Leading a Liberal Arts College During the Coronavirus Pandemic

This episode of Future you is brought to you by Nelnet Campus Commerce, Delivering payment technology for a smarter campus, and by Entangled Solutions. This is Future youe with Jeff Salingo and Michael Horn.

Welcome to Future youe. I'm Michael Horn, coming to you today from my home in Lexington, Massachusetts. And I'm joined by my co host, Jeff Salingo over Zoom. Jeff, good to be with you.

Michael, it's good to be with you here from Washington, D.C. even under these circumstances.

Yes, indeed. And on today's episode, we once again dive into those circumstances, the crisis caused by COVID 19 and its impact on colleges. And today we get to offer a perspective from residential liberal arts college and consider what schools can do to anticipate the challenges that will be cascading in the months ahead. To do that, I'm pleased to welcome Carol Quillen, who has been president of Davidson College in North Carolina since 2011. Car, thanks so much for being with us during these difficult times.

Thanks, Michael, and thanks, Jeff, for having me. It's nice to hear your voices and to be with you.

Yes. And we certainly hope that you and yours are safe during this unprecedented moment in our lifetimes. It's probably the biggest challenge I assume, that you and your counterparts have faced in your careers. And we're curious just to start us off of what's the one guiding principle that you have right now that might be useful to other presidents trying to navigate these turbulent times?

That's a really good question. I think for me, we've been guided by our values, the values of the institution and by priorities that we've articulated even prior to this crisis. So to the extent that you can ground your decision making in values that your institution holds and in the priorities as expressed in your mission, I think it's easier to make better decisions. Sometimes that can seem hard, but I think what's always guided us in terms of our values should guide us now. So for Davidson, let me say that we deeply respect the dignity of every human being. We're particularly mindful of the well being of the most vulnerable among us. We believe in the quest for truth and our priorities are the safety and well being of our community and our ability to pursue our educational mission. So we try to make decisions through this unprecedented crisis in light of those values and priorities.

Carol, I've spent a lot of time on your beautiful campus down there in North Carolina, and one thing that strikes me about Davidson, but many other liberal arts colleges as well, is kind of the community that's maintained among students and Faculty and staff and administrators, and in many cases, the local town as well. Well, now, of course, your students are at home or elsewhere taking classes remotely. How can you maintain some of that sense of community in this semester? Or is it just impossible?

Thanks for the question, Jeff. Community is really important here, and community remains important. And so we're asking ourselves, how do we build and sustain it through other means? We may be accustomed to doing that here on our campus through face to face encounters. How do we do that through other means? I can give you some examples of community building that our faculty, staff, and students have already been practicing, even in the brief time that we've been away from campus. So we have a group of students writing History Honors theses, and they're doing co writing. That is to say, they're connecting via Zoom or other virtual methods, and they're having writing sessions together. We had a huge virtual gathering where student artists and faculty artists shared their work called colt. We called it Cold Open, and that was organized by a staff member and faculty member together. And I think close to 400 people participated in that. We have a staged reading of a play tomorrow night where we have a world premiere that was going to take place here this spring, and we are staging a virtual. You know, we're doing this virtually, obviously, with an audience so that we can still share in a little bit of this world premiere. Communities of faith that have met on campus are continuing to meet remotely. Coaches are connecting with groups of athletes. So I feel like the connection and the community building is ongoing because that is such an important part of the Davidson experience. And our faculty, staff, and students are continuing to find ways of doing that. Last night, CBS Sports Network aired two games from our 2008 run to the Elite Eight. That was a great many. Many Davidson people watched that together. And some of the players took over the Twitter feed and were basically offering their commentary of the game as folks watched that. So Stephen Curry today is having a Q and a with Dr. Fauci, and so many Davidson people are participating in that remotely. So we're finding ways of connecting with one another through other means precisely because community really matters to us.

That's great. I can't wait to take a look at that Q and A. Well, so, Carol, it's pretty clear that we're about to head into some challenging economic times. And Davidson, like a select few other institutions, has been very generous in making sure students of all socioeconomic backgrounds have access to your education. How are you thinking now? I realize it's so early in this crisis, but how are you thinking about continuing that commitment going forward? And how do you. How does Davidson and other institutions avoid kind of being pulled back in the other direction when in some ways, it might be easier to kind of serve students who can afford your institution? Of course, there's fewer of those students as well.

Our commitment to affordability, that is to say we want our doors to be open to all students, irrespective of their financial background. That's a foundational commitment at Davidson. And even though in our history we've obviously had many exclusionary practices, the commitment to affordability at Davidson stems from the idea that a democratic society needs educated citizens and that everybody, everybody, every citizen should be entitled to an education. So I view that as a foundational commitment here, totally admitting that we have not lived up to that always in our past. So, to me, it's not a question of whether we honor that. It's a question of how do we do that under the circumstances in which we find ourselves? And I can't give you an answer as to how Davidson's going to do that, but I can say that we are going to do that. And that's because it's a. It's a really important part of our identity. We want to live up to the values that we claim to hold. And I actually believe that education is really, really important in a society that wants to be democratic, where the participation of the people is essential to sustaining the institutions that safeguard our freedom. So I can't tell you how yet, but I can tell you that we're not going to become a place that is the preserve of the wealthy.

So that resolve, actually, I think, in sort of sense of mission and contribution, frankly, to society, is something that we've talked a lot about in the show in recent years in higher ed, about this divide in perception, at least between the liberal arts and the practical arts. And in the last decade, for example, you well know that the number of students majoring in the humanities, for instance, has dropped significantly. It seems like in this moment, though, the liberal arts actually has a lot of important things for our society. And from your perspective, what can they teach us in this moment?

So, for me, the idea of the liberal arts is a. It's a philosophy of education that focuses on two. Well, many things, but let's just say two things. The first of those is deep human capacities that develop transferable skills. So when people talk about the ability to analyze problems from multiple perspectives, or the ability to communicate to different audiences, an ability to work collaboratively, a sense of empathy and compassion, creativity. These. These are human capacities that require cultivation and that, in effect, lead to transferable skills. That's a part of the education that we offer. The other part, of course, is what we can call technical skills, depending on your field of study. So every field of study, whether it's art or history or biology or computer science, has a set of technical skills associated with its practice. And I view holistic education, which is to me what liberal arts education is. Holistic education is education that develops both of those things. So we've done a terrible job of making clear what we do to the public, I think, because frankly, we've been a little bit complacent about that. But residential college education is equipped to develop both sets of skills, no matter which field you enter. And that's how I would talk about the kind of education we offer at Davidson. Now, that being said, we now have a calling to figure out how to disaggregate that experience and deliver pieces of it much more quickly and much less expensively to a much broader group of people, because employers are asking for the kinds of human talents and skills that we develop. So to me, that's part of our calling now.

So, Carol, you've been focused in recent years on transition to impact of your students, kind of helping them launch into the world after graduation from having that holistic liberal arts education. This is likely going to be a very difficult job market for the graduating seniors in a couple of months and maybe even longer. Are you thinking yet about how to help your students will be graduating in just over a month or your other recent graduates? I realize we are just weeks into this and you're dealing with a million other things, but I just was wondering if you're starting to think about how you can help these new college graduates coming out in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, I think we're thinking both about the class of this graduating class 2020, but also, you know, next year and in subsequent years, because so much of employment depends upon the experiences that students are able to get while they're. While they're in college. So we have an amazing career development operation that developed over the past couple years thanks to the incredible folks that work there. And they are already thinking about how to stay in touch with employers, how to check in with our students when, if we need to help students navigate a much longer job search, then we're prepared to mobilize our alumni network to help with that and also to make sure that our students are thinking about the range of options that are available to them. So is this a time to think about working, you know, pursuing a fellowship or a postgraduate fellowship for a year before you seek employment? Are there skills that will distinguish our student, our graduates, from others applying for jobs so they have leg up? Are there different opportunities that we can offer our juniors so that they're ready for the market when they graduate? So our career development team is already thinking about all of that. And then as always, you know, the world is not within our control. We can't control everything. We control very little, actually. And so how do we help our students, especially our very, very achievement oriented, talented students, manage a world where much is out of their control and they're going to need to live in the gray maybe in a way that they're not accustomed to. And I think that's an important skill, an important capacity that we want to develop in our young people.

I'm just curious, Carol, as we wrap up here and think about Davidson's larger role that you all have been playing in the innovation ecosystem of higher education over the last several years, you all have been pursuing a number of innovative approaches and strategies, innovation management process on campus, hub for innovation adjacent, that you've been incubating entrepreneurship in the town of Davidson. What happens to all this work that you've done in the innovation front from here and during this crisis? You obviously are blocking and tackling in the here and now and making sure students, staff, faculty are safe and accounted for and getting learning back going in the community and things of that nature. But as you think about all the innovations that been doing, how does that continue to play out? Or do you hit pause or how do you strike that balance?

The innovation framework that we've developed on campus is proving especially useful now because we have a group of people who are accustomed to evaluating alternatives quickly, to testing ideas and figuring out what's viable and what isn't. And we need the good ideas of our community now more than ever as we look out over the next several months of sort of unpredictable circumstances. So I think the innovation framework that we developed on campus serves us well in that regard, as do some of the programs that we've developed at the Hurt Hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, we have this initiative called gighub, where local entrepreneurs and companies can propose a project and students complete the project either, you know, for pay or as part of a class. That's a kind of experience that we can continue to offer our students that will prepare them for the job market at a time when it might be difficult to get more conventional internships so from my perspective, the innovation work that our faculty and staff have been leading for the past several years will help position Davidson effectively to respond to this sort of unprecedented environment that we're living through right now.

Carol, I think that's a great piece of advice as you're trying to balance these two very important things, the here and the now. But we want these institutions to last us another century plus, and in order to do that, you kind of can't take your eye off that longer term ball at the same time.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, we have a mission and our mission is humane instincts, disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service that mission abides. How do we fulfill it now? We can't control the circumstances in which we're operating. We can control our allegiance to that mission and we can commit ourselves to fulfilling it now, even when it's hard, even when we have to change our practices, even when we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, because that's what we do here. And I feel like that commitment to that mission, no matter what the circumstances, that grounds us here and that gives us courage and hope even when we can't predict what tomorrow will be like.

Carol, thank you so much for joining us in these trying times. We're going to have to have you back when hopefully we return to some sort of normalcy. But I know that you're incredibly busy during this time and we deeply appreciate your time.

Thank you. Thank you both so much. Take care of yourselves.

Thank you and we'll be right back on Future you.

This episode of Future YOU is brought to you by Nelnet Campus Commerce. Nelnet Campus Commerce delivers payment technology for a smarter campus the Secure payment solutions for higher education are PCI level 1 validated and integrate with every major ERP. From payment processing and refunds to payment plans and online storefronts, Nelnet Campus Commerce helps process payments on campus. Learn more@campus commerce.com this episode was also made possible with support from Entangled Solutions. If you want to shape the future of education, Entangled Solutions would like to hear from you. Entangled Solutions is hiring smart, mission driven team members interested in helping world class institutions solve their most vexing challenges in learning and education. Learn more at Entangled Solutions.

Welcome back to Future you. That was wonderful of Carol to join us. As we know she's juggling quite a lot right now to shed light on the impact of this crisis at liberal arts colleges. And frankly, we pushed her, Jeff, to think not just about the here and now, but where does this go from here, really? And so, but I just want to start with a question for you because, you know, for those of you that don't know, and you alluded to it, obviously, Davidson is a place that you've gotten to know very well over the past couple years. It's one of the three main schools featured in your upcoming book on college admissions. You were embedded in the college admissions office there, as they were. The book, of course, who Gets in and why, that's coming out at the end of the summer. I'm just curious your own sense from having spent a lot of time there of how this crisis will impact a residential community like Davidson.

Well, Michael, it's a great question. I've been just thinking about all the great people that I've met down there over the last couple of months in these last weeks, and I think there was a moment there where Carol talked about the Davidson commitment, particularly around socioeconomic diversity. You know, she talked about kind of the exclusionary practices of so many colleges, including Davidson, in its history. It has really made a huge commitment on financial aid for an institution that has, you know, quite frankly, has a much lower endowment than many of the schools it's competing with on this, on these aid practices. And I'm just curious, as I asked her, you know, how they're going to be able to do that. And she said, we're going to do it, we just don't know how yet. And I think it goes back to that sense of mission that you talked about at the very end. And we have to be committed to that mission in the long term. Yes, some things may have to change in the short term and we're going to have to figure them out. But you don't suddenly change your mission in times of crisis. In fact, you thread yourself and you connect yourself even more to that mission. And that's really what I took out of that. What did you take coming out of that conversation?

I thought, I mean, many things. I agree that commitment to vision and mission and who they are obviously jumps out profoundly. It'll be interesting to see what trade offs they make, frankly, in the pursuit of some of those things. But that's where I thought that the innovation piece of what she talked about, where we ended with her, was super interesting because Entangled has worked closely, obviously with Davidson on a couple of these initiatives and we've seen the process that they've put in place. And her sense of that actually gives us a cadence and way to test out ideas that the community understands and is responsive to the challenges we're now facing in pursuit of our mission and vision. Makes a lot of sense and frankly, it's probably the way that they figure out what trade offs are we willing to make? How do we continue to deliver against our mission, but maybe in very novel ways so that we can maintain these commitments and do it in a way that's cost effective for our community will serve them well. And I hadn't really thought about that piece when I asked the question. I expected her to talk about programmatic things, but to think about the process that they've built and the durability of that, I thought it was a really profound takeaway. That should serve them well.

Jeff Right, exactly. Serves them well in these challenging times. And with that, Michael, we're going to close out this latest episode of Future youe. It was great to have you from from up in the Boston area and I'm down here in dc. As always, please keep writing us and offering thoughts about what would be most helpful during this crisis as we try to unearth what the impact will be on the future of higher education. Thank you for listening. We're going to be back with more episodes on the unfolding future of higher education soon. And so until next time, be safe and stay.

Hey folks, Michael Horn here. Hope you enjoyed the latest episode of Future You. And just a reminder to please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform and if you like the podcast, rate us so that others can find us and find out about the good conversations that we're having here. As always, thanks so much for listening.