communication centres… replacing “fake news” with government news. And Fox.
I don’t know about “guns and uniforms” being on the move in remote “blue” states; but I do know about campuses, only because I subscribe to Inside Higher Ed.
Today’s editorial begins:
From Rachel Toor
Joan Didion, in her shattering memoir about the death of her husband, The Year of Magical Thinking, wrote, “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it changes.”
As I say, things have changed.
At the bottom of today’s sharing, from a campus president, a line runs Feel free to forward this email to anyone you think may want to read it.
I find their humble words relaxing, —as the piece says nothing about the current White House administration— because it’s a nice clear look at a real corner of the world, far from my own problems.
It’s so educational. (: )
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The writer is a current president.
Last year was one of the strangest emotional whiplashes of my presidency.
In the fall, we celebrated the largest enrolment in institutional history. Our campaign exceeded expectations. The board was energized. Alumni were optimistic. Donors were engaged. For a brief moment, it felt as though perhaps we had finally escaped the gravitational pull that has consumed so many small colleges over the last decade.
Then spring semester arrived.
Our budget projections worsened almost overnight: Inflation consumed us. A surprise mold outbreak and a few down elevators crushed our physical plant budget. Legal costs doubled from the year below. Winter proved so cold that utilities skyrocketed. And financial aid needs grew at unsustainable rates.
Add in personnel challenges and the resulting problems from those team members, and the euphoria from the fall rapidly dissipated.
And yet, the external perception remained unchanged. Once a college announces record enrolment or campaign success, many people understandably assume the hard part is over. It becomes strangely difficult to explain that a successful year in modern higher education often simply means you have purchased yourself another year to keep solving the same impossible math problems. It is easy to see why so many presidents look exhausted even while standing at podiums announcing victories.
What has complicated things further for me this year is the growing pressure to expand into programs, certificates, and workforce initiatives that would have been considered well outside our institutional mission even five years ago. Local employers want quick-turn credentials. Community leaders want immediate labor force solutions. Trustees ask practical questions about market demand. Consultants arrive with slide decks explaining where enrollment growth supposedly exists.
And the truth is, they are not wrong. But neither is the small voice in my head asking what happens if, in the pursuit of sustainability, an institution slowly ceases to recognize itself.
I suspect this is one of the defining tensions of the current era of higher education, particularly for tuition-dependent institutions. We are simultaneously told to innovate aggressively and preserve our identity faithfully. Expand access but reduce costs. Serve workforce needs but defend the liberal arts. Operate more like businesses while also being criticized whenever we do.
The strange thing is that I remain optimistic. Not naively optimistic, but stubbornly so. Because I do believe colleges can evolve thoughtfully. I believe adaptation is necessary. I also believe mission matters deeply. What I no longer believe is that any of these decisions are as obvious or morally clean as people often pretend they are from the outside (heck … it comes from the inside, too).
Perhaps that is the real work of the modern presidency: trying to thread a needle that grows narrower every year—between celebrating success and foreshadowing ongoing challenge, mission and market, access and sustainability, innovation and identity—all while everyone around you insists the path forward should be perfectly obvious.
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Sean Crawford, BCR
Class of 2,000 Anno Domini
Calgary
August
2026
Blog note: My favourite lurker is a fan from Belgium: ‘Hey Belgium, drop me a “hello.”’
For my health, mental-wise, because: “A hello a day keeps the doctor away.”
