As higher education heads into 2026, certainty is in short supply, but clarity, Erin Hennessy and Teresa Valerio Parrot argue, is still possible. In this episode of Trusted Voices, the hosts look for clues that could help create a clearer picture.
One early signal comes from Washington. Recent comments from the Department of Education suggest a renewed rhetorical focus on K–12 education. But Erin cautions against reading that shift as a reprieve for higher ed. In a midterm election year, colleges and universities remain a familiar symbol in broader political narratives — useful targets even when policy attention appears to drift elsewhere.
That political backdrop intersects with another persistent challenge: financial sustainability. From the closure of Martin University to enrollment struggles at institutions still recovering from near-collapse, the conversation underscores a hard truth — external forces matter, but institutions must also grapple honestly with what they can control. Teresa reframes the moment as one that requires sharper narratives and clearer strategic choices, especially when the “product” itself may need rethinking.
And there are reasons to be optimistic. Teresa calls 2026 a potential year of board recalibration, a reset toward clearer roles, better boundaries, and stronger advocacy. Recent examples of politicized board actions, including leadership appointments, highlight what’s at stake when governance falters. But they also point to an opportunity: trustees who understand their fiduciary role can be powerful champions not just for their institutions, but for higher education as a public good.
The throughline is preparedness. Whether the challenges are navigating protests, financial pressures, the solutions will require political scrutiny, proactive governance, thoughtful communication, and public-centered storytelling will define which institutions steady themselves, and which remain reactive in the year ahead.
Show Notes
- Teresa’s Hallmark Channel Christmas Experience
- Breitbart: Education Secretary Says She Wants to Shift Away from Higher Ed
- Martin University to Close After Nearly 50 Years, Citing Unsustainable Financial Model
- Oregon Higher Ed Body Recommends ‘Institutional Integration,’ Up to Mergers
- AGB Knowledge Center
- University of Virginia Names New President, Sparking Outcry from Some Who Sought Delay
Read the full transcript here
Erin Hennessy
Hello and welcome to the Trusted Voices podcast. I’m Erin Hennessy alongside Teresa Valerio Parrot, and in each episode we discuss the latest news and biggest issues facing higher education leaders through a communications lens. For these conversations, we’re often joined by a guest who shares their own experiences and perspectives, but we also make time for one-on-one conversations about what we’re seeing, hearing, and thinking. Trusted Voices is produced by Volt, the go-to news source for higher ed leaders and decision makers. Remember to visit Volt at Voltedu.com and subscribe to Trusted Voices on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Hi!
Erin Hennessy
Oh! Happy 2026.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Is that where we are?
Erin Hennessy
That’s the rumor.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Welcome back.
Erin Hennessy
Welcome back to you. Did you have a nice break?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Oh you know I had a nice break. Can I tell everybody about my holiday adventure?
Erin Hennessy
Sure. Why would I deny you the pleasure? We talked about my hair last time, so you can talk about your adventure.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Well, if you want to talk about my hair, I’m happy to do that too. So my sister-in-law and I went to the Hallmark Experience in Kansas City because we both are huge Hallmark Channel fans. I don’t know that fan is the big enough word. And we both had really hard fall semesters with a lot of loss. And so we were trying to get into the holiday spirit.
Erin Hennessy
And if you could come up with something more precisely engineered in a laboratory for the Teresa Parrot experience, you couldn’t do it. That thing was birthed just for you to experience it.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I mean, yes. We will include in the show notes my, I live Bluesky’d it, I don’t know how you’re supposed to say that. Yes, but there comes a point where the thread gets a little bit wonky. So if you haven’t yet seen me with Santa or me with a reindeer, these are true statements, keep clicking because they’re there. But it was the most magical experience I ever could have had. Yeah.
Erin Hennessy
Wow, that’s a strong statement.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah. There were sleighs, there were world premieres of Hallmark movies. This is their term, not mine, because I understand this is higher education. We have HR people. We got to meet the Hallmark HunksTM, and there’s a photo op with that. It was truly…it did get us cheerier and more holiday-ish, which is exactly what we needed.
Erin Hennessy
And not to spoil the entirety of your, I don’t know what…skeet? Skeet thread?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Haha, whatever it is.
Erin Hennessy
Whatever it is. I just will say that I, I’m really impressed by your mother’s bar when it comes to the definition of hunk, because she was disappointed in the looks of all of those men.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
She did not hold back. So as always you all get to experience what my childhood was like and whether or not she was ever satisfied with my accomplishments. So please go read that entire…
Erin Hennessy
Yes, or the looks of the boys you brought home, honestly. Okay.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
She’s only ever approved of one and that is Kevin Parrot, this is a true story.
Erin Hennessy
Wow, thank goodness that the last one was the right one.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes, she had nicknames for all of the others. So, yeah.
Erin Hennessy
We will save that for a live show meetup. Yeah. Okay.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
That’s a, we’ll unpack that later. Yeah, yeah. So tell me how were your holidays, Erin?
Erin Hennessy
They were, fine. I’ve definitely felt like I had a nice long break. I did a lot of reading. I did a lot of sleeping. I did a lot of eating and consuming of potent potables. So I am now on dry January. Today is day eight. I’m sleeping great though.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
How’s it going?
Erin Hennessy
I’m sleeping great. Like multiple hours of deep sleep. So that’s good.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
That’s great!
I had one beverage around the holidays and my Whoop, which is my fitness band, the next day sent me a message and they were like, girl, we know why you don’t drink. So that might be my, that was my drink for 2025 and we’ll see what happens in 2026.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. The last time I did dry January was five years ago and I made it until the day of the insurrection. And then I said, maybe this just isn’t the year.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
So you made it six days?
Erin Hennessy
I made it like five and a half. Yeah. Five and a half. I, you know, I lived a mile and a half from the Capitol and I was like, I’m probably fine, but also…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Maybe we just don’t have you do dry January? Have you ever thought about that? Maybe this is…
Erin Hennessy
Well, I wish you had come up with that eight days ago.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Maybe we should have talked about this earlier.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, maybe.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Okay, and with that as a segue, hey, let’s talk about what’s going on.
Erin Hennessy
So here we are in 2026. And usually in this episode, we talk a little bit about what we’re expecting for the year ahead. I think that’s probably stupid, considering.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I have three! Three, three’s my lucky number, so I stopped myself at three.
Erin Hennessy
Okay. Well, I am going to throw one out there and I’ve got some clips that we’ll put in the show notes, but I thought it was very interesting that Linda McMahon, secretary of the department of education spoke with Breitbart the other day and, shared that the department and perhaps the entire administration is going to refocus away from higher education this year and focus more on K-12. And for her, that includes school choice that includes increasing test scores around literacy and other things. And so I thought that was interesting in a couple levels. One, I don’t necessarily believe that that means this is gonna be an easy year for higher ed. I think we’re just too valuable as sort of a symbol for some of the folks that have spent the last year taking us to the woodshed.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah, I was gonna say we’re too easy of a punching bag.
Erin Hennessy
Exactly. But I think the other thing to keep in mind or the other thing that’s interesting to me about the timing of this shift to K-12 is that we are now officially in a midterm year. And when we see politicians of any stripe focus on K-12 education, that is usually a signal that they are trying to appeal broadly to the electorate, to moms and dads who are anxious, unhappy, concerned about the quality of their child’s education. I guess my message from that one is don’t think it’s going to be an easy year because I think we’re still in the barrel. It’s not K-12’s turn in the barrel at this point. So I’m not sure that heralds quite the shift that some might think it does.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And I’m going to flip that because I have something similar, but I’m actually more pessimistic on that. I do think that they will shift the Department of Education towards PK-12, but I think that is in part because they’re winding down the Department of Education in so many ways. But I think the retribution that we’re going to see from the administration is going to continue and will ramp up. And we’re seeing this right now in a number of different ways. I live in one of the states that is being targeted as blue and as worthy of retribution right now. And I think we’ll see that also then follow so that higher education and specific institutions start to get targeted in very specific ways. And it could be those that may be declined to be part of the compact. It could be those who ideologically don’t align with the administration. It could be those that the administration knows pull well to punch at.
I think that there are ways that they’re going to continue to use higher education, especially in a midterm year, to get traction, to get headlines and sound bites, because we proved so well last year that it works. So that’s my thought for where this next year goes, is that she will focus on PK-12, especially because so many parents are upset right now. If you have a child who has special needs or may need some kind of special attention. The work that was done last year by the administration to roll back some of the different, whether it would be laws or implementations of policies, really hit families hard. And add on top of that, some of the dollars that have been taken away from childcare, et cetera. I think they need to, as you said, appeal to moms and dads and where their children are being educated. But we gave them way too many headlines and way too much fuel to the fire and to the anger across this country that they’re not going to try it again.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, I, you know, I’m glad you brought up the compact because I think it’s interesting to, to just think about. We spent so much time last year talking about the compact and the compact turned out to be a nothing burger. Nobody signed it. Yeah. Nobody signed it.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah, I think that’s dead. But that doesn’t mean that the hurt feelings are over.
Erin Hennessy
Oh sure. Absolutely. I think there’s some debate. I listened to another podcast before the break, some debate about whether or not they try a compact 2.0.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Is this actually 3.0? Because they had the initial, then they had the all come…
Erin Hennessy
Then they had the broad-based. Sure.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
…and now this would be the like, Temu Compact? Clearance Compact?
Erin Hennessy
Sure, sure. Final sale?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Call it the CC for short? Yeah. No, we really mean it compact.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, so it will be interesting. I think you’re right. We’re not coming out of the crosshairs. It’ll be interesting to see if the continued attention to higher education in the coming year is focused from the federal level on policy or if it’s just on culture war.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Right, right.
Erin Hennessy
And I’m also very nervous because I’m a catastrophist about the intersection.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
As I laugh at that.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. Why is she laughing? That’s my little catastrophist brain.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
No, I’m laughing because I was like, I’m just going to be super negative. And you’re like, let me bring in catastrophe. So go ahead.
Erin Hennessy
Well, just, I just, you know, thinking about, and you know, to timestamp this, it’s, we’re recording on the 8th of January, thinking about the events in Minneapolis yesterday, I’m continuing to worry about physical safety on our campuses, whether that is from an individual with a grievance or if it is sort of this unholy intersection of an attempt to use higher education as a punching bag, as a symbol of a liberal mindset gone haywire, and the intersection of continued efforts around law enforcement and federal law enforcement sort of overstepping in local communities. So I agree with you. I’m just going to be interested to see if it’s an attempt to drive policy. Now that they have a undersecretary for post-secondary Nicholas Kent, who comes from the Commonwealth of Virginia, is he going to start driving a policy agenda through his office or are the administration pushes just gonna be more culture war kind of things?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah, is he gonna try to Youngkin us?
Erin Hennessy
I mean, it’s yeah, and you’re sort of jumping ahead to one of my later topics, but we’ll circle back to that one. Not Yonkin specifically, but go ahead.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Ooh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So I think you just raised something interesting that wasn’t on my list, but I’m going to raise as well. And that is as I watched, again, today’s January 8th, yesterday’s rollout, what I thought was I could see the escalation of something like this on a campus so easily. And I went back yesterday down a rabbit hole and read so many of the different clips associated with the protests that happened two years ago. And I started to think about how 2026 could be the year of the new protests for ICE and how those could very quickly escalate in ways that I think some of the administration would welcome because it would allow them to treat higher education how they’ve been waiting for us to tip and to need them to help us get our footing under us.
And I truly spent at least an hour just kind of looking at different articles from protests a couple of years ago and thinking about the way in which the rhetoric rolled out yesterday. And there are some lessons for us to be thinking about moving forward and also some ways for us to be talking about how to protest with our students moving forward so that we aren’t finding ourselves in some of those situations. Obviously, we’re trying to give advice to people who are very emotional and also are getting conflicting instructions and in very heated situations. And these are very complex moments. And what can we do in advance and what can we do now to be thinking about what these moments mean?
Erin Hennessy
Yep. It’s time to pull those protest policies back out, which we did in 2024 and to relook at them. Cause the situation continues to, to shift and we need to be ready.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Agreed.
Erin Hennessy
People come here for like the good time vibes, you know, they come here for the real good time vibes. Okay. Give me one of your three, unless you want me to just keep going in.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I will go ahead and give you one of my three. I think that this is gonna be the year of continued outreach to the public. I think this becomes year two of this new, it’s about you, it’s not about me kind of approach. And I love that. So that’s a positive. I think that we’re starting to see some ground covered. I just yesterday was talking to Karin Fischer with the Chronicle of Higher Education and we were talking about the bowl games. So when this comes out, we’ll still have that national championship on the horizon.
Erin Hennessy
I can’t wait, myself.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I know, and we were talking about how the Big Ten and some of the institutions are portraying their institutions in their PSAs. It’s different this year. And you can feel that shift in narrative in higher education so that we’re talking more explicitly and concretely about higher education. So it’s not, let me tell you about me, but it’s instead, let’s talk about how higher education matters in your life. And we discussed this way back in the spring, that Harvard did a fantastic job of recalibrating its message. Other institutions have been doing the same. We’ve seen a number of different places in higher education really stop, take a deep breath, and think about audiences. And it’s refreshing and just so heartwarming for me and where all of my different interests intersect to see intercollegiate athletics doing the same. And way that I described this is if intercollegiate athletics is the front porch, and often we only just invite people to sit on the front porch and then go home, this to me feels like the first time we’re opening up the door and inviting people into our house.
Erin Hennessy
What a lovely metaphor that was.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes, yes. Isn’t that such a Teresa thought of serendipity and optimism? Thank you, Hallmark. Thank you.
Erin Hennessy
Oh my God, it makes me want to barf just the right amount. Not like a ton, just the right amount. Queasy, I’m queasy.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes, so I think that communication push in that recast form is going to continue this year and I love that.
Erin Hennessy
Well, I’m interested, you know I’m not a football person, although I have to say this for our producer DJ behind the scenes, go birds.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
That’s not NCAA, but go ahead.
Erin Hennessy
No, it’s not, but it’s football. Anyway, I don’t start to care until college basketball season really gets cooking and we start heading towards March Madness. So I will be interested to watch all of those same kind of PSA’s and ads from institutions that are in the NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments. Particularly already it looks like there are some folks breaking out of the pack who aren’t usually making a run at Final Four. And so we shall see what folks are prepared to talk about when they do their spots during March Madness.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
It’s early in the year, it’s January 8th, we have a couple months. So if you’re getting that quick break, make sure that you sustain it.
Erin Hennessy
And listen, Villanova Wildcats, last year was not good. This year needs to be better. That’s all I to say about that. Okay. Then I’m going to jump to my next totally depressing set of stories.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Go for it.
Erin Hennessy
One of our evergreens, one of our favorite slash least favorite stories to talk about, which is the financial sustainability of our institutions. This week we saw Martin University, which is an HBCU, that has been on a pause for some period of time, their board of trustees made the decision to actually close the institution down. As I said, it’s an HBCU in Indianapolis. That decision was made this week, which is a heartbreaker. I also noticed, thanks to Lee Gardner sharing this clip on Bluesky, Hampshire, which took up a lot of media attention a couple of years ago, being on the brink, nearly closed in 2019. They missed their 2025 enrollment goal by half. 150 as opposed to their 300 student goal. So they are now cooking with 750 full-time students. And what was really interesting to me, and I don’t mean to make Hampshire the bad guy here or Hampshire’s president the bad guy here, but what I thought was really interesting was that the president’s comments about what happened really points externally. Her comments are all about other institutions opening up wait lists, the decline in international students, the demographic slide.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
How many international students did Hampshire have?
Erin Hennessy
That’s a great question. And I don’t know off the top of my head, but all of this like points externally and you can’t control those things. And so what bothers me about that argument is then, well, what’s the solution? And there is no solution, right? Cause you can’t control what the federal government’s going to do, what other institutions are going to do. And so the president’s response was…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
This happened to us.
Erin Hennessy
Missing, and this isn’t a quote, but this is a summary of what she said, that missing the enrollment target by half will force the college to push back its goal of financial stability by a year and a half. They are now aiming for its operating revenue and expenses to be in balance in two and a half years.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Hmm. So….
Erin Hennessy
I wish we were a full video podcast so people could see me flailing my arms around and making faces.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And see my eyes. So I had had some fantastic talks with my former co-chair for the AMA symposium. His name is Bill Campbell and he works at Chatham and we’ve talked significantly about institutions that are struggling to keep their foothold. And he talks about how you have to go back to the four Ps of marketing. And sometimes it is the product. And sometimes you have to have a tough conversation with people that it’s the product. Sometimes you can go, it’s the place. Sometimes, right? Go through all of your P’s. Some of those you can change and some of those you can’t, but the one that is in…price. You can go ahead and do what you need to do about price, right? Place. You could, but the product is the one that you’re really competing with everybody about.
So as you think about all of those external factors, what are you doing about what you can control? And if you aren’t doing anything, and I’m not saying they’re not doing anything, I’m just saying when you phrase it as if the world is happening to you, my question is what are you doing about what you can control and frame your narrative around what you’re doing?
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. it’s just mind boggling to think that it is seven years after you almost closed and you’re still on that brink. And at some point it’s exhausting. Right? I mean, I…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And you’re still following the yellow brick road forward two and a half more years to get to an okay place.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. And, you know, you and I have talked about this a lot, you know, the Sweet Briar example, that’s the exception, not the rule.
Teresa Valerio Parrot 21:36
And everybody wants to be the new Sweet Briar.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. And this piece, the piece that I mentioned about Martin, which is from the EDU Ledger, indicates that more than a hundred colleges have closed or merged since 2016.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I’m surprised it’s that low because my thought is it should be higher.
Erin Hennessy
I know, I know.
Yeah. So those two were…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I’m not wishing ill on any institution.
Erin Hennessy
No, of course not.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Go back to our podcast with Belle Whelan. But instead, I think if we want these institutions to be sustained, they may not be sustained in the way that they exist today. And we need to be smarter about how we’re talking, about what an institution’s existence means.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. And again, like some of the institutions nearest and dearest to my heart are finding themselves in this spot as well. And I don’t want to lose them, but at the same time, if in seven years, we haven’t figured out the path forward, there may not be one.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah. And should we for seven years continue to enroll students and promise them a bright future if we don’t know that we can deliver on it?
Erin Hennessy
I know it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart. The other story that I want to note in this little section here is, a piece from Inside Higher Ed this morning yesterday, times a flat circle, about the, Oregon State higher education commission controlling body, is recommending that their public institutions start thinking about “institutional integration.” I’m doing scare quotes for those of you listening, including and going up to mergers. So what I didn’t realize is that Oregon’s public institutions are not part of a system. And the story indicates that the there may be some conversation now about creating a system or at least leaning into systemness and figuring out how the state can more effectively provide resources to institutions if they are working together. So one example they mentioned was the public four-year and the community college in a particular region sharing some back office functions, working together to serve people in a particular region. So it’s not just the privates that we need to keep an eye on and it’s not just the small privates. There continues to be interest in public institutions becoming a bit more financially sustainable and not quite perhaps so reliant on state dollars.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I would encourage Oregon to look and see where other states have done that. When I was at Colorado, we merged two institutions that we thought would have cost savings, and the back end savings never materialized, and they de-merged them. I would look at other states, because the cultures were so different, right? It has to be a culture match, not just a it pencils on paper match. And even still, their systems were so different, there in the end couldn’t be a match. And I do think, though, if you look at Oregon, there are some interesting uniquenesses to Oregon’s higher education system. They have a standalone medical school, public medical school, that I think is fascinating. And I’m not suggesting any mergers anywhere. But I do think if anybody is interested in some very different systems of higher education, Oregon is a really great case study to go and look at to see how it became that way and should it be a model that’s sustained or should it be something that is restructured in some ways. And we have seen in other states that there can be further articulation agreements and swirls, et cetera, so that it doesn’t end up being a merger, but instead ends up being true collaboration. And that gets you exactly what your goals are rather than you use this software and we use this software and so one of us has to give up what we use because that doesn’t build culture and it doesn’t always bring savings.
Erin Hennessy
Yes, Wisconsin also has some interesting examples to look at between the public four years of community colleges and the technical colleges. Georgia is probably…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes. Yes. So does Georgia. Yes, yes. We lived the Georgia.
Erin Hennessy
Yep, yeah. So that is my second prediction that we’re going to see more closures, more mergers, both in the public and the private.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And more innovation. Yeah, yeah. I think innovation has to happen and the nimbleness that we’ve been begging for at some point really does have to occur. I hope.
Campus Docket Ad Read
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Okay, here’s my third. Here we go. I think that we are in a year of board recalibration. I think we have to be in a year of board recalibration. And here’s why I say that.
I think that last year we saw a number of boards getting involved in ways that were not best practices. We saw a number of boards that were naming themselves to be CEOs, presidents, chancellors. We saw some boards overstepping. We saw some, whether it was statements or policies or governance coming directly from the board when it should have been a C-suite decision. And I think this is the year of good governance because we saw some of what that means for the institutions as the manifestation of those decisions. So this is my, I am manifesting this for our industry. I’m gonna get out my sage. I’m gonna woo woo us for a second. I’m gonna say, may this be the year of good board governance?
And I know that AGB is leading a number of different initiatives on that front. I know that a number of the associations are also piggybacking on that and bringing that to their members. And I think that there has never been a better time for us to have board recalibration. And to be clear, some boards overstepped and some boards were not at peak performance either. We have a whole bunch of boards that are doing great work. I had the extreme pleasure of working with them. But of course you have 10% on this side and 10% on that side. And wouldn’t it be great if this year we had all boards focused on what’s in the best interest of their institution.
Erin Hennessy
Yes, absolutely. And, that’s a perfect segue to my last item as well. So we’ll just take these two together. which was exactly that governance and the politi…hmmm. The politicization.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Oh, you just Teresa’d.
Erin Hennessy
I can’t spell it nor can I say it. And so I don’t know why I’m not smarter about writing and speaking around it.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Jermaine Dupri.
Erin Hennessy
That’s a, that’s a deep cut right there for our OG listeners. Jermaine Du….
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Haha! 2026!
Erin Hennessy
Jermaine Dupri. Anyway, pulling this, pulling this back on track. the piece that I, the last piece that will be in the show notes for me is a Washington Post piece about the, not quite under the cover of darkness, but might as well have been under the cover of darkness appointment of the new president of the University of Virginia, who was previously the dean of the business school and was appointed by the UVA board, which is not currently fully staffed is the wrong word. Is not at its…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Fully appointed.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, sure. Fully seated, whatever you want to call it. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger in Virginia asked the board to hold off on finalizing the search process and moving ahead because of concerns about the politicization. Nailed it.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Oh nice.
Erin Hennessy
…of the board appointments under the current governor. So that is sort of the emblem for me of all of these conversations. Virginia is always an interesting bellwether because they are an off-cycle election, so I see the election in Virginia as well as the election here in New Jersey is sort of a predictor of what we’re going to see around the midterms. And so I think it’ll be interesting to see how politics continue to play in the boardroom, which governors are appointing public institution trustees to serve an agenda or serve the state house rather than serve their institution as a fiduciary. But I agree that this, we need to see a return to the core principles of good governance. You mentioned AGB and they do indeed have a ton of resources. We’ll link to a couple of them in the show notes. But it, we’ve said this so many times before, everything is governance.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Everything.
Erin Hennessy
Every decision, every controversy, every, everything is governance.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Culture is governance.
Everything is governance. And if you ever want to nerd out about governance, reach out to either one of us. This is our passion, governance.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, really reach out to Teresa first.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I love this stuff and working on a book on this stuff. Get me, Michael Harris and Sondra Barringer on a call and the three of us will talk to you about five jillion pages that we’re writing because governance is the bedrock of an institution.
Erin Hennessy
Yes. And if you want to talk about this stuff over a cocktail, call me on February 1st and I’ll be there, but it, mean, it is, this is, this is the thing. And this is, you mentioned the 10% that’s great, the 10% that’s not great. then the vast middle and what we need is that…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Oh no, no, 10% that oversteps, 10% that’s absent.
Erin Hennessy
That understeps.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
80%, yes, that is great. Not 10% that’s great.
Erin Hennessy
Yes. Yes. And what we, what we need. I wasn’t a math major, okay? Whatever percentage it is, we need as close to a hundred percent as possible of trustees to understand the intricacies of their role, the challenges that their board and their institution are facing. But we also need them to step forward as advocates, not just for their institution, but also for the industry at large. We’re starting to see sporadic movement in those polls about how people regard higher education. It isn’t, you know, people aren’t rushing to send us love letters, but we are starting to see some movement in some polls. And I think part of that is, I hope part of that is an understanding on the part of everyone attached to higher education, that it is all of our responsibility to advocate for what our institutions do, how we do it, how we serve our communities, our States and the nation.
Trustees have a responsibility to do that. aren’t appointed just to make sure the books are okay and donate money. They are also part of their job description needs to be advocating for the institution and the industry with all of their networks.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And there used to be a point where the role of a board member was to be a fundraiser and a friend-raiser. And you could do that four times, three times a year, right? You went to your meeting, you got your free shwag, you got lunch, and they wined and dined you and you went home, right?
Erin Hennessy
Shwag.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
You voted yay, yay, right? It’s true. And the reality is these are complex jobs. And the roles that we need people to fill, it extends outside of the boardroom and when you take on one of these roles, you need to understand and agree to be an advocate for your institution and for higher education. And I was talking to someone recently and they had a board member who said, well, I disagree with, and it was this one thing in this one department. Okay, first of all, that’s micromanagement. And the second thing is, remember, you were here on behalf of the institution. So ask a question about that, get an answer about your question and then lead the institution. Because for so many of these people, they’re CEOs. Would you have gone down to a department and have raised a question at that microscopic level that is politically based? Because if you would have done that as a CEO, your business would not have been nearly as successful as it was. So remember what got you the invitation to be at the table to be a trustee and govern in that way.
Erin Hennessy
Yes, yes. And it’s not just political. It’s also the trustees that believe they’re appointed to represent alumni or they’re appointed to represent athletics. They aren’t, they’re appointed to serve the full institution. And you can certainly have an interest and a passion for those things and, and direct your dollars to support those particular agendas or items or departments. But your job is to look after, advocate for, and serve the entire institution, even the parts that you don’t like or don’t understand or think are frippery.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes. Right, that one person who gets under your skin. This Sunday, as luck would have it, I’m having brunch with my mentor and she was my board chair. And she used to start every meeting by reading the oath of office. And she did that to remind the board that they were there to serve the institution, not their constituents, and not themselves. And I always just thought that was such a classy move to ground everybody in their roles and responsibilities.
Erin Hennessy
Yes.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
So, our roles and responsibilities are to make sure that we’re getting everybody ready for 2026. And I hope we’ve done that.
Erin Hennessy
Oh my goodness, what a beautiful segue.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
You like that? Anything else, Erin Hennessy?
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. No, no.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
There we go. Okay, yeah.
Erin Hennessy
I’m done. It’s lunchtime here on the East Coast. I’m gonna lunch.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
If anybody has any thoughts on Hallmark movies, they wanna discuss them. There are always underlying higher education themes. It’s true story, I’ve been tracking it. I have a spreadsheet. Please let me know which is your favorite Hallmark movie.
Erin Hennessy
Dear Lord.
Yeah, I also just want to apologize for those who are seeing clips or video on social. I’m wearing a hat today because I had a water leak at my house. But I do want to just note for some listeners who don’t fully appreciate the great state that is New Jersey. My hat says New Jersey and you, still perfect together. The real ones know, the real ones know where that phrase came from.
That’s all. That’s my boosterism for today.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
There we go. Everybody have a fantastic day and we hope your 2026 is off to a fantastic start. Bye!
Erin Hennessy
Bye!
Teresa Valerio Parrot
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. Follow Trusted Voices wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to check out Higher Voltage and Campus Docket, the other podcasts on the Volt network. Until next time, thanks to Erin Hennessy, DJ Haushild, and the Volt team, including Aaron and Maryna, for a great episode. And thank you for listening.
