Trusted Voices: All About the Benjamins

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Teresa Valerio Parrot

Teresa, hello and welcome to the Trusted Voices Podcast. I’m Teresa Valerio Parrot alongside Erin Hennessy, and in each episode, we discuss the latest news and biggest issues facing higher education leaders through a communications lens. For these conversations, we’ll be joined by a guest who will share their own experiences and perspectives.

Erin Hennessy

It’s so nice to see your face.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Oh, happy fall after a long summer.

Erin Hennessy

I know a long summer, and I’m just back from a long vacation, and I’m mostly happy about it, but I feel very disconnected from higher ed over the past couple weeks. Although I did, because he’s like our Where’s Waldo, run into Jeff Selingo at an ice cream shop on the Jersey Shore and traded some messages with him about the advertising airplanes that fly over the beach all day long, and those institutions that elect to advertise to those of us sitting on the Jersey Shore and the messages that they use. So there was a little higher ed in my vacation, but not a lot.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, I have not yet taken my summer vacation. Mine is next week, so I will let you know, as I sit on the beach of Hawaii, if there are any planes that fly overhead and advertise there.

Erin Hennessy

I definitely want to know about that. I 1,000% want to know so that I can then start to guesstimate what that’s costing that institution.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, remember where I am in the country versus where you are in the country. It’s easier for me to get to Hawaii than it would be for me to get to the Jersey Shore. But all of this is tied to money, which is what I’m thinking about for this fall, because it’s all about the Benjamins as I think about what higher education is going to have to be focused on as we start our new semester.

Erin Hennessy

Somebody got some segue training this summer. That was a beautiful segue.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I know, right? When we were thinking about, what are we thinking about for the fall? What are we focused on, and what are we hearing from our campuses? The top of my list is it’s all about the Benjamins. And if it’s not about the Benjamins, it’s how it’s connected to them. Because where I am seeing my campuses right now focused. What they are thinking about is finances, and whether it’s net tuition revenue per student versus average private giving per student. They’re really thinking about what finances look like. Tuition discounting, obviously, is determining that net tuition revenue per student. As we’re recording this, we’re waiting to see what those final census numbers look like, but we’re already starting to see some institutions weighing in on what their classes look like and what their finances look like, and how they are determining what dollars and cents will look like.

Erin Hennessy

It feels kind of strangely quiet, right? Like it feels like late July, early August, we got some folks who I think were smart to sort of push out the indicators they were pushing out at that point. But I feel like we’re all looking up for that next big shoe to drop, and I feel like there have to be shoes coming. But it’s strangely quiet right now.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, I’m seeing some people claim some early victories because people were very hesitant to say one way or the other. But as of this last weekend, I started to see a whole bunch of people quietly start to say “We had a great class!”

Erin Hennessy

Yeah, biggest ever.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah. It’s because everybody always says it’s the biggest if you calculate it this way or the other, you carry a one, right?

Erin Hennessy

Exactly.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

But I think part of that is because we’re all still kind of waiting to see what happens with FAFSA. There are still so many outliers out there, and there were a whole bunch of other articles about how states are still kind of saving institutions on the FAFSA front, so still ties to money, but I haven’t seen the big victory laps yet. And we usually see hesitancy in, you know, not wanting to claim classes until you get the numbers for census. But this year, there really is a tremendous hesitancy.

Erin Hennessy

Yeah, when I dipped back in over the weekend and yesterday, we’re recording this right after the Labor Day weekend, I did see some of that initial data out of, I think it was, MIT and who else released data around the impact, the SCOTUS decision.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah, New York Times had Amherst, Tufts and MIT in a piece this past weekend?

Erin Hennessy

Yes, and it’s interesting to me that we’re pushing that out in front.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

The timing was curious.

Erin Hennessy

Yes, it’ll be interesting to see what additional schools are willing to share that data proactively, and how they’re positioning it, and what all is to come. But I do feel like one of my biggest thrills of the late summer, early fall, was always the oh gosh, the Entertainment Weekly fall television preview. And I feel like this is our fall television preview, where we’re waiting, but nobody knows which of these shows is going to be any good and which one’s going to absolutely tank after four episodes, so.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well and it’s interesting because I saw a piece this last week that was in the LA Times where Caltech is saying we’re hitting gender balance in some different ways, so we can’t talk about diversity in ways that we used to. So kudos to Caltech for saying, let’s talk about gender balance. And I have to give a shout-out to Harvey Mudd, because they have been talking about this for years. So I think we’re going to start seeing different ways to talk about how we’re balancing our classes, because we’re going to use the metrics that we have available to us. And I’m curious to see what kind of celebrations we see after census date or even just announcements that we used to see that used to happen during move-in.

Erin Hennessy

Yes. And I’m also interested to see, for those who don’t have great news to share, how they are framing that as well. We all sort of watched some of the conversations of institutions in the Northeast who talked about a downturn and anticipated downturn in enrollment because of protest activity on campus. And I think that’s an interesting approach. We’ll see how other institutions that maybe didn’t hit their marks in terms of enrollment choose to frame that as well.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes, and I think that based on whether institutions hit their marks or not, and where they ended this last year, based on their finances, and what we’re hearing potentially might happen with interest rates in the ecosystem, I think we’re going to see a lot of debt refinancing happening this next year too, right? We haven’t seen institutions really thinking about that as much because interest rates have been so high. And I think we’re going to have to have some more of that happening too. So I saw that there were some new numbers that were coming out for some institutions tied to what their financial situation looks like. Some of them had some new ratings coming out for them. So I’ll be curious to see kind of how some of their financial situations shift over the coming months as well, because I know some have been holding on to some of their debt in ways that they haven’t wanted. So let’s see what their paper looks like moving forward. And I think that ties also to their endowments, where we’re seeing a lot of students who are asking for either divestment or at least sharing how institutions are investing. Whether that is specifically asking for divestment or having clarity and having institutions share specific types of investments and funds that are being included, whether that’s for the endowment or even going so far as saying where 401ks are invested for the institutions and its offerings. So I think, there is going to be this interesting dance that institutions have this fall, whether it’s for protesters or it’s for this general interest tied to who is benefiting from the money that is raised from their investments. And as we know, some institutions have billions that are invested. So, this is going to be an interesting fall.

Erin Hennessy

Yeah, unlike all the other falls, which have been very, very boring. I’m really looking forward to a boring fall one day.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

So I’m going to layer one more complexity that comes into this, because as we’re talking about Benjamins, as we’re talking about investments, as we’re talking about whatever debt loads might be, and mixes of students on campuses, we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the fact that this is an election year. You and I will be talking about that quite a bit in the coming weeks and months. It’s going to be a theme for us this fall, this semester, this season, and I’m sure it will be brought up as we have various guests on the show. So I’m excited to say we’re going to be recording the day after the election, and I’m guessing that’s going to be quite the show, regardless of what the outcome is.

Erin Hennessy

Yes, and I’m very excited. Just having looked at my calendar and your calendar and several of our colleagues’ calendars, I’m really excited that we’re going to be on campuses over the next couple of weeks to really get a sense of what the feeling is there, how engaged students are in the election and other issues. And so, I’m excited to sort of take that temperature and get that pulse on what’s happening on campuses. It’s easy for all of us to sit here and say, “Oh, I think this, and I’ve heard that,” but I’m excited to actually be there. And as you said, I think the election is going to take up a lot of room in all of our conversations, also in any kind of conversations that are happening. And I just want to send a loving cup of coffee and a hug to any media colleagues on campuses who are trying to pitch anything that is not election-related this fall because it’s going to be a really challenging time to tell our stories proactively and to share what’s happening on our campuses unless it is in some way directly connected to the election or the economy. There’s not a lot of free space in the ecosystem right now to tell any other kinds of stories, and so we understand, appreciate and empathize with those of you who are trying to drive a message and achieve some strategic goals in just profoundly bananas election cycle right now.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes, if I take that up one level, I did some really good work with a campus this summer, and what we were trying to focus on is decision-making and how to actually move away from being stuck in crisis paralysis, because so many leadership teams aren’t able to move from being stuck in the cabinet room of just focusing on whatever seems to be the top issue of the day, and instead move strategically to getting the work of the institution done. So, we really focused on developing a strategic framework for leadership decisions, and then from there, focusing on the next steps to consider after a decision is made, sticking to those decisions, then what comes next, and then moving to assignments and timelines based on less urgent, more important, more urgent, more important, less urgent, less important, more urgent, less important, et cetera, right? Really moving into what are the quadrants based on timeline, and then holding people accountable for sticking to that, right?

Erin Hennessy

That’s the trick, right there.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

That’s the key. And so we really built out a team dynamic checklist and built out accountability standards for holding to it. So, how do we make those decisions? How do we make sure that we have the next steps? How do we put them into quadrants based on timeliness and importance, and then, how do we hold people accountable for it? So, I’m curious to see if they’re going to be able to stick with it. But one of the most important outcomes for this is that we made sure that everybody understood that with all of this, the last step in these processes is communications. That was really what we needed people to understand, because where they were stuck is in this spin of, let’s make a decision and what are the communications. And this entire two-day process was getting them to work through all of these steps, including that part where I saw your eyes glaze over for a second. We needed them to build out all of these steps to figure out, and communications comes last. So I’ll keep you posted on how that works for them because it’s really easy when you’re working on whiteboards to say and we understand communications comes last, and we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to it. But can they stay there?

Erin Hennessy

You did that work with the full senior team?

Teresa Valerio Parrot

The full senior team.

Erin Hennessy

Was the board involved at all, or was there a representative from the board?

Teresa Valerio Parrot

There was not, but there was the board officer, and she is a very respected member of the cabinet, and she is very respected with the board. And interestingly, their board isn’t a micromanaging board. They are a well-functioning board, so they don’t step in and try to jump to the end, if you will.

Erin Hennessy

Sure. Were they briefed on the outcome? Because I think that would be really useful for them to be able to stay in that non-micromanaging spot to sort of understand that process. Because we’ve worked with so many institutions where what the board is really focused on is making it stop whatever “it” is, the crisis, the challenge. And so often they see communications as the silver bullet. And we both know that we need leadership before we can communicate. I think a potential, if it works the way that you all are hoping it works, I think that’s a really great resource that that institution can be sharing with colleagues and institutions across the country.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

They did something really smart. They let the board know that they were going to be working on this. They shared what this model was going to be, and then they’re going to present it to the board in September. But let me just read you on this team dynamic checklist, what the final step is for each of their processes? Because I think this is important. For issue identification, the last step is, are we holding others accountable for focusing on the big question? For timeliness, are we being honest about the timeline and holding others accountable for meeting it. For collective decision-making are we supporting others by being available and taking our part of the solution or next steps? Focus, are we holding others accountable for maintaining focus? Understanding sample size and influence, are we holding others accountable for living our response and communications approach? And the final is comfort with discomfort. Are we supporting each other as we receive feedback and critique? So whole bunch of steps to get to that point, right? There are a whole bunch of different intermediary steps, but those are the final steps. It’s really good work.

Erin Hennessy

Fingers crossed.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I was so pleased to work with them on this. And they said, Okay, if we could actually get there, what would that look like? And that’s what this was, and I was honored to be a part of it. So that’s what it’s going to take to really get to that leadership space that you and I talk about.

Erin Hennessy

Well, that’s what you did on your summer vacation.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

That was my summer break.

Erin Hennessy

Nice.

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Teresa Valerio Parrot

So let’s talk about what else is coming up. Can I share one tidbit that I’m super excited about that is next?

Erin Hennessy

No.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, I’m gonna do it anyway.

Erin Hennessy

I figured.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

So, um, next episode, we have a first. Ready for our first?

Erin Hennessy

Yeah.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

We have two guests.

Erin Hennessy

Oh, right, right, right, right.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes! So we have Doctors Jorge Burmicky and Kevin McClure. We’ve never had two guests before, and they are going to come and talk to us about where they see the future of higher education presidencies. So they are releasing a report about the competencies that they see for presidents. They are releasing a report on presidential competencies. They surveyed 700 current college university presidents, and they also led focus groups with current presidents, and they found seven traits that they currently see among presidents. So those are trust building, demonstrating resilience, communication savvy, Erin Hennessy.

Erin Hennessy

Savvy even.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Savvy, yes, and I love that that is among these traits of a successful presidency. Crafting a cabinet in team building emotional intelligence.

Erin Hennessy

Oof, highlight emotional intelligence.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Leading with courage, data acumen and resource management.

Erin Hennessy

That’s like the Venn diagram of your interests — data and nerdery — and my interests — how can we get people to be better at this incredibly important job and be successful in this incredibly important job? I’m very excited that we are going to have our first double-guest episode with these two and dig into this.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yes, what else are you excited for?

Erin Hennessy

Well, I’m particularly excited for that report because, as always, leadership continues to just be at the top of both of our minds and how we’re preparing leaders, and how we’re not preparing leaders, and what the consequences and costs of that are. Since we last recorded, we’ve seen additional presidents step down some of the very public ways. The president of Columbia has left her job since we last talked, sort of a delayed departure following some really rough times that she had and their campus had in the spring. But one of the things that I did do over the summer was spend a lot of time with the ACE Fellows Program, and I’m really excited about it. I know I’ve talked to you about this. Leadership development programs that slot communications in as 90 minutes or two hours on the third day after lunch just aren’t enough anymore for those mid-level and senior leaders looking to rise to the most senior positions, including the presidency.

And what the phenomenal Nita Banks at ACE has done is started to invite me to weave communications into all of their retreat sessions. So, this was the first time I was with the fellows for their opening retreat before they all leave for their placements. And it really was fascinating to hear folks talk about why they want to serve the kinds of institutions they want to serve, what they’re hoping to get from their presidents that they’ll be shadowing in their placements. And I think this report, in addition to all the other great work and great resources that are provided to the fellows, is just going to be a really important roadmap and a really important resource for the program when they come back together in January for their mid-year retreat.

And there are a lot of other associations that are doing this kind of fellows training approach, and this is key for them as well, whether or not they’re aspiring to a presidency, if you’re aspiring to a senior position within your profession, knowing what your president is worried about is thinking about, knowing what a good president looks like and how they lead is so important as you try and find the place that you want to make yours in a senior role. So, I am so pleased that Jorge and Kevin have done this work and that it is finally going to be out in the world.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And as you know, I used to work with the fellows, and I used to love I used to have office hours they used to call it with the fellows to help them come up with Thought Leadership plans. And that was such rewarding work to get to work with them about where do they see themselves now, and where would they like to go? And now I work with the American Academic Leadership Institute fellows as they go through their leadership training. And that is a really neat program as well, similar to the ACE fellows in a number of ways. And that program is a collaboration between the Council of Independent Colleges and the American Association for State Colleges and Universities, a very similar program as well, and providing that leadership pipeline program that gives them the opportunity to both build their leadership skills but also look around and see what other institution types and institution settings are like, so that they can see where they might see themselves next. And I think trying on different institutions to see where you might want to go is so critically important because we know a number of leaders that have moved up within their own institutions. And they know what that institution is like, but being able to go somewhere else and to see what problems and solutions they have, as well as what shared governance looks like, what partnership looks like, how they address different types of problems, what kind of problems they have and how they are looking to the future, I think is so critically important, because we all have similar problems, but the ways that different institutions are addressing them is so critically important. And I think that’s one of the fun things about the work that we do, is that we’re able to take some of those solutions to different institutions. And kind of the fun part of podcasting too.

Erin Hennessy

And you know, honestly, like I said, I’m just back from vacation. I’m slowly tiptoeing in. There about 250 Inside Higher Ed and Chronicle of Higher Ed daily emails in my inbox still. I’m wading through what the big stories are. I really do feel like, you know, we joked a lot in the last episode that we recorded at the end of spring semester, we joked a lot about girding our loins, and I really do feel like the whole industry is just sort of in this, I don’t want to say crouch, but in this sort of braced position because we don’t know what to expect. I fear that we’re in that braced position because, potentially, we haven’t all done the planning and preparation work that we should have this summer, which I think is unfortunate, but I think between financial pressures, between faculty unhappiness and potential votes of no confidence, not knowing what our student activists have continued to work on and plan over the summer for protests around the war in the Middle East, around the election in November, I feel like there’s a lot on the horizon. There are very dark clouds out there on the horizon, and they’re steadily blowing this way. And I just, I feel like we’re all waiting to, like, see if the tornado sirens is going to go off and we need to get down in the cellar, or if this is just going to be a bad rainstorm, or what we’re going to be dealing with.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

The reality is, though, none of us ever know each fall what we’re going to have, and we all had so many signs of what was going to come that we all should be ready, right? And I was on a webinar this summer for NAICU that was talking about, what should we be thinking about with an election year? And a survey was put out to the attendees, and there were over 400 attendees, and one of the questions was along the lines of, how many of you are planning for what could come this fall? And a whole bunch weren’t. And I just thought to myself, this is a reality check for you, because it was in May or in June. And I hope that those that weren’t planning did something about that, and you and I brought it to those that we work with to do something. So if people are worried, then there was time, and there still is time. So, I’m not as worried, because I know I’ve done what I can, and I’m here and ready for whatever comes. And we have this every fall. So we have our choice, right? We can be afraid of what comes, or we can just take on what comes, and I’m ready to take on what comes. Let’s do this. Let’s do this.

Erin Hennessy

I feel badly for our comms colleagues, because I think you and I both know that after a really turbulent spring semester, many of them were sort of catching up on all of the stuff that they had planned to do in the spring. And we also know that there are many of them who probably went to their cabinet colleagues and to their president and said, “So now, are we going to do this planning work?” And it just didn’t get done. So I’m also sending a cup of coffee to all of our colleagues that have done what they can to prepare themselves and their teams, and they are ready, even if the institution may not be. And I just hope that leadership will listen when the time comes, because I know that, you know, there’s always critique of the media that a very small slice of higher education is often made to stand in for the entire industry. And I know that many institutions didn’t see protests around Israel and Hamas. I know many institutions likely won’t see them this fall. So I don’t want to give the perception that I think we’re in this time of peril, but I do think that there to your point, we talk all the time about warning signs. There could not be a more clear set of warning signs that this may be a bumpy fall for many of our institutions than the set of warning signs we had in the late spring over the summer and in the early days of the semester. So we’ll see how it goes, I guess.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And this is when I say, there are no silver bullets, and that includes for communications, and that communications is often a proxy for the leadership decisions that are made. So this is when I go back and I say, we can’t go from what a leadership decision is directly to the communications, and we need to remember that when there is pushback, it is not about whether a verb was used or an adjective was used. It is not about whether or not we used that Oxford comma. It is the pushback on the leadership decision that was made, not the communications. And we all need to remember that. Put it in context, and we need to remember that the communication is the final portion of the leadership decision, and that the communication cannot serve, cannot serve as the final product that is determined to be what people are pushing back on. It is the proxy when people get upset. And I just want everybody on campus to remember often our communicators are the fall people for the decisions that are made. So I just want everybody to remember that, because this is what happens when tough times happen on campuses. And I just am sending so many good wishes to our communicators, and I want for them to remember, to remind, no, I’m serious about this, because we go into this fall, right? And I am saying, bring it on and keep your head up and remind people about what these processes are, and this is why I went through that checklist about what a team dynamic is, and I shared all of this, because we need to be very clear about what we can and can’t do, and share that throughout all of the processes and the timelines, and then go into battle and know that part, well, part of our job is we may be the consequence at the end of this, but make sure that you are clear throughout about what the process is and what is actually the pushback and what is being said and what it actually means, because this is what happens to our colleagues. This is what that means. This is why sometimes you and I end up being who’s fired in a consulting agreement, right? It’s true. It is easier for leaders to say this is a you problem, rather than this is pushback on a leadership decision. And if that’s what lets people sleep at night, then that is the decision that can be made. And remember that when that decision comes closer and closer to the leader and a bigger decision happens.

Erin Hennessy

Amen.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Amen.

Erin Hennessy

Can you get down off that soapbox?

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And now bring the semester.

Erin Hennessy

Now, bring it on. Well, since this has been somewhat doomy and gloomy, I’ll just throw a little bit of sunshine in there and say the thing I am really excited about is not going into battle, but I am very excited that I am teaching at Georgetown again this semester. It’s been a couple semesters since I was there, but I’ll be teaching in their Masters of Public Relations and Communication, Corporate Communications program. And the reason I bring it up is because this semester, I’m teaching public relations ethics.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Oh, fun!

Erin Hennessy

Yes, I’m very excited. And we had our first class last night, again, this is right after Labor Day, despite the fact that it starts at 8pm. Lord help me. Yes, it was a great class, and I’m really excited to dig in with folks on what ethics are and how we bring them into the decisions that we make, and how we as communicators are in some ways, really responsible for holding the line on making sure that our values and our ethics are centered in all of our communications and thinking, not just tactics, not just strategy, but really the theory of what an ethical decision making process looks like, and how that then informs an ethical communications process. So…

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And this is actually ethics month. So PRSA is the organization that has come up with the standards for ethics for our industry, and this is national ethics month through PRSA. So I encourage all of our colleagues to go to PRSA’s website and to brush up on the ethics standards for our industry.

Erin Hennessy

Thank you. They are on the syllabus, not next week, but the week after. So I think that will still be within ethics month, which is one of my favorite months, obviously. Other things we wanted to talk about on this our first episode of season three? Can you believe that?

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I know. Just that I am so pleased that people have stuck with us for three seasons. Again, I’m ready for this semester. Let’s do this. And I am so honored still to be a part of higher education.

Erin Hennessy

And I think we’ve got some, as you mentioned, some really exciting guests ahead. We’re in the process of locking all of them in, and we’re thinking about some exciting things as well that don’t involve guests, but we’re excited about season three. I’m very grateful that my mother listens to every episode when I send it to her.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

As do my parents.

Erin Hennessy

Yes, yes. Thank you to the Parrots and Susan Hennessy.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

To the Valerios.

Erin Hennessy

I’m sorry, the Valerios. Lord have mercy. And I’m excited for our conversations, so thanks for doing this.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Same to you. Thank you for joining us for this episode. You can find links in the show notes to the topics and articles referenced, as well as a copy of the show’s transcript on the Volt website, voltedu.com. Remember that you can always contact us with feedback questions or guest suggestions at trustedvoices@tvpcommunications.com. Be sure to follow trusted voices wherever you get your podcasts, and we invite you to check out higher voltage, another podcast on the Volt network that is hosted by our Great friend Kevin Tyler. Kevin explores the evolution of higher education that is happening right before our very eyes. Until next time, thanks to Erin Hennessy, DJ Hauschild, Aaron Stern, Nicole Reed and the Volt team for a great episode, and thank you for listening.