This Week In College Viability (TWICV) with Special Guest: Sarah Clark

Welcome to another special episode of This Week in College Viability. Today I am joined by Sarah Clark, who is the founder of the Kind Leadership Guild. And Sarah has undergone what is sadly an increasingly common scenario in higher education. Sarah, thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me, Gary. First-time caller, longtime listener. I've been a fan for many, many years, really. And I really enjoy and appreciate what you do for the industry.

Well, thank you. I'm grateful for your kind words. And, and I kind of hinted at this at the opening. You have personally experienced or experiencing really the loss of a higher education position. I'll let you talk about that. And my question for that is, is how has that impacted your view of the industry or even your profession?

Yeah, well, up until this past November, I was dean and university librarian at LaSalle University. Not really going to talk about that because what I have to say is kind of more general. As far as how my layoff has impacted the view of the industry, it really hasn't because this isn't my first rodeo. This is not my first layoff in a retrenching industry. I was talking to Gary about this before we started recording, but my first job out of college was in marketing for a telecom in 1999. They were stating at the time that their goal was to become the next Enron, and they survived succeeded in that better than they had anticipated. So just that experience riding the dot-com roller coaster all the way up and then all the way down and ultimately being laid off in the dot-com bust, that experience has colored my take on every industry I've been in since then, including higher ed, especially higher ed. Before my time at my immediate past institution ended, I thought and was happy to say that higher ed was overdue for a major correction and a major reinvention of itself. And, you know, subsequent events have not changed that assessment. I think what exactly that ends up looking like is up to question. And that's kind of where I tend to look to you. And if I can talk a little bit about academic libraries specifically because—

yeah, please—

where I'm from, the library world. Academic libraries and librarians, and I say this having been a part of that world since kind of around the time Google was first starting to get big, you know, we will remain a significant and valued part of higher ed to the degree that we empower students to retain to persist until graduation and to live a good enough life after graduation that not only can they afford to pay off their loans, they will consider those loans money well spent.

Excellent.

That is how we stay relevant. But I will say that after COVID, I started wondering if the library's value proposition was going to need to look a little different. And we would need to think more about not just being the library as the heart of the university, but the library as one student learning support service in a cluster of learning support services. Things like the writing center, which I've always collaborated with throughout my career multiple times, tutoring, career center, all of those things that, that teach students how to learn. We've got the teaching side of higher ed very well represented in the power structures, but then we've got the learning side. And if we want to get students students through their graduation, we have to think about teaching and learning, and we have to figure out how to support those learning services and make sure they are strong enough to support students. But if you look at a typical school's org chart, their learning support services are all over the place. You've got the math tutors over here and the writing center over here and the library in its own little world, and, you know, every, you know, who knows where they've stuck career services or the advisors or whatever. And I'm starting to see schools that are posting positions like a director of learning support or a dean of learning support that like oversee the library and those other services. And I, I think that may— that's an interesting route, I think, for the future. Um, and, but I just, I just, as, as we make that shift, which I think that one-stop shopping solution is going to be what what student learning support is going to look like in 5 or 10 years, but I, we need to make sure that the learning professionals and administrators have as much a seat at the table as the teaching professionals and administrators. And I think it's a little too early to say how that, that power system will play out, but I think that if, if we're just looking at in the terms of we need to get more students to hang around for 4 years and pay tuition for 4 years and then graduate, we need to think about learning at least as much as we do about teaching and hiring.

Great points. Great points, Sarah. Now, you and I originally met through work you're doing as a leadership coach. Tell us about what you do and the value you bring to those that you work with.

Yeah, well, this started back in 2019. I've, I've had this little side hustle on and off for about 5 years from now. And I'm going to talk a little bit later about the value of—

it's more than a side hustle, Sarah, come on.

Side sashay. So about a year into my first deanship, I'd kind of like just finished climbing the learning curve, figured out, because I was a first-time dean. I'd been an associate director for many, many years, but first-time dean at a new school halfway across the country. And, you know, I was tasked to make some big changes early on. We had a renovation, we had some other stuff, and that first year was kind of a blur. And after the dust settled a little bit, I, I just, I want, I started feeling the urge to like share all of the lessons I'd learned because I have a PhD in higher ed leadership, but I still had a lot. I found out I learned from the school of hard knocks. So I was like, how can I take those things and put them together? Because I mean, we've been talking about it for the last 10 minutes or whatever. Higher ed needs to change in order to survive, but when you actually try to change something, it feels like you're just, if you're a leader who wants to see that change, it feels like you're just always blocked by doubt or dysfunction or drama. And, you know, I mean, the only conclusion I've ever drawn is that's because higher ed professionals are selfish, flawed, and scared people living in a flawed world. I mean, I hate to tell you this, but we're all human beings. And so I just, kind of got to thinking, you know, what if our schools don't have to be perfect to build a better world? What if we don't have to be perfect to turn our finances around? What if we don't have to have the perfect slate? What if we just, you know, have to find a way to be good enough? And what if we just need some objective guidance from somebody who has been in the trenches but is not stuck in our trenches?

Great point.

Who has that experience and that knowledge of like empirical research that can help them give you good guidance, reassure you that you can do this, help you find the resources you need to do the leadership job better, and also show you how you can partner with the other people who are interested in making your school or their schools more sustainable and more dependable. And because it just stands to reason that if a leader has that kind of skill set, and, you know, I, I built something, you know, resembling that my first year as dean, kind of, 'cause I had to, I had no choice. I've had to figure it all out on my own to a large extent, though I had a great boss who, you know, also helped me out as a mentor. But, you know, that is what is going to give us the best shot to turn around the schools that have a chance and to build, and on the other side of the coin, to build the collective will necessary to close or merge schools humanely, which I think is absolutely as important, if not more important, than the turnaround stories.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yesterday I was working on my College Viability website and doing some updates in preparation for 2025, and I, I saw that I had a page on there that was essentially finance for faculty. So I cleaned it up a little bit and updated the links, and I posted it on LinkedIn, uh, yesterday sometime. I can't remember. It kind of leads me to what I'm going to call, Sarah, the elephant in the room. And there are, as you sadly witnessed, there are many higher ed faculty and staff positions that have been lost. It's reasonable, I think, I think many believe that many more will be lost in the coming months and years. So from your perspective, what kind of guidance, especially on the financial side, I think, what kind of guidance would you give to faculty and staff and even students especially those coming from colleges with clear financial challenges?

Well, my first recommendation is to go watch or read all of Gary's content, buy the College Viability app, and get educated about where your school really stands, because you can't, you can't make any good decisions until you know that. And then My second recommendation is to have multiple streams of income. You know, if you really do want to stay and stick around and see if you can help a school that is struggling, it's good to have a little backup, a little Plan B. You know, I've had— I didn't come up with the Kind Leadership Guild as, you know, I'm going to be a leadership coach and that'll be my, you know, backup in case things don't go well. But, you know, it's It's turned out to be kind of handy because I have had the Kind Leadership Challenge podcast earlier and things like that. So I've been in the community for a long time and able to kind of just ramp up something that's been bubbling away on the back burner. And I also, you know, got involved in other side projects recently. I do a little bit of audiobook narration on the side, which is a lot of fun, and everybody should look into how to do that, especially if you're a librarian or just, you know, a nerd who likes to read stuff. It's a lot of fun. You know, not going to get rich off that. But again, just a little, little bit more cash coming in, a little bit more opportunity to make decisions. And you make better decisions when you are in a more secure place. And so I would say, even if you're not like worried that your place is going to declare exigency next week, it's always good to have that little backup so you can make better decisions when you're at work, because things will be a little less high stakes. And then my third recommendation, which is slightly self-centered, but I think it's also true, is if you believe that your school does have the capacity to be turned around and you want to be part of that journey, you need to talk to somebody who has been there, who has done that, and can give you some solid leadership advice. Doesn't have to be me, but I'd be happy to do it. And anybody who's listening to this, reach out to me at the end. I'll give you some info, and I would love to sit down with you for free, no charge, for an hour and just, you know, help you think through what you think the challenges are that you need to deal with.

And when we talk, I'm gonna do a follow-up on that because my perception, right? Tell me if you think I'm right or wrong, is that I see a lot of media stories where colleges have engaged in publicly acknowledged financial challenges and the faculty almost always, not every time, almost always express disbelief that the finances are so bad. Just from your industry perspective, not necessarily from the colleges you've been at, what's your perception of the typical college faculty member say, at a private college and their understanding of higher education finance?

I think that if a person, not just a higher ed faculty member, but if a person is scared to face the truth about something, human nature gives us an almost infinite capacity to look the other way and to rationalize.

Yep.

I mean, you know, I could, I could, you know, say fancy things about how tenure is a protection, and some folks may think they could just ride, you know, close enough for retirement, they could just ride the ramp all the way down or what have you. But, or just, you know, or that they, you know, believe it's just, you know, administrators blowing things out of proportion so they can change the way it's always been. But ultimately, You know, if, if you don't want to believe something, it's, it's easier and it's safer to just stick your fingers in your ears and go la la la la la. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, another thing that I ponder on occasion, I've shared often, probably too often, but I sincerely believe this, that more, Sarah, more colleges need to close to get the industry closer to a balance of supply of colleges and college seats. And the demand from college students. So here's my question for you. I believe more colleges need to close. Am I right or wrong?

You're right.

More—

well, I need to and will close.

Right. Yeah. Two things.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's just what my gut says, what my experience I mentioned earlier in the telecom industry says. Yes. The prestige places and the mass market schools are okay. You know, if you work at Penn, you don't need to worry. If you work at Southern New Hampshire, you probably don't need to worry. But the 60% or so in the middle are either going to retool themselves to shift closer to one of those poles, or they will close, or they will merge. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's just what any industry downsizing looks like, at least that I've witnessed.

I mean, you know more about that sort of thing than I do, but And even as I was doing this week's, the regular Monday, this week in college viability, Keystone College in Pennsylvania, they were threatened with accreditation revocation at the end of the month. They exercised their right to appeal, which is fine. I have no issues with that. And I said so in the podcast, but that, what a callous response. Their finances are awful. And the leadership, I won't use names this time. I did in the podcast. How are they not thinking at all about their faculty, their staff, their students, and their communities? It's a rhetorical question. I don't expect you to answer that, but there are colleges, and you gave points, some that should close, some that need to close. There are many that need to close and are just fighting it tooth and nail. I understand the human nature part, but higher education is right in the middle of a period where there is consolidation. We might even be at the early phases of this period. And every other industry, Sarah, I can think of has undergone significant both consolidation in the form of closures and mergers. And it's just higher education's turn is my thought on that whole topic. Yeah. I guess lastly, I was teaching you before we started recording that for the podcast that I do with guests. I have a make you king of the world or queen of the world kind of question. And that's what I've got this time. And You've heard me probably say on the podcast that accrediting agencies are not doing their job. I teasingly call them I-dotters and T-crossers, and some of them are taking issue with that. I understand, but they have focused for so long on inputs, uh, and they don't really give hardly any warning when a college is in financial trouble. Sarah, if you were made queen of all accrediting agencies, all 6 of them plus the national ones that are starting to pop up, What are the changes you would make?

Okay. I, you know, I had a lot list and I doodled and I thought, but it really comes down to one. I'm in an interesting position because I have served as a peer evaluator and I also co-chaired a self-study. So I've been on both sides of the table on this. And those were both for middle states, just for transparency, but I'm not saying anything that doesn't apply to HLC, which was an accreditor of previous employers I've been at or any of the other regions. Professionals, really it's simple. Except in some like crazy scenario where some CFO has like just successfully embezzled invisibly for, you know, years and decades, no college closure should ever be a surprise.

Amen, sister.

The world should know a school is closing at least 12 to 18 months in advance. Because the accreditors should be blowing the whistle even ahead of that time, just based on what you can see in audit results. And I know that sometimes schools who are in trouble have delayed audits. I think a delayed audit is its own kind of result. And, you know, but the accreditors, like any other people who, you know, or entity that has power in the world, is not going to do that, is not going to take a firmer hand unless the government and the people who pay college educations forced the accreditors to do so. And like I said, there are other things that I could talk about that I have quibbles with about writing a self-study or doing a site review. But if we could just— yep, if we just had that basic consumer protection in there, that would make more change than like the rest of my little list put together.

So interesting, interesting observations. Sarah Clark has been my guest today. She's the founder of the Kind Leadership Guild. I'm going to make sure I have her contact information on the show notes. Sarah, always a pleasure to chat. You make some profound observations and some common sense observations. I just hope that with guests like you and others, that those in leadership roles in higher education, at whatever level of leadership, they either reach out to you or they at least follow your guidance from podcasts and media like this. So Sarah, thanks for joining me.

Yeah, thank you so much. If you want to learn more about me as a higher ed professional you might want to have as a colleague, you can find my LinkedIn page at sarahclarkphd.com. That will redirect you to my LinkedIn page and follow me. I have lots of interest— I think I have a lot of interesting stuff to say. I have stuff to say. And then if you are interested in learning more about my leadership coaching and mentorship opportunities and/or just want to schedule that free conversation I talked about, you can go to kindleadershipguild.com and learn more about that.

And Sarah, I know for a fact you have fabulous guidance, fabulous thought processes. You make— and you make all of us, I think, ponder our business in ways that we wouldn't do it without your kind of feedback and thoughts. So thank you for that very much. For Sarah Clark, I'm Gary Stocker with a special episode of This Week in College Viability. We'll be back again next week with the regular Monday edition of This Week. So long for now.