Youth 4 Youth was built by players who are currently living the journey. We're taking the doors we've walked through and holding them open for the next generation.
Wilson theorizes that aggrieved far-right faculty were overrepresented while far-left faculty boycotted the survey. He provides no evidence for either claim and ignores evidence against—such as that only one of 633 respondents identified as 'extremely conservative.'
Social anxiety and depression had other plans, leaving me in an ugly cycle of self-isolation and rumination. Terrified of rejection, I'd meet someone interesting during one of my English lectures and invite them out for frozen yogurt in my head.
Cuts that hurt are obvious: layoffs, program closures, college closures, furloughs, deferred maintenance, pay freezes, travel freezes, etc. It's a well-worn playbook at this point. Most of the moves in this category involve either attacking employee compensation, which causes obvious pain, or putting off necessary investments and living with gradual declines in quality.
Whether it's executive coaching or life coaching, people understand the concept and know that there is value to it in higher ed. However, what's been missing is this foundational research that really explains why coaching works in this context and how you can then leverage it to have the most impact on student success. What does a coach need to know, and at what skill level do they need to operate in order to have the impact on students that we want to see?
This is a striking decision at a moment when public confidence in higher education is eroding. It is also puzzling because rigorous research and evaluation have demonstrated, over and over, the value of the work of centers for teaching and learning, including positive impacts on student learning outcomes, institutional effectiveness and faculty development.
A tweet can travel far, but it cannot spark a spontaneous conversation in the hallway. Conferences offer in-person engagement, but they are infrequent and often exclusive or too busy. Hanging a paper on your office door? That's immediate, local and quietly powerful. It is a symbolic gesture that brings your research into the physical space of the university, something rarely done in today's digital culture.
I assume that it's intended to provide ammunition to go after disfavored faculty and/or to instill such a chill on campus that nobody would dare to say anything provocative in the first place. Whether those motivations are locally held or are meant to keep the university below the radar of certain culture warriors, I don't know. The effects are the same either way, and they're devastating to the mission of a university.
