Last week presidents and government relations officers of independent, non-profit colleges and universities from around the country met in Washington, DC for the annual meeting of NAICU (National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities), which is the lobbying body for independent higher education.

Each year, the first few days of the conference are spent reviewing the state of the sector and new and pending policies and legislation that affect our institutions. These sessions usually include presentations or panels featuring leadership from the Department of Education, congressional committees, and experts on the issues of the day.

The final day of the conference is Advocacy Day when the membership ascends the Hill to meet with our respective Senators and Representatives, and/or members of their staffs. Ideally, each of us maintains regular communication with the offices and officers who represent us in our nation’s capital, but this day has the benefit of leaders from multiple institutions within a state or district advocating together to reinforce the issues that most affect our campuses and the communities that surround them.

Susquehanna University is fortunate to be represented in the House and Senate by leaders who are strong supporters of our institutions and their missions, but this is still an important opportunity to affirm priorities that benefit our students and our neighbors.

The leading issues this year were the delay in FAFSA, concerns about changes to the overtime rules from the Department of Labor, maintaining support of SEOG (Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants) and Federal Work Study, and the looming deadline for reporting data for the new regulations for Financial Value Transparency.

We, and most NAICU members would be thrilled to share the data for the Financial Value Transparency report because our results are very good. Our concern is the timing. Each institution has to collect and parse data for seven years of graduates at the same time we will be scrambling to process financial aid packages because of the FAFSA delay.

It was good to be with colleagues from across the nation who share a commitment to advocate for our students, and it was even better to share those messages with elected officials who recognize the importance and value of what our institutions do.

N.B. I recently appeared on the inaugural installment of Higher Edification, a podcast sponsored by AICUP and Misericordia University, hosted by MU’s president, Dan Myers.

A couple of days ago, I overheard a conversation at a nearby table in a restaurant in which one participant said “Colleges and universities shouldn’t be political, they should be focused on the truth.”

It prompted two thoughts. The first, was advice I received during my first year as president, “You need to be political, but you can’t be partisan.” The second is a realization that we have entered an era in which much of our lives are being shaped by the politics of truth.

I was recently interviewed by Daniel Myers, President of Misericordia University, for an upcoming podcast called Higher Edification. Early on, Dan asked my thoughts on the recent escalation of assaults on higher education. I replied that I believe there is a concerted effort to discredit experts and scholars, because they are dedicated to seeking and articulating the truth.

In recent years, we have heard so much about alternate facts, and we have been subjected to a seemingly endless stream of commercial pundits generating infotainment in the guise of expertise. This is the result of contemporary media abandoning the sage advice of Calvin Coolidge: “Editorial policy and news policy must not be influenced by business consideration; business policies must not be affected by editorial programs.”[1]

Alternate facts, are not facts. As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,”[2] What are we to do with facts and erroneous counterpoints when both are presented as the truth? That is why we need academic scholars. It is their calling to discern and contextualize the truth.

In his landmark speech (and one of my touchstones), The American Scholar, Emerson defined the mission of the scholar:

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances… He is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one, who raises himself from private considerations, and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of history. Whatsoever oracles the human heart, in all emergencies, in all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of actions, — these he shall receive and impart. And whatsoever new verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men and events of to-day, — this he shall hear and promulgate.[3]

Emerson was saying that scholars are called to make our world better by observing, interpreting, and articulating the truth. Epistemology matters: what is fact, what is opinion, what do we know, and how do we know it? Academic experts do this homework every day so that they can serve as sentinels and broadcasters of the truth.

Every day last week, at least one comic strip or the editorial cartoon in our newspaper featured some version of 2023 as an old man warning 2024 as a baby that it was an election year. Also, each of those days featured an editorial letter proclaiming that this election year will pose an existential threat to democracy. Those proclamations came from both sides of the political aisle, and all wrapped their arguments in statements of diametrically opposed “facts.”

More and more, objective facts are labeled as ideological. This seems to be a technique to discredit or toxify inconvenient truths. Nothing seems to be above factiousness, but if we can’t agree on a set of fundamental truths, democracy really is in trouble.

Our nation’s and our world’s greatest challenges should not be partisan minefields. They should be the things we all roll our sleeves up and work on together. For the things that really matter, we can’t be committed to the outcome having winners and losers. If we do, we all lose.

This is why we need to protect the academy. Colleges and universities are far from perfect places — thank goodness. We wrestle with ideas, we experiment, we make mistakes, we create, we debate, we often disagree, but at our core, we seek the truth.

[1] Coolidge, Calvin: Address to the Society of American Newspaper Editors, 17 January 1925.

[2] In a column in the Washington Post, 18 January 1983.

[3] Ralph Waldo Emerson: The American Scholar. 1837.

Given the broader discourse of the past two months, I have purposefully delayed making an installment for the past few weeks to keep my 15 October post at the top.

Traditions

Colleges and Universities are rife with traditions. Some are silly, but some can be quite meaningful.

Sometimes they accrete their own mythologies. When I was at another institution, there was an entertaining and harmless tradition of wearing costumes during senior week. I once made a wise crack about it, and was told by a student, “You don’t understand, this has been a tradition for nearly a century;” to which I replied, “No, you don’t understand, this was started five years ago by a student named ‘xxxx,’ and I was there. It’s fun, but not foundational.”

Some traditions truly are foundational. Each year at commencement I acknowledge Susquehanna’s traditions:

“Like sacraments, our university traditions are outward signs of inward truths. They are actions that signify values that are at the core of our institutional identity, and they bind us as members of a rare and meaning-filled community.”

At Susquehanna, favorite traditions include: Move-In/Convocation, SU Give, Homecoming, Family Weekend, Thanksgiving Dinner, Candlelight, Martin Luther King Teach In, and SU Serve.

Each of these traditions focuses on certain values or goals.

Move-In (some photos from last year are at the bottom of this page) is an opportunity for faculty, staff, returning students, and some of our neighbors to welcome new students and their families to campus. It affirms for them that we are the close-knit and supportive community they were anticipating.

SU Serve is a day focused on our yearlong commitment to community service. It is also a tradition celebrated by thousands of alumni across the nation and around the world who given tens of thousands of service hours to community organizations every year as an extension of their college experience.

Convocation and Commencement are our formal traditions. We do ceremony with significant pomp and minimal stuffiness. We strongly tie these events to each other. At opening convocation, I invite our new students and their families to their future graduation. I tell them what charge I will give them at commencement, and I encourage them to do all they can in their four years here to be best prepared to meet that charge.

The last few weeks of the Fall semester include some of our favorite traditions.

Be a Kid Again is a gathering on the night before finals. Students gather in the dining hall in their pajamas and sit crossed-legged on the floor enjoying cocoa and cookies. Harmonic Combustion, our student a cappella group, leads them in some carols and I sing a setting of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” with patient help from Prof. Marcos Krieger and Phi Mu Alpha and Sigma Alpha Iota, our musical Greek organizations. It was surely started to provide a boost of encouragement for first-year students about to take their first collegiate finals, but many students participate all four years.

Thanksgiving Dinner is the most sentimental for me. We have three seatings over two days. The final seating is for seniors. Everything is family style, served by faculty, staff, and many of their family members. It is a 42-year-old event that could not be more heart-warming. The students are truly grateful and gracious. This year’s seniors were especially appreciative because their first year, we did Thanksgiving as a masked take-out. Even then there was a palpable sense of gratitude.

Our Christmas Candlelight is beloved by the religious and non-religious alike. About 1400 people attend our own version a Lessons and Carols Service. Founded in 1966, it is a terrific showcase for our choirs and instrumental ensembles, and it is one of our best town-gown integrations. This year’s program was focused on finding hope and peace in a weary world with an emphasis on the Beatitudes.

Each of these traditions helps to shape and reinforce culture and values, and they are strong reminders of how lucky we are to be in this wonderful place.