This webinar will be recorded and it will be provided for all registrants you receive a follow-up email after this event, with instructions to access this recording this webinar is also available for one cfr credit. And you can find the points track rate to claim those credits under the courses tab for this event at learn that case that work the presentation slide was also available for your use in that same courses test we'll be taking questions. So please feel free to use the Q. And a chat to submit questions as they come in and at the end of the session we'll feel free to get those questions in, and we'll answer as many as we can and so without further ado i'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to our incredible presenter, Andrew Shaw. Thank you, Lauren. Happy to be here with everyone today. Get the screen share going here. My name is Andrew Shaw, as Lauren said. I'm the project manager for value of higher education at case based in our Washington, DC. Headquarters. I've been in this role since February 2,021, developing plans and keeping an eye on the day-to-day operations of a Gates foundation. Grant that you'll hear more about in a bit I've been a kid for 5 years, including some time in the volunteer Member Engagement division, so I may have crossed paths with some of you who are dialing in today. Yeah, and that's a brief introduction about me. But I'd like to get to know you all a little bit better and I know we have we have a poll question that will help see who's all in the virtual room with us today. So if you could run that poll. Please. Yeah, and thank you all for sharing a little bit more about that yourselves. Just good to know who's in the room, and who all is. With us today. Yeah. So today, we're gonna start with setting some background. The history of public trust in higher education, and segue into cases. Engagement with the topic, past, present, and future panel. Certainly, as Lauren mentioned, leave time for your questions at the end. Also I have some overall goals for this session that can apply to everyone in this meeting. One providing some context and insight on an issue that's impacting education in ways like funding and fundraising enrollment, overall reputation of an institution. Secondly, letting you know how cases involved in ways that may be helpful. Your job this summer, Webinar. We certainly want to highlight some benefits of case membership in ways we can all learn from one another. Thirdly, I wanna make that connection about where you see what we're talking about here as part of the evolution of the role of advancement leadership meaning looking beyond the day-to-day work meaning that you're trusted to lead thanks to your knowledge of these impactful trending issues. And when I say you, I refer to both you individually and to the entire Advancement Office. Within an instution. The interactions advancement has with other offices around campus, where you look to as a key voice on these school-wide issues. Let's set the stage by reviewing the types of surveys that we looked at in realizing there was a need to talk about the value of higher education. Now with any data related, presentation, you start with a few caveats, that there will be a broad swath of question types and issues highlighted, even if it means jumping from poll to poll. Higher ed. And particularly a less tangible concept like trust in higher Ed. It's not a subject like election polling. Where you get many surveys every year asking the same question. Some of the data that you'll see will be linear over a few years. Some will be just at one moment in time. But overall it's representative of what we at case have been looking at these last few years. Another caveat, since we have people joining us from multiple countries throughout the world. I want to say at the outset a little about where this falls in across international borders and that the main main motivation for cases entry into this work was public opinion in the United States. We saw a decline in trust in higher education that was a trend we wanted to address, just like we'd look into any other issue that affects the advancement profession, and we know there are common threads that can apply elsewhere. And ways. We can all learn from each other, and always want our work to have a global mindset, too. In fact, as you'll see. We looked at the Uk. And Australia as models for our work for purposes of this presentation I'm more heavily focused on the Us. Research to set that context. But I'd hope the messaging areas and the ways of talking about what higher Ed means. And does that will get you toward the end. I hope, that can apply universally, and for those of you interested in Canadian data, I do have a few surveys there. If you want to follow up with me separately, can share a few things that may be a interest to you. There. So to anyone on the webinar from outside us. Higher end, including independent schools or educational associates within the Us. Certainly appreciate your interest and understanding and hope. It's a great learning opportunity ahead. It's easy anecdotally to feel like higher education is under attack, or at least making negative headlines. And we do have some data that backs up these assumptions and the headlines that you see on screen from last handful of months here. Overall. There's a declining level of public trust and higher education, as you'll see. It's in a variety of surveys, a variety of question, wordings, the reputation is slipping overall, as you see in this this, and there's a partisan divide on top of that. So right now we've got just over half of adults saying that colleges and universities have a positive effect on this country. We've got 3 years of data in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic that you see on screen here, so you might be taking it with a grain of salt. But if you zoom out to 10 years we've got more declines, and especially among Republicans, a complete reversal. In just 7 years. Democrats views have remained relatively constant which you might think of. Higher education had truly turned into a partisan cultural wedge. You'd expect a pallel increase in support, and it shows that Democrats have concerns about the sector too. Moving to the chart on the right, with the green bars you can see what's at 12 percentage point increase in negativeity. Since time 12 to 2019. We also have 2021 data that I. Is more recent, hasn't made it into that graph. The positive was up to 57%. But the negative was up to 41%. So all in all, from 2012 to 2021, you have a 3 percentage point. Decline. And or in positivity, and a 15% increase in negativity over the last 10 years. The previous questions, talked more about overall effect on society. This question talks more about the impact it has on the individual, and that cost is a concern for everybody. There's no enthusiastic group in the demographics that says college, no matter what, and looks. Specifically at the adults without degrees. Second, from the bottom. There. So for those of you who have a lot of learners outside that 18 to 22 demographic in your college or university business model, it may be continually difficult and something for you to monitor down the line. There are a variety of reasons that people have less trust in higher Ed. But this Gallup poll was taken in twenty-seveneen, with some perceptions about colleges and universities, and 2017 that's predating. The Varsity blues, admission, scandal, and it's before Covid I'm not presenting these here to say whether these are accurate perceptions or not worth the degree institutions may be responsible directly versus other factors, but a variety of things that perception not just one single issue, it's classroom related. It's campus, related. It's business and operations related. There are a lot of areas to sort through, think through work, through together and lack of accountability is something that we also see mentioned. A lot in these types of survey wordings. There's very strong support, I'm sure many of you know about the college scorecard. Publicly available data compiled by the Federal Department of Education. Pauling shows over 90% support for keeping this type of data and depending on how the question is worded between two-thirds and three-quarters support for losing taxpayer funding. If the scorecard results don't meet certain metrics, so lack of accountability is something that maybe cuts across many of the factors that you see in this poll here, but also something to keep in mind I don't wanna be entirely negative. We do wanna talk about how to work on this issue together. So we do have some optimistic takeaways in the data that we can carry forward one of them is that the sector pirates still holds its own compared to other industries. There is declining institutional trust all across the board, declining trust in concepts like expertise and science, which tie in with academia. But here, on balance, you see high red wreck, fourth and overall confidence behind military small business and police. Hired even being on the list might tell us a story in its own right. There's a public confidence, Poll, that gallop has done every 4 years since 1977. So that's right. After Watergate, right after the Vietnam war, people felt there was distrust in these big societal institutions. Pirate was only added for the 2017 survey. It had not made any of the ones before, and then it was taken off for 2,021, so my inference, there just wasn't as much cooperation and cohesion across schools. Higher. Ed was thought of as lesson in industry than it might be today. Case, for instance, was only around for 40 years. My prior, 1977. Maybe people don't know what to make about colleges in the collective or generic sense versus one college in the individual and specific sense and I wanna get a little bit deeper on that, with an example on that point about colleges and the generic versus colleges in the specific because anecdotally. I've heard some of that when speaking with government relations or alumni advocacy professionals as part of sharing info about cases, work doing some fact-finding, that when those professionals meet with elected officials the official will be enthusiastic about their own Alma Mater, or the college in their district, say lots of nice things about it, but then, when they consider legislation about higher Ed as a whole, that personal and local sentiment doesn't carry over, they look upon colleges and universities unfavorably paint with a really broad brush lots of generalizations, the graph on the left is hot off the presses for 2023, and what you see there is that every member of the Senate has a college degree 94% of the members of the House do and the same study found that 48 Senators and almost 300 Representatives have at least one degree from an institution in their State. There's that local connection there in the graph. On the right, we have some State legislature, demographics, light blue means the info wasn't available. Dark blue means less than bachelor's degree, and obviously we'd have liked to have seen who had an associate degree or a but focusing on the red and the gray for bachelors and graduate degrees and looking at all the States collectively it's clear that educational attainment for elected officials at the State level outpaces the general population. They could be allies and advocates for higher, and they've been more exposed to higher Ed, and could be champions in that way. Another optimistic takeaway, 80% in this pulse you add up all the green bars. They think that pursuing education after high school is a good life choice for someone they love and want the best for. So even people who bash higher Ed to score political points, they still likely want their kids to go. As I just mentioned. There's a lot of declining trust and higher. Ed isn't necessarily unique. There, but the difference for us is that people are still engaging with us, and now our institutions offer something. People need when there's a decline in trust in organized religion. You see, people identify themselves as less religious when there's a decline in trust in mainstream news, you see a lesson-aged population in terms of current events, knowledge or civics. Knowledge. Even if the trust is declining, there's an element of underlying belief that's still there when it comes to higher end. One last slide of optimism, broad public support for public, broad public support, for spending at both the State and Federal level. To make education more affordable. The first in the third group of bars from the top are supportive, the second and the fourth disagree, and it's broken down. Bipartisan affiliation. The questions you see in this poll are vaguely worded, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it leaves me wanting more about more specific insights about what making education opportunities more affordable entails are there policy. Ideas or narratives that would be good to AIM, for, for instance, increasing the funding for pell grants that would affect private colleges and universities more explicitly, and the question also words it as spend more tax dollars not pay higher taxes, and that's a key distinction and sometimes where we run into roadblocks, overall, though this is a good summary, as we transition away from the data, heavy part of the presentation, there's plenty of support out there for higher Ed. But there are some partisan differences to be mindful of and there's an affordability element to be mindful of overall, though we do have this implication that developing an educated population is beneficial for everybody and it's a worthy way to use resources the opportunity. Is there for us as an industry? I wanna next transition into some background about cases, interest in this topic where we've come from and how we've gotten to to where we are today. Case, it's been interested in this issue for a few years now. The photo, you see, is a panel event held at American University in March 2018, and live streamed across the world. That's one example. I include this, not to brag or be promotional, but to show it's our responsibility as a professional association to stay on top of emerging issues that have affect the professional. We can be conveners. We can have a panel that has multiple university presidents, multiple, former, high ranking cabinet officials, media personalities. We really see this as something that we can do like same thing in our case. Conferences bring people together, and we see it as a strategic and inclusive topic that's relevant to all institutions, whether it's 2 year or 4 year, public and private, regardless of your enrollment, size, geography, religious or academic mission, any of those demographics, we see it as something that can be helpful to you for some declining public trust may manifest itself in lower enrollments for others it may be funding issues, conversations with donors or State governments, reputational issues just to name a couple of examples. So we had great turnout at this webinar, and in the room we thought there was momentum. We saw there was interest, and we decided to dive a little bit deeper. We did. Our research looked into other ways. The topic had been addressed, and for those of you who don't know cases, a global association. And in addition to Washington, DC. We have officeices in Mexico City, London, Singapore, and Perth. So we looked at examples, internationally of the higher education sector. Speaking with one voice to reinforce the benefits that they bring to society, made it unique as a campaign of universities. Uk. Keep it, clever is from universities, Australia and their member institutions are coming together to share stories of how they benefit society and what we liked also is that they're doing it in kind of universal ways. But themes like great, and breakthroughs and energy, things that can again apply to all instution types and represent the entirety of higher Ed. While we were doing our homework. We also heard about a bill that was making its way through the Washington State Legislature, called the Workforce Investment Investment Act, and it's a higher business and occupation Tax that's levied on about 20% of the businesses. In Washington State to fund the Washington College grant, and that provides full tuition expenses almost anywhere in state, public or private, for students from lowest income households and partial aid for low-middle income families and what stood out to us were 3 things and effort called yes, it's possible where colleges and universities came together to lay the groundwork for this law, and again, private and public, they did it individually and through existing groups like the State Board of Community and technical colleges, or the Council of Presidents, which is for 4 year institutions, secondly they mobilize their alumni basis to speak out as concerned citizens and support. And when you mobilize alumni inherently you get a diverse range of ages, occupations, political affiliations, locations within the State. Speaking out in unison and reaching a lot of legislature, legislators Microsoft and Amazon were some of the biggest supporters from the beginning. On this, no college and university support for this law that's self interested. We're acting in our own best interests. The industry voice makes it clear that it's about the greater needs of the State. These companies said, Raise our taxes, they raise their hand. They said, please do this, we'll still benefit in the long run by having more talented students remaining in state. So this law is an example that informed our thinking, and not in a super specific way. We're not going to lobby for identical bills like this in every State, a number of reasons why I wouldn't do that. But it showed what can happen when colleges and universities are working collectively to talk about their values. But this is the type of impact that can be had in a place which values higher education and it's already had impact for the students in Washington. We have a few graduating classes already who are soon to be in the workforce, making a difference, and I'm excited to see what the long-term impacts of this log. So with that awareness and momentum, we applied for and received a grant in late 2,020 from the bill, and Melinda Gates Foundation to build messaging around the positive impact of higher education which we've developed under the brand name Discover the next we want to amplify and complement the findings of one of the Gates Foundation's projects the Post Secondary Value Commission, and that focuses primarily on the individual financial benefits of higher education. We want to reinforce that, but also branch out and spotlight the Ways society at large benefits, and those benefits are going to be regardless of an individual's educational experience, that even if somebody didn't go to college, they still benefit from the work being done at colleges, and universities, from the work of people who have pursued post-secondary education from having a college or university in their local community. Our partner. Associations in the effort are Ace and Agb. They're professional associations, just like case Ace is for Presidents and chellors. Agb is for trustees and regents, and those groups are very similar to cases. Membership. In some ways they work across the whole institution, and all institution types are represented in their membership. Discover, the next is gonna be a unified campaign of colleges and universities, sharing stories of achievement, innovation, and distinction. And we can provide a framework, but the stories are yours. The external supporters and champions are yours. Success to us is engagement based and reach based the number of institutions participating use of the up with communicating with us, what you're doing around this issue on your campus. We know we can't sway the pure, the gallup polling by tons of percentage points in one year, and even if it did swing we wouldn't be wholly responsible for a shift in either direction, some of the causes and sensiments about public trust or the political dynamics have been in progress for decades, and sometimes with great financial backing or political organization behind it. It will take sustained effort to reverse it and speak about the positive impacts higher. Ed. I want to. Now turn to what exactly we're doing and what exactly we're talking about when we communicate the value of higher education. Some of you on this Webinar may have been part of the Conference committee at District Cabinet. Other groups that's a big part of case culture, volunteer leadership. So we put together a steering committee to guide this work and help build the messaging. You can see a partial screenshot of one of our meetings on the right. There. Their alumni and comeds, professionals, some government relations, folks as well, and all institution types are represented which is something that was important to us we know that TV or movie depiction of college is usually very narrow where that news media can focus on elements of the student experience that aren't universally applicable, maybe only apply to a handful of institutions, and we know when we talk about higher Ed or the sector, a part of that storytelling is making sure everybody is represented. Keeping with that theme of members being the drivers. What the Gates Foundation recognized. That case can bring to the table is all of you cases, membershiping professionals in comms alumni relations, development, advocacy just to name a few that's a stakeholder focused externally facing audience. It's not caught up in Academia or jargon. You work directly with highly active and engaged alumni advocates and partners in the local or business community, who can be these champions for higher Ed, by telling her story collectively, we amplify the value of higher Ed to our communities, and as you know, storytelling is a great stewardship opportunity. It's a chance to shine and connect with alums or community leaders or donors. We wanted this work to be grounded in experience and research. You've heard about the other associations and the steering committees who have helped shape this. Our messaging goal is to find specific talking points that build the case for the supportive value of higher ed in communities at the local level together broadly, nationally, and internationally, and that you can tell that that story with the support of all of our institutions so as you're doing the work of Coalition building and working in community and enrollment strategy. So within your own local context, you have the support, the research in the messaging behind you to lift the sector as a whole along with you, and use the power of all of higher Ed as you do that work focus group testing can help complement that messaging now, our focus group testing was not the surveys that I showed you earlier in the earlier in the presentation. We weren't asking for their general thoughts about Higher Ed. We were asking more specifically about tangible benefits and phrasing of how that those tangible benefits are communicated overall, though we're operating about what we saw the messages are heading in the right direction. There's a baseline of support out there for higher. Ed, though there are some things to be mindful of here and there, and we'll get to that in our next slides. Between the steering committee discussion and focus group testing. We co-alesced around 4 broadly applicable areas that show the tangible benefits of what higher it means in does a lot of the stories can fall into personal achievement, economic advancement, scientific innovation and community connections I'll get into each one in a little more detail I'll show some examples of each pillar in action, and then, just briefly, have the more extended talking points on the screen. I know it's a lot of text, and don't worry about reading every word of it in the moment I just wanted to have them there on there. So when you get the slides and the length of the recording afterwards, you can read and digest them more fully, and at your own page. Now, personal achievement. That's not just getting the credential and the job readiness. But it's fulfillment, aspects of things, to building new skills and talents, interacting with people of different backgrounds. Originally we wanted to go very heavy on the credentials, but focus group testing that did help. They said it didn't have to be an either, or between credentials and personal development skills. And if anything, they took it a step further that they pointed out, why haven't you talked about people who met their staff at college, people who have met lifelong friends? The pride that people have when they graduate, or when a loved one graduates. But they also talked about jobs that don't exist today, and the messaging overall it ties in with so much that we can institutional level innovation, particularly innovations that increase affordability or reduce the time to credential like breaking down barriers around transfer credits those can go a long way people want to hear about that, and by sharing actions we have taken to address affordability, access, and attainment. We demonstrate our responsibility, and it helps us build public support. I also wanna point out the bullet point about bringing together students with different perspectives, helping students expand their worldview and promote creative thinking. That tested very well, and I think it really fits in with the conversations that you might be having on your campuses around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. That's a great fit. There! Economic advancement refers to the business angle. The idea of creating an educated and credentialed workforce, and that research and development done on college campuses can make better products. Others. Certainly the competitive angle, both regionally and globally, that that's an part of economic advancement, too. And we found that alumni are very capable messengers who are already well-versed in the societal benefits of colleges and universities, not just their own Alma Mater, that if you have alumni advocacy networks, you can leverage people in a variety of businesses to be enthusiastic about the whole sector anecdotally. Again, it's like what we were talking about before. The difference in between college and the specific and college of the in the generic alumni advocates are really good at making that that connection and making that case. Scientific innovation. Certainly that category has the pandemic front and center. Right now. Medical might take on a larger role in people's minds, but we intended to be inclusive of all types of personnel and scientific initiatives, and indeed, in our research, our focus group testing people found a variety of occupations and a variety of sites to be valuable when talking about scientific innovation. So not all. R, one Phd-level personnel first responders to like clinics as well as labs. But one precaution that we would take with the messaging is that and same thing applies to economic advancement, too, that there are other places where innovations happen. We can't take the entirety of the credit. There are national labs. There are corporate R&D facilities. So we should be conscious of that, that we're at colleges and universities are places where innovations do happen, but not at the expense of other people who are contributing to the effort. Can you imagine refers to local economic impact? Certainly, but also cultural arts, sports access the benefits of research and internships, and community service from the college community as well? We definitely recommend going tangible and narrative, avoiding that all in one economic impact number and seeking out specific examples of where your college are university has made an impact locally of the 4 messaging pillars. This didn't resonate the best in the focus group testing. Not that it was a negative or a drain, but sometimes we just need to make that extra effort to connect the dots, particularly with the K. 12 example, for instance, or the cultural activities like concerts and theater people might not realize that it's owned by the local college or university. Or there might be you know, student teachers or externships, or things like that. Certainly, for around this time of year, with March madness, I know I had the Epiphany working on this project a few months ago, when I was kind of preparing a presentation like this, and realizing I'm a big basketball fan because there was a local college or university where I had no family connection, or anything, but they had tickets for free went with family and lifelong basketball fan. To this day, thanks to the university that neither parent worked at, I didn't enroll in nothing like that. But there's that community connection so applicable this time of year, and I'm sure there are plenty of and examples on your campuses as well. Let's walk through where we are specifically, but discovering the next at this point, kind of what we have coming down the line and ways that you can get involved as well, since we received the grant, we've been in what we like to call the quiet, face, I'm sure that's familiar for those of you working on the development side of the house, really doing our homework, doing our background research, building out infrastructure and materials behind the initiative sort, developing the brand the logo everything behind that that was part of our process. We built out, discover the next.org, although certainly hoping to keep keep updating it as much as we can bye. We're in the face where we're engaging a lot now, with lots of interested groups, individual institutions, associations, conferences, panels, webinars like this really want to surface the issue to as many people as we can and share what we're doing to to address it and to provide solutions for colleges and universities that may be helpful, and over time we want to build out engagement with other external audiences, as well. We wanna keep producing templates and tools and resources for participants to share messages of the value they're providing with their own stakeholders. And in their own contacts we wanna take advantage of times when the eyes of the community are on higher. Ed. So, for instance, having a suite of tools ready to go around commencement season ways to incorporate value-related messaging into, let's say, a commencement program, or on the commencement website, speaker remarks things like that will wanted to do targeted prompts around story themes remember I had talked about in the Uk. And Australia. They have these prompts of stories around creativity or breakthroughs or energy just to name 3 things like that where we can show colleges and universities acting collectively and to talk about the value they bring. We also had a recent event, called Perceptions of Higher Education. Some of you may have seen it, and thank you to all who either dialed in or were in the room at our district. 8 Conference in delvey, Washington, at the beginning of February. Was it really energetic, thoughtful panel, as you can see from the titles there we have college and university representation. We have association, representation, corporate record representation in the backgrounds of the panelists, too, we had a verified of fields represented by a really interesting discussion would encourage you to go to discover the next org slash perceptions. You can read or write up, you can read some background reading and discussion questions around it, and of course, the full video is on there, too. But that's something it's kind of a a midway point or a booking of sorts to that panel at American University that we had in 2018, which I talked about before similar idea of having an in-person panel that's a live streamed to folks around the world we had 15 different countries participating this time around and we want to continue to have opportunities to talk about the topic. Such as this one again being that convener bringing folks together to think through the general topic of trust in higher education and value of higher education. And what we can do about it together. There's some steps that you can be involved with, too. We'd love to have your participation. And a first step would be to share the stories that you saw on those previous slides. You also saw images of story headlines when we went through the 4 main messaging areas they came to us from institutions who are signed on as participants and discover the next, we really want to discover the next.org to be this hub of the great work that's being done at colleges and university. They can service story ideas to share with one another. Certainly you might see something that resonates with you, something that you know you have on your campus. That would be worth highlighting. But it's also an element of proof of concept for external audiences that these are individual stories and solutions. But we're talking collectively to advance the sector, really putting a larger framework around that localized expertise. So if you want us to link to your stories, you can certainly scan the QR code or go to discover the next.org click, join you, just go out a brief forum and provide us with one piece and again existing content stories. You already have already on your website that align with those 4 main messaging pillars, and I will say self hitting as the person who monitors, that inbox and gets to post the stories. It's really, it's been a fun part of this job, too, just seeing all the creative, innovative, impactful things that are happening at a variety of institutions. All across the country and world. So I definitely enjoy reading through it, and would be happy to to see what you've got, and then to highlight it on discovery, the next org as an example of the value that your institutions provide. There are other resources we have on the website, certainly the messaging those talking points that we've developed. Those are online, the story Kat just mentioned a variety of suggested activities, ways to bring up the value of higher education and talk about public perceptions of higher education with your own constituents so they could range from activities like putting it on the agenda at an advancement team meeting a Presidential Cabinet meeting, rotary club, consortium wherever it is, at ways that you can begin to have these conversations with an audience. And really share out when I've given presentations in the past in person, it's great to have people talking to one another, learning from one another, finding that common ground of things that that they may have seen before and things that have been successful in building trust in the local community and with your local audiences we have some tools and resources already on the website, and hoping, coming soon. I mentioned a toolkit around commencement, for instance, we have some OP. Ed and video things that should be on there within the next few weeks. So examples of OP-eds, but also kind of OP-eds and videos, but also kind of peeking behind the curtain. The how to or kind of dissecting what went into it, and what can be effective in reinforcing value, messaging. So we'll have those paired side by side, and we should have those up within the next few weeks, and none of these templates or tools are designed to be heavy. Lifts or diverge too much from the work you're already doing. Certainly we know you're busy budgets and personnel might be what they are. So again. Not not a change in pace from what you're doing, but that you can do it with the full strength and support of the higher education sector behind you, and we can make the case for the value of higher education and the value that your institution brings we can do that together, and again, to reiterate our success on this is reach and engagement based so definitely. What want you to let us know what you're using, how you're talking about? Value, what response you're getting from your local stakeholders. It's really good to keep that dialogue going. Certainly grateful to have the participation of a lot of institutions, and again, a diverse institutions from all around the country in the world. Glad that we're currently at 2 slides worth of participating institutions right now, would love to add even more would love to top of many of you here. What it's like at your institutions, and what strategies you may have found if in the past 2. So I'll open it up to Q. And a. But definitely wanna thank you for your time today. And looking forward to keeping conversation, going and staying in touch. So with that I'll turn it over to Lauren, who, I believe, will be facilitating. Yep, thank you, Andrew, for the phenomenal information I would shared. So one other questions that we have in the chat box is, do you have any suggestions for institutions in higher Ed, in Florida? Yeah, I would say that Florida does provide. Certainly a wide range of institutions and cooperation specifically I haven't looked at public opinion polling from there, but I would say, having that statewide look, is a good way to start both with systems and public private speaking, for Mike, legislatively as far as community connection I know, the all in one impact. Number doesn't resonate as much with the legislature at a previous job. We spent a lot of time coming up with an economic impact number. And it kind of still a little bit flat, because the Legislature at the time just said we don't believe in this amount of public funding, and it doesn't matter if it's a good return on investment or not it just they didn't wanna fund it and that was related to tourism funding, but I feel like a lot of those lessons would carry over as far as perceptions in Florida that it the narrative and tangible case makes the difference more than thinking about it in purely economic number terms cause that hasn't persuaded them in the past. But definitely, I would say, statewide, working together colleges and universities that's a great place to start, because you have similar external stakeholders, and you can show the broad coalition of support among a variety of institutions. So it helps build your case because you can kind of enumerate the differences between that institutions. That's something that we we found that there's been a general lack of awareness among the public about institution types that the general public might not be able to distinguish. Let's say, liberal arts from Research University. There's not a lot of knowledge about that. Our institutions are nonprofit, that a surprising number of people think in colleges and universities are for our only for profit. So, I think it's a good place to start when you're talking collectively and show the diverse range of missions and outcomes that that you have so definitely think about it in geographic terms. That's a good start. You're you're already. Take that good first step. Awesome. You share some really great data in the beginning of your presentation on the people are interested in looking more into data. What are some tools, or where some places that people can come to find more information about such. Sure. The 2, or, let's say the 3, 3 pollsters that we used pew research does great work, and I'm a past employee of the few charitable trust which is the umbrella organizations. But I don't say that out of self-interest there's no conflict of interest. We didn't work with the center at all, but they have a higher topic page that I find the data. Are good, but also they wrap it up nicely and explain context that the actual write-ups are very easy to digest. Gallup is a little bit hit or missed with higher end polling. They'll not knocking the survey quality or anything but there, we can't expect higher Ed stuff from Gallup every year, but when they do have something it isn't. And then the new America, varying degrees study I really like, and I cited a few times in the presentation. And what's useful for your audiences, too, is that they have an online. The data visualization online is great that you can slice and dice the data up in so many ways by age of the respondent, by ethnic group, by geographic location, by income, by education, attainment. Right. They're just. They're almost too many categories that I can't include it in the presentation, because there are just so many ways to slice up the data. But I definitely recommend that, and playing around with their interactive data tool. So new America varying degrees, in addition to a few and gallop. Awesome. Thank you. And then, I last question is, did you have a sense of why the focus was on scientific innovation, or while the questioning was focused that way rather than type technological or societal solutions, or any other area of innovation? Oh, part of that was that technology we saw as factoring in with economic advancement that people associate technology with business rather than scientific innovation. As much. We definitely did change it from medical innovation to scientific innovation. Again, trying to be more expansive that way. But there certainly are stories that, and that these messaging pillars there are definitely some that straddle multiple lines and can crossover. So technology, we saw it as economic advancement because it relates to kind of newer things, discover newer innovations and solutions. But I'm sure there are some where confidence to the scientific category as well, and there can be a. Awesome. So we saw some questions rolling in. Seems like it are really interesting, someone else said. Maybe you saw what happened at Stanford recently. A student shouted down a guest speaker and a judge. That's not a good look for the University. According to many people, and it seems anti unethical to free speech and critical thinking from a public information standpoint. How do you present that in a more flattering way? Sure, and on that one I would say, sort of defer to the communications, professionals in the room. Folks who are used to kind of handling media inquiries for the the immediate short term. But before I said, I see that as part of the the growth and discovery angle that it's something that can be played up kind of in that personal achievement pillar of hopefully that. It's something about growth that that that free information exchange of ideas. But certainly as far as addressing if there's an instant like that that happens on campus or a controversial speaker, I would certainly trust your your judgment and experience on that or your colleagues who are in that department, but that's definitely something that's contributed to some of the perceptions. So on the slide that had the various reasons that people might have negative perceptions of higher Ed and free speech and politicization is something that's concerned, and in a bipartisan way, obviously, people have different interpretations of it, but it's definitely something that is an issue that people want to ask about and I'd also say that it gets back to kind of painting with the broad brush or college, in the generic first college in the Specific, that maybe at your institution you're asked those questions about incidents like that and it's not something that happens on your campus, or, you know, taking hot-button political issues of the day that don't necessarily apply to your institution. For instance, I've had folks who are at Technical College, and they're asked about tenure by people who have political opinions about tenure, and they say we that's not our business model as much that we don't have tender track. Faculty so it's it's an educational opportunity that way. Also to talk about the things that people see in the news that may or may not apply to your institution. So there, there are multiple ways of going about it. But it's definitely an issue too initially within the issue to keep in mind. Definitely so you referred to some resources that people can use to gather data and someone that they knew about Gallup and Pw. But what was the third resource that you suggested that participants utilize? Sure that was New America, and the server is called varying degrees. And then someone else listed that they noticed that there wasn't a community college on any list of participants. Do you? Welcome their stories as well. Just confirmation, or, if not, why? Oh, absolutely! And we have a number of community colleges on the list and trying to scroll. Actually, maybe I'll hopefully share. But and you can see on our website, too, we do have a list of participating institutions. But multiple community colleges and the stories are very much welcomed. I think some of our colleges they don't say Community college in the full name. It's just location and college. So that might be why. But certainly stories from all institutions, types are well welcomed, and it will make us speaking together more effective when we have a diverse range of institutions. Great someone else commented. Referring to your last question that ratings would be helpful to turn to. In those instances, and then someone else said that they don't work in communications which area of universities should participants share, discover the next with 2 who are considering joining should we just share the link? Or do you have any other? Sure, I'm happy to connect with anybody as needed, you know, even directly I can drop my email in the chat or share my contact information. And Brian Flavin, who's our Vp. Who's also been involved in cases thought, leadership, work. So you can get back in touch with us. But happy to talk with anybody. We've found that communications folks are usually good forilitators of sharing those stories, but certainly having an advocate for the institution, whether it's at in any other department who can loop us in with them or at the Presidential level to sometimes somebody like a chief of staff or board liaison can be an effective facilitator that way, but certainly happy to have your expertise around it. No matter what part of advancement. Wherever you sit. Awesome. So our last question goes back to one beginning questions that we had about technological versus societal solutions in terms of innovation. She said, Well, what about societal solutions in innovation? Such as conflict, resolution, and other advancements, that we all benefit from. Could you elaborate on it? Sure and I think they overall that the names of the pillars they're good summaries, but certainly we want the focus to be on kind of the talking points, or the narrative elements within, and the stories that are your examples of it. So I don't anticipate our aside from on the discover the next website. But I own ancestors titles of the 4 Pillars, if you will, making it up its way out to the the public and outside stakeholders. So we want them to be summaries without, let's say, full fledged marketing taglines, or anything like that. Sure and thank you. Yeah, I said, thank you for explaining sounds like we had some great questions that came through. I wanna remind you that this recording will be available after this session is over, within about a week or so, you can find it. Learn documents.org. In addition to those other resources that I stated, such as the presentation slides in the Cfra credit Andrew. If there's anything else that you want to add. Just my gratitude to all of you for joining today. I hope you enjoyed the session, and I would look forward to staying in touch, answering any follow-up questions you might have, and appreciate your time. Agreed. I hope you guys had a great time and enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Thank you.

recorded webinar

Andrew Shaw

value of higher education

Discover the Next

storytelling importance

engagement

tools and resources

institution funding