Claudia Strollo: I think the strongest way that higher ed can do that is by reinforcing the commitment to like diversity and equity. Um, I think higher ed has a unique positionality of bringing people together of so many d different like backgrounds, whether it’s on the basis of race, gender, um, sexuality, or even like social class.

And all of those intersecting identities can really applies like how people interpret course content and um, campus activities and things like that. And so when you put everyone in a classroom together, you’re really allowing spaces for open discussion and sharing of ideas.

Heather Shea: Welcome to Student Affairs now, the Online Learning Community for Student Affairs Educators. I am your co-host, Heather Shea. Student Affairs now is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to higher education and student affairs.

For the past five years, we’ve been creating space for meaningful conversations that inform, inspire, and affirm the work of educators everywhere. We’re so grateful to our listeners, guests, and collaborators who have helped this community grow and evolve. We hope you find these conversations make a contribution to the field and our restorative to the profession.

New episodes drop every week on Wednesdays, and you can find us@studentaffairsnow.com, on YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode is sponsored by the Evolve Institute for Higher Education leadership, courageous leadership, to reimagine the future of higher education. As I mentioned, I am the co-host for today’s episode, Heather Shea.

My pronouns are she, her and hers, and I am broadcasting from the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabe three fires, Confederacy of Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Ottawa. Peoples otherwise known as East Lansing, Michigan, home to Michigan State University, where I work. Today we are exploring students’ perspectives on the purpose of higher education.

A timely and complicated question in a moment shaped by rising costs, political tension, debates about belonging and DEI, mental health concerns and evolving expectations about what college is supposed to do and who it is supposed to serve. But rather than talking about students today, we’re talking with students and with the faculty member who is guiding them through the process and through the questions in the classroom.

So today I’m thrilled to be joined with the co-host, Dr. Michael s Stapleton, professor of Higher Education in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. His research focuses on college student development, career development. The tradition, the transition, excuse me, from college to career, and he teaches the honors seminar that inspired this episode.

The title of that course is What Is College for? Examining The Purpose and Value of Us Higher Education. And the honors student is joining us for this episode, are currently enrolled in the class. And we should note that this is the end of the fall semester 2025 and just preparing for almost the final weeks.

Michael, welcome. Just share a little bit more about yourself and then I’d love to hear what led you to create this class.

Michael Stebleton: Thank you, Heather. It’s a pleasure to be here and it’s an honor to have some of my students joining us in this space. As you alluded to, my name is Mike St. Stapleton.

I’m a professor of higher ed at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. I use, he, him his pronouns. I’ve been a faculty member. I was doing the math on this for about 17 years in the College of Education and Human Development here. And prior to that I was in student affairs. I have a student affairs background.

Started as an academic advisor many years ago and decided at some point that I wanted to spend more time in the classroom and then got my PhD some years later and then eventually made the transition into the faculty life and haven’t looked back. And so I teach graduate students. But I’ll.

Be honest with this group and with your listeners. My real love is undergraduate students, so I also try and teach a couple undergraduate courses each year. And for the last few years I’ve been involved with our university honors program. And so our three students joining us today are all currently honors students in, in that all university program.

I got the idea for this course probably about three years ago coming out of the pandemic, and this was about the time when we started seeing all these reports about questions and critiques about the value of higher education. Is a college degree worth it? And I thought that phase would end, but it’s somewhat accelerated in recent years.

And I have a small gem to drop on you, Heather. ’cause I’ll you’ll appreciate this as the listeners will. Yeah. Currently a recent Pew Research Center survey. Just from October of 2025 said that 70% of Americans now say that the higher education system here in the United States is generally going in the wrong direction.

Oh. Other surveys in the last few years have said that there’s been growing, as I said, critiques of the value of a four year degree. And more and more parents and prospective students are considering options other than a four year degree pathway, even though those same parents have a four year degree.

So it’s an interesting and complex scenario, and that’s how I got interested in this course. And I started thinking a little bit more about my own interests in higher ed, my, my own background in student affairs, and then also my interest in career planning and career development. So a lot of my teaching and my research interests really focus on the transition from college to career, and more importantly, how do young people make these really important and meaningful decisions.

About the role of work in their lives. And students have heard me talk a lot about career and work over the course of the semester. But more importantly, we’ve been really focusing on current issues and critical issues and events that are impacting higher ed. And so just to give some context for the course, it’s a, it’s an elective course for honors students.

We have 19 students this semester, and they range from first year students all the way to senior students. And they also range in terms of majors and colleges that they represent. And so our three students here today, they’ll introduce themselves here in a minute, but they’re a strong representation of this diversity that we have in the classroom.

So that’s a little bit about me and the background for my course.

Heather Shea: I absolutely love it and agree with you that undergraduate students are the best. I have the pleasure of leading an undergrad study abroad and work with undergraduate academic success programs and absolutely am grateful for the opportunity to learn from some of your undergraduate students.

So yeah, let’s, we are joined today by three of those students from your class. And so I’d love to invite each of you to introduce yourself with your name, your major you’re in school, where you intend to go, what your future professional goals are, and then maybe one sentence about something that currently shapes how you think about the purpose and or value of higher ed.

And Hannah, we’re gonna start with you.

Hannah Young: Hi, I’m Hannah. I’m a second year student majoring in neuroscience and minoring in English, and I’m on the pre-med track and something that is currently shaping how I think about higher education is this class. And especially when we’re talking about what the student expects from higher education and how that influences what we gain as individual students.

Heather Shea: Awesome. Thanks so much, Hannah. Tyler, welcome to the podcast.

Tyler Bradley: Thank you. Yeah. My name is Tyler Bradley. I am a history and economics major in the College of Liberal Arts here at the U of M. I am a senior and I’ll be graduating here in a couple weeks which is really exciting and I am looking to go to law school in the future with an eye towards labor and employment law.

But nothing is set there. And I gotta echo, I gotta echo what Hannah’s saying. That definitely this class has been very timely in how I think about higher education especially at the point where I am looking back on my four years.

Heather Shea: Awesome. Thanks so much. Tyler. Welcome. And Claudia.

Claudia Strollo: Hi, my name’s Claudia Strollo.

I’m a junior studying early childhood in elementary education. And with that I do wanna be teacher, I believe for the little ones. I think that in its in of, in and of itself has impacted how I view higher education, just the K 12 pathways outcomes that lead to success in higher ed and the post grad.

Outcomes of K 12 students.

Heather Shea: Great. So when you all entered college I’m curious about that kind of process of what did you think college was for and then how has that belief shifted as you’ve moved through your undergraduate experience? And then if you wanna tag onto that kind of how this class has impacted that, I think that would be great.

And Hannah, we’re gonna start with you again.

Hannah Young: For me, I entered college I think with a very traditional view of what like a four year institution should do for students. Especially ’cause I never really questioned if I would go to college. My parents both hold like multiple degrees and it wasn’t really I was always expected to go to college, especially because I entered college knowing I would be pre-med.

So I’ve always viewed as. As like necessary for me to go to college and like to accomplish that kind of goal. But I think especially with this class, it’s been interesting to talk to other people and see what they want from college. And I think something that we’ve talked a lot about is that increasingly, I think students view college as a way to get a degree and then a job.

But we’ve also talked about how like American higher education or like the American college experience is a lot more than that. It’s about finding yourself and discovering what you want and like it’s a coming of age. I think that’s also what I expected and wanted and I think I still want that in my undergrad.

Heather Shea: Great. Hi. What about you? Tell us a little bit about how this has changed over time for you.

Tyler Bradley: Yeah, no. Going into school, I definitely had a similar trek. As Hannah, my, both my parents hold degrees and they really valued that I would go on to get some sort of higher education beyond high school.

But something that they always pushed was the glove of learning, regardless of what that is. Which maybe is what pushed me into what would be considered a little bit of an a less job oriented major between history and economics. But it was ultimately to me to me going to be a place where I was going to go to become an adult and go through, through some of those personal steps that got me ready to go onto the real world.

But I think as I’ve moved on through college, and I think I’m in almost a little bit of a sentimental mood here with graduation coming up in a few weeks. It, it’s also just the people and experiences I’ve had over my time here that have. Have made college extremely purposeful beyond all the wonderful things that I’ve learned in the classroom.

Which I’ll I know I’ll talk about later. But in this class I think that there have been so many perspectives beyond the traditional four year sense that I think a lot of the students in the class hold, which are extremely valuable. And also, as Hannah alluded to, we’ve talked a lot about whether or not college is developed to develop the skills skills or the soul has been a foundational piece of the class.

And I think that I’ve found that they’re not necessarily two mutually exclusive pieces which is been really cool.

Heather Shea: Awesome. Thanks Tyler. Claudia.

Claudia Strollo: I have to agree with everything that has been said. I think for me, going to college is always something I was expected to do. It would help me grow my learning and set me up for a positive career moving forward.

And it was like, go to college, get your education, get ready to go to graduate school and then get a study job. And then I think in this class that was taught me that there’s different perspectives on what people think college is for. Obviously as a future educator, I’m moving through college differently than like pre-med individuals or like pre-law individuals.

And I think having a class with very different academic backgrounds has really, especially with this topic, has really introduced varying conversations about why people are in college. Awesome.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah. Thank you all of you. And Tyler, I’m glad you mentioned that question that we posed the very first day of class, maybe the three of you remember that it was almost 14 weeks ago now.

But I asked the class, the question is the purpose of higher ed to develop skills or your souls right? And we’ve returned to that in different contexts around different topics. And we’ll continue to do so during our session today. I’m gonna jump in as co-host here and ask Tyler a question.

And Tyler, we’re both fellow cheddar heads, as from Wisconsin. We’ll just get that out in the open right, right now. I love it. Yeah.

Heather Shea: I’m imagining like the,

Michael Stebleton: the head Yeah. Fees

Heather Shea: thing. Yes, exactly.

Michael Stebleton: So on Wisconsin here, sorry. Michigan States fans, but

Heather Shea: all right. We’re not doing so well in the football arena this year, but talk good talk.

Michael Stebleton: So Tyler, I know you come from a small town of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, around 5,000 people. And I also know that you’re majoring as mentioned in history and graduating this December, and you’re preparing for law school. So how have your academic and campus experiences shaped your sense of higher education’s purpose?

You alluded to that already, but expand on it maybe a little bit more in terms of engagement and how higher ed may prepare you to be a citizen in a democratic society.

Tyler Bradley: Yeah that’s a great question. And I think there’s so many different ways I can go with that. So I might get a little bit round, I might get a little roundabout here, but I’m hoping to get things home by the end.

I gotta start with all the the humanities classes that I’ve taken here at the U of M and the fact that the professors are so passionate about what they teach. The two things that call to mind are the f two instances where a professor got so emotional about what they were talking about that they got to the point of tears.

The first was in a human evolution class that a lot of people took as a freshman as a live ed. It was a biological sciences requirement. And we spent the whole semester talking about how did human beings come to exist in the universe. But the last lecture, I just don’t think I’ll ever forget like the last 30 minutes of the, that class.

It’s what is this all for? And the professor just talked about the human condition in just such a special way. And the second is recently, this semester we in a early Latin American history class the professor talked about, a connected a historical case of immigration to a current case of immigration and just got very emotional about that.

So just talking about talking about that human experience in general, those are two instances where I really felt that my soul was developed. But I also have to mention that there are so many opportunities for engagement. In the U of M that developed my skills, not only in those classes where I was developing kind of critical thinking skills.

I’m recently wrapping up writing my thesis working on so many papers where I’m being just taught how to question society in general and attack different social issues, which I just think is so incredibly invaluable. But also an experience where I was placed in a school where I was able to mentor different middle school students and help them with a history project where as mentioned I come from a pretty homogenous town in Wisconsin.

And I was exposed to middle school that was probably larger than my entire high school between one or two grades alone. So just having those experiences were really special. And also having the ability to work a couple of political internships in different state houses have really been ways to apply those critical thinking skills, which all gets to that point of.

Higher education preparing folks to be a citizen in a democratic society. I don’t think that’s necessarily something that’s limited to the humanities or liberal arts perspective. I think that’s something that anyone who goes to school and is taught how to attack a problem ask questions is able to equip them to be equipped to do.

As I, I hold the belief that having a healthy questioning of the basis of different authority different authority systems is foundational to democratic society. And then being a member of that democratic society and bringing contributions is all about how to solve issues that in a way that’s together.

Michael Stebleton: Thank you, Tyler, especially for sharing those two short stories. Those were powerful. I wanted to follow up in the class, we’ve talked a lot about access issues, right? So who has access to higher ed, but maybe even more importantly who doesn’t have access? So I’m gonna ask you from your historical perspective, as someone who’s studied history and econ how has maybe your thinking shifted about who higher ed serves?

Tyler Bradley: Yeah it’s it’s definitely it’s definitely the case that over time the people that. Higher education has served, has definitely been people who come from the same background that I do as a straight straight white guy. That’s the, that is the group that higher education has been specifically designed to serve.

But I think that this class has also been really invaluable to not necessarily keeping that history removed to the present day as we talk about marginalized groups that are still left out of higher educational systems and just the way that the system marginalizes in, in, in and of itself.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah. Great. Yeah. Just today in this morning’s class we were talking about this idea of the fluid student. How, if you look at the media or if you look at any type of portrayal of us higher ed. You’d assume that everyone is, 18 to 22 and living in a residence hall on campus. And the reality is that’s a minority, right?

The student that represents the majority now is usually a working adult, maybe a parent 25 years or older and moving in and out, out of academic system. So oftentimes attending more than a couple universities before they, they graduate. So I think that’s an important point to, to mention. Tyler Claudia, I’m gonna jump over to you.

As you shared with us, you’re preparing to become an educator and you’re already invested in different work learning environments and you’ve shared a different number of different work experiences that you’ve had on campus. Given your perspectives, how do you think higher ed should cultivate curiosity, care and belonging, especially for future generations of students?

So students that you might be serving in the future?

Claudia Strollo: I think the strongest way that higher ed can do that is by reinforcing the commitment to like diversity and equity. I think higher ed has a unique positionality of bringing people together of so many d different like backgrounds, whether it’s on the basis of race, gender sexuality, or even like social class.

And all of those intersecting identities can really applies like how people interpret course content and campus activities and things like that. And so when you put everyone in a classroom together, you’re really allowing spaces for open discussion and sharing of ideas. And when everyone has different experiences and backgrounds, then you’re really getting to the point of like critical thinking and learning how to think beyond what and then also.

There’s a really great way for people on in higher ed camp spaces to meet people who are like them as well. Like I went to a predominantly white high school and being half Asian, I didn’t meet a lot of people who like looked like me. But then coming to the u I’ve met a lot of people within the Asian community who I really resonate with.

And so commitments to diversity really are important and making sure that we take advantage of this positionality that higher education has.

Michael Stebleton: Thank you. And we talk in class about this idea of sense of belonging and this idea of staying curious. Oftentimes you’ll hear those messages from me in my weekly emails.

How do you think your future work in early childhood education sort of fosters or influences this view of continuing to ask questions, continuing to invest in learning? How does, how do you frame that as an educator?

Claudia Strollo: I think one of the statistics that I always get told is that of the students I will teach one day, the jobs that they will have when they are like in their thirties, don’t exist yet.

And so the purpose of like elementary education and some of those K 12 systems is to prepare students to have those adaptable skills to apply to whatever jobs they will have one day. And I think applying that in some ways also into higher ed is important. We’re all here to get a certain degree, but then the way that the degree path could change or the future careers could change we don’t know what’s gonna happen.

I think finding ways to apply different skills to what you’re doing is super important. So yes, K 12 students might not know what jobs they’re gonna have, but also we might not know what jobs we’re gonna have in 20 years. So being important, making sure to create the skills and hone those skills and being curious to learn.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah. Thank you. I know you’ve written about some of those concepts in your responses throughout the semester, so thank you for sharing that perspective. Hannah, let’s bring you into the discussion as well. I know you’re a pre-med student, you’re studying neuroscience while also majoring in English.

So you have a lot of free time on your hands. Is that accurate?

Hannah Young: Exactly.

Michael Stebleton: May maybe not. So you obviously have a focus on both the scientific and humanistic approaches and perspectives as it relates to higher ed. So how does this interdisciplinary experience shape your view of higher ed and its purpose in society right now?

Hannah Young: Yeah, I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations about the role of humanities and liberal arts, I guess in general, but especially in STEM education and just how important it is. And this is a conversation I had. When I first met Dr. St. Stapleton, which was a Nexus experience within the honors program.

We spent a week reading newspapers, like physical newspapers, and it was really great. But one of the best parts was that I met a ton of people across the honors program in different majors. And this is something that’s really great about this course as well this honor seminar that we’re taking, that there are so many different students representing different majors in their different colleges.

And just what they’re focused on. And something we talked a lot about during that experience was like how much of the news is dedicated to the arts and like where it is in the news or like in a newspaper, like in what order it would be put like in the newspaper. And I was talking to several people during that experience about.

Arts and humanities and specifically like liberal arts majors and also STEM majors and just how both might view liberal arts and humanities. And something I always think about is this notion that I feel like I see a lot among STEM students of not really needing liberal arts or liberal arts education and wanting to get done with all their lib eds and be done with that and come into undergrad with all of those credits already done so they don’t have to do that and they can just focus on their STEM credits.

But there’s a reason that we’re required to do those levits, and it’s not just for funsies. There is a purpose and I think it’s really important because we talked about like skills and souls, how like academics itself can really contribute to that. And I think it’s really important. Now more than ever, that STEM majors also really engage their soul into what they’re learning about.

And I think there’s maybe some misunderstanding of what liberal arts offers for STEM majors. I think it’s super important. And all my classes, I just see a bunch of biological science students and then I have one English class and I see the English department in that course. And I really like all these people.

They’re so different. But they’re also very similar. I think people really value similar things in higher education. And yeah, it’s just been really interesting to talk to English majors as well about just how important it is to be able to read and to be able to communicate with one another.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah, thank you for mentioning Heather or Hannah, excuse me, the the experience that you had where we first connected. And I wanna provide some context for listeners. University honors students have to complete a number of different opportunities. Some of those opportunities are for credit.

Others are not necessarily for credit, but they still need to engage in them. And each January we run this opportunity called the many values of print media. And so for a week students and faculty get together, I was gonna say we’re locked in a room. It’s not quite that dramatic, but we’re in a common space together and we actually have a bunch of physical newspapers and a bunch of food.

And so for the first part of the day, we’re all reading the physical newspapers. New York Times local, local publications. Hannah, did we have, I think we maybe at a Washington Post or there was some kind of Wall Street Journal. So again, different perspectives. And then on the second half of the day we all get together as faculty and students and share our perspectives, right?

In terms of what we read. And so I think your comments, I remember you mentioning that last January about just the arts and humanities section and even the way it’s positioned within the stack. Like you think of a traditional Sunday paper, it’s near the back, right? It’s like, why is that right?

And what’s the role or what’s the prominence of arts and humanities in a global society? So I thank you for mentioning that. Quick follow up question for you Hannah there’s a lot going on in the world right now. Certainly a lot of that is sociopolitical historical and it’s impacting higher ed.

How do you think the current climate, without getting overly political in terms of our analysis, how do you think that might be experiencing your learning?

Hannah Young: I think it’s really reinforced my belief in the value of that kind of liberal education, of that like holistic education for everyone regardless of major.

Because I think it’s really important that our learning and higher education engages the whole person. And I think it’s always important, but especially in this climate, that it’s really important for all students, including those in stem, to know how to read well and comprehend these things and communicate with one another, and then also really think critically about everything, not just like math problems or chemistry, but.

Like really what’s going on around them and the world that they live in and the social and political issues that more than ever directly impact them or their loved ones and their people and their communities. And even like that week when we were reading newspapers was a very intense week just in the world.

It was inauguration week and there was just a lot happening. So it was really interesting to track all those things across. Reading the newspaper and also something that was expressed a lot was like, okay, we don’t read the newspaper. This is the first time any of us have ever done that regularly.

So it’s been interesting, like it was very interesting to think about how well do we read, like how well do we understand that there are biases even among reporters who want to be unbiased? And where things are positioned and how headlines are written. Just analyzing how that is influenced by whatever is driving that newspaper to write what they write.

Michael Stebleton: Great. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, that perspective. I think what all three of you touched on that I really appreciate is this idea of using critical thinking skills and to look at these issues from divergent perspectives, right? So taking a stance that might not even be your own that you might not resonate with or even agree with, but being open and receptive to listening to peers that might have very different backgrounds and experiences.

I’ve got one, one small quote, and then I’m gonna turn it back over to you, Heather, for some questions. So I’m from Madison, Wisconsin, and so I found this quote over the weekend while I was preparing for our discussion today, and it came from a former uw chancellor. She was the eighth chancellor at UW Madison.

Her name was Dr. Carolyn Biddy Martin. She was also a former President Amherst college. She was a first generation college student herself. And she stated that a big part of college education involves learning, but more importantly, it also involves unlearning. And so I’ve been encouraging students to, to think, and I apply this to myself as well as an educator and a learner, to think about what you might unlearn as part of your higher ed experience.

And I think the students would probably agree that I’ve been nudging them gently throughout this semester, mostly gently about examining their thinking, examining biases, assumptions, but also looking at some of these controversial issues. From a different stance. So with that, I’m gonna turn it back over to you, Heather, for the next couple questions.

Heather Shea: Excellent. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I am, I have so many follow ups that I could also insert. And I wanna make one comment really quickly because I think it lends itself really well to this next question I’m gonna ask is that I think what you’re really talking about is the way that in which, if we want to solve some of these larger world problems, we really need multiple perspectives to come together, right?

This idea of wicked problems requiring kind of interdisciplinary solutions. And unless we train and engage across those disciplinary silos, I’m not sure that we’re creating those natural synergies. And yet. Higher education is so siloed, right? I like, I was a art major and a business major.

Those are my double majors. And I felt literally like I had to take off one, hat and put on a different hat and like Macintosh computers in one area, IBM computer in the other area. So I think it’s really fascinating to think about how might higher education be organized differently.

So that’s my next question. When I think about what is the future and what alternative models might exist, I think you all have just recently talked about that in class. I’m curious if you wanna speculate if students had designed the university from scratch, what would be different? What would be different structurally, culturally, and pedagogically?

Claudia we’re gonna start with you and then Hannah and Tyler, just everybody jump in.

Claudia Strollo: I think I would definitely change things from a pedi pedagogy perspective. In a lot of my classes I’m engaged in a lot of different ways of knowing and being and thinking about like pedagogy and pedagogical theory.

And I think as I mentioned, like higher ed is meant for, has been built for straight white men. And I think that way of knowing and learning is not meant for everybody. And so taking in different theories of pedagogy rooted, like for example here in Minnesota, taking more indigenous perspectives or more rooted like black storytelling perspectives in pedagogy and teaching and learning.

And I think engaging in different ways of learning as well helps people gain, gain critical thinking skills but then also creates more accessibility when it comes to education.

Heather Shea: Love it.

Hannah Young: Yeah. I was also thinking, yeah, I was thinking with if like students as a whole were designing the university, like the majority of that body of people would not be like us, like what Dr. Stapleton talked about. Like we are in the minority of people who are like the students of higher education. And so I think the major differences would lie mostly in the common shared issues and needs of students especially in the ways that they’re not served by how higher education works currently.

And something I was thinking about was from the ratings that we did this week for the course a few of the authors were proposing some pretty drastic changes to how higher education works. And one of them, I think she’s the executive director at the university at Shady Grove and she was like, you can’t just keep tweaking things to make them work for.

Like fluid students or non-traditional students, there has to be this kind of radical or drastic change to make sure that they’re served because traditionally they aren’t, right? Like traditionally, it’s not built for them to succeed. So yeah, I guess that’s a very broad thing to say that there just has to be a big change.

But I think it is a question of accessibility and for a lot of people, the biggest question is money and how like if even if they want to go to college or want to get a degree whether or not they can. And I really like that Claudia was talking about something beyond admissions too.

Like it’s not just letting in diverse perspectives, but really supporting them and teaching them in a way that aligns with that.

Tyler Bradley: Yeah, and I would have to agree with everything both Claudia and Hannah just added. And I would also add that’s a kind of a structural issue from just the general student perspective. Some of the things that happen at the top end of the university might be completely a mystery to them.

So I do not, this is not an idea that comes from me or any student. It comes from a University of Chicago professor. I listened to a podcast where he discussed this idea as part of an exp experiential education experience for this class. But he proposed a sort of citizen assembly composed of administration, faculty, alumni, and students.

So all these different what would be classified as shareholders and the success of a university where they’re able to all come together and determine make. More informed decisions where everybody’s able to get their peace in being. And I would also add that being from Wisconsin I’m just a generally big proponent of the Wisconsin idea where the boundaries of a university are extended out to the boundaries of a state, of the state and all, always attacking some of those contemporary societal political challenges are really important.

And then with all of that, to go back to Claudia and Hannah’s points, keeping in mind marginalized and underrepresented perspectives in this. And I think that’s a thing that should be especially true at a predominantly white university like the University of Minnesota system or the University of Wisconsin system.

Heather Shea: Absolutely fascinating. I think that this whole idea of remaking it from the beginning is definitely something that it’s all institutions should maybe consider, and our institution, Michigan State, has been thinking a lot about how we have admitted a cohort of students. Is it our job to fix the students so that they can better be successful on our campus?

Or should we be fixing the institution? Should we be seeing it as an institutional deficit, not a student deficit, and then trying to reshape the institution to better meet the needs of the students who are arriving on our doorstep today. And that, that radical shift, I think is different than the, look to your left, look to your right.

One of you’s not gonna be here. Okay, now we gotta think about what are the structures that are causing that student to potentially not be able to matriculate. Mike, other thoughts?

Michael Stebleton: Yeah, no, I think these are important themes through all of your responses. So I thank you. In today’s class where we were talking about the future of higher ed and looking at alternatives, some of the authors were promoting some pretty dramatic changes.

One would be instead of a four year degree why not go to a three year degree? And we were talking about the pros and cons of that, and like, why does it have to be for of course there’s some history behind it. Another article was talking about infusing more of the liberal education into the mission objectives of colleges and universities.

And so this particular author, Johann Meme, was suggesting eliminating business programs at universities and having them separate outside of traditional universities and colleges or one business student didn’t think that was a great idea, but we were talking very openly and supportively about, what are the pros and cons of that?

And can business programs for as vocationally oriented as they tend to be, can we also infuse more of a liberal education spirit? Into their curriculum beyond the few liberal education requirements that, that they take. We also talked about, despite all of these great suggestions, higher education is slow to change.

Would you agree with me, Heather, on that?

Heather Shea: A hundred percent yes. Yeah. It’s like the Titanic, right? You’re going down, yes, you see the iceberg, but you’re not able to actually move and so you’re gotta hit it anyway, right? If you’ve seen the movie.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah.

Heather Shea: Yeah. Absolutely. Super slow to change and I think unless change is forced upon it, which, it was during COD and it might be, this might be another kind of change moment super interesting.

I hope you’ll post Mike some of those resources or readings into you. Yeah. Show notes. ’cause I love it when we have that kind of follow up piece so folks who are watching Sure. Can dig into those. Yeah, we’ll definitely put those

Michael Stebleton: in the show notes and share those widely.

So my next question relates to one of the objectives of the seminar. We’ve been talking a lot about what is the role and responsibility of higher education. And there’s certain issues or certain problems that exist. And to what degree is it the responsibility of, say, the student or the student’s community versus the role of the university to try and address some of those concerns.

And my question here is to all of you, I think we’ll start with Hannah and then go Tyler, Claudia is the following. What barriers do you see that you or your peers are na, navigating? It could be financial, it could be mental health. We’ve talked a little bit about student success retention.

So it could be identity based issues. What are you navigating or what are your peers navigating? And then what would be the responsibility of higher ed to support and or address those concerns? So maybe again, we’ll go Hannah, Tyler, Claudia,

Hannah Young: I think. Yeah, those barriers that you just mentioned or alluded to, like a financial and mental health struggles.

I think there are a lot of barriers for a lot of students. And again, I think it’s important to note that like of all the students in higher ed I think that relative to most, I haven’t faced as many of those barriers and, but the one that I think is most prevalent and most talked about is the question of accessibility and then money.

I think finances are like maybe the biggest concern among students in higher education. Especially like in a four year institution. It costs a lot to come here and learn. And something we’ve talked about a lot is what is it that the college is offering to meet those needs? And then we’ve also talked about what counts as an amenity, like an extra, and I think because people have such a wide range of needs, institutions try to support that wide range. So one thing that might be a need for me might be completely unnecessary for someone else and be like, oh, that’s just like an amenity that I have to pay for in this fee. But I think institutions do have that responsibility to serve that wide range of students.

And especially when we talk about amenities, I think it’s important to distinguish that from basic needs. I think in one of the articles we read, they made it seem like residence halls were an amenity. But some students need to live on campus. It’s not, I think they were trying to say like a luxurious one would be an amenity, but.

Yeah, we talked about, food security, which has threatened a lot more for a lot of people right now. More than ever, and especially where we’re at, we’re in Minneapolis. And especially like where our campus is situated, we are in a food desert, so it’s very hard for students who can’t afford a rather expensive meal plan to find food.

And I think we’ve also talked about how that impacts every second of their life and their education and. How they perform in classes. Because if you’re thinking I need food, then you’re not thinking, let me study really hard right now or pay attention in class because that’s a basic need that isn’t met.

So I think amenities are fun, but it might be important too, think about these things before that. Especially with like specific things like food insecurity. And I know the U of M in response to the cutting of SNAP benefits immediately reached out to all students and made it clear like we will provide a way to try and make up for that.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah. Great. I think in reference to your residence hall comment, Hannah, the author was questioning whether students need granite countertops and party rooms Yeah. To get by. Some of the living arrangements around here are quite lavish and yeah. That’s an issue for some students as to whether or not they can avail of those resources or not.

Tyler, how about you? How would you respond to that question?

Tyler Bradley: Yeah I think it’s a really important question for universities to deal with. I would start by saying that they’re not necessarily standalone issues. They all play into the other and are very intertwined. And as we discussed interdisciplinarian earlier and changing the mindset of single silos with regards to academics that might be really important as we talk about how mental health and food secure food insecurity might be different sides of the same coin for a certain individual.

And similarly as Hannah was talking about basic needs. That’s where I would start with looking at something like mental health. Which is definitely something that’s really important for universities to be able to assist students with. Just the same as we have massive hospital and student services on campus ready to to deal with physical needs.

And I think that’s a really important changing value within society. But that’s also very complex because that all boils down to a larger stigma. And that is where with the straight white white male identity that I have I think that’s something that that particular subgroup of the population really needs to do better at.

And that’s something that universities might be able to foster and play a role in. This kind of gets outside of. Some of the issues that we were talking about. But one of the biggest things that we’ve, that we have talked about, and this was our conversation in class last week, was artificial intelligence.

And I would say that if there’s anything that can be categorized most as a, as a crisis out of anything that we’ve talked about, I would argue that’s one of the biggest ones. Chat GPT was introduced during the fall of my freshman year. And looking at how things have changed now I think it’s a completely ball, a completely different ball game from when I entered the university.

So I think that we had a really good conversation over class that day in addressing different ways that we think that the University of Minnesota, we had a student group that Pres presented from our class, and they had us do a case study where we all came up on different perspectives about what the university’s honors honor coach should be, should the university have conversations with professors, what sort of conversations should professors be having with students?

And I just think that’s incredible, incredibly important as we look to the future. And everything seems to be changing by the minute. So I think as, as much as universities can they’ve gotta get on top of that question and and protect that borderline integrity of the learning environment.

Michael Stebleton: Great. Thank you, Tyler, Claudia, other thoughts that you have on this question?

Claudia Strollo: I have to agree with what has been said. But I think also just the culture of higher education in general is a barrier that a lot of, like my peers are navigating. I think we’re told these are the best four years of your life.

You’re gonna make all these lifelong friends and you should do every, take every opportunity, do all these things. And I think people want to, but at the end of the day, it’s only 24 hours in a day and we need 48 hours to do everything. And I think that’s also impacting people’s mental health.

It’s like we want to do well in school. We wanna get these job opportunities when we wanna be as involved as possible and then also have a social life. And that’s really hard to balance. And I think that also impacts people’s mental health. And then in, as a result, like academics sometimes decline as well.

So just creating more accessibility for mental health services is a responsibility I think that needs to be addressed, but also changing the messages that we receive about higher education and our purpose in going to school.

Michael Stebleton: Great. Thank you. A follow up question that I had to this one was to think back on the last 14 or 15 weeks, and it might be difficult to do ’cause that’s been a lot of time, but have there been certain topics or discussions that you felt maybe have challenged the way that you thought, or beliefs that you held that maybe you were now unlearning right.

As Carolyn Biddy Martin said, stated. Are you, were you forced or at least nudged to reevaluate maybe some once held beliefs about these issues? And any, anyone can re reply or not?

Hannah Young: I think for me, the standout again, has just been how wide the range of students is in higher education.

It’s not that I assumed everyone was exactly like me. I think it was more like I didn’t know that, like the vast majority of students are completely unlike me, right? Like it’s obviously no one is just like me, like even just Tyler and Claudia are very different from me. But just talking about non-traditional students and how much work it is to get into higher education and stay in higher education as a student I think it was really good for me to hear about that and talk about those things.

Especially in a class full of people who are able to be in an undergrad experience like ours. I think it was important that we talked about those differences and how if at all. Tailored the higher education experiences for all students, and not just for me or for people who are like me. And how important it is that other perspectives are considered and that we question how much the system does serve us and how much it should, because I don’t know, I think I, I entered into college thinking that’s how it is.

So I’m gonna, I’m gonna do what they ask me to do and they know everything. But that’s not necessarily true. And I think this class has really shown me that.

Michael Stebleton: Thank you. Tyler or Claudia, anything else that you would add?

Claudia Strollo: I think I would piggyback off of that and agree. I think the we read a chapter from a book, I can’t remember what it was called, but the author was Professor Harvard wrote about kind of student experiences during COVID.

And I think that really, I think, helped. Really reinforced, just like you don’t know what people’s experiences are. And I think even if you’re in a classroom full of your peers all in the same major and you’re all doing the same things, there’s still so much difference. And the way that their people are tackling their experiences in higher ed and getting their education and like planning their goals.

It’s really reinforced that like you have no idea what’s going on behind. Someone’s eyes are going on their lots.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah. I think that was Anthony Jack’s most recent book. You can tell Heather they, they’re dropping a lot of readings. I love it. That was a central theme in this class. So I’m impressed if they’re, if you’re trying to impress me heading into finals. You’re doing a great job. All three of you. Tyler, would you add anything else?

Tyler Bradley: Yeah, especially what Claudia was saying about the diversity of the student experiences in that room and the conversations that we were able to have about Anthony Jack’s book were super cool to have. And just how something that was as consequential as COVID to all of our learning experiences as Gen Z as members of Gen Z who were graduating high school at that, or going through high school at that time or going through middle school.

That’s something that was different across the room for for me it was an eyeopener to be sitting in the room and have someone talk about how they were in seventh grade when COVID shut their school down. And I was a sophomore in high school. So it definitely having conversations about that have been really cool.

And just one example of that also is just about the conversations we had regarding financial aid and just how it’s a really different experience paying for college depending on who you are and how some of us are really have to go through the financial aid system and are at its whims.

And how for others it’s a privilege where where that’s not something that you have to worry about even on a day-to-day basis whether or not you’re gonna be able to pay off your student loans.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah, that the book, and we can pro maybe put this in the notes, Heather, it was yeah, Dr.

Dr. Jack’s recent title called Class Dismissed When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price.

Heather Shea: That sounds like a fabulous and really interesting text with lots of applicability. Yes, today for sure. So I wanna look forward a little bit. So you all are, and some of you closer to graduation than others.

But in five to 10 years or maybe even longer where do you hope one to be and how would you attribute that success to education? What do you hope to be able to transform or contribute or question? And how would you tie that to the degree that you are in the process of getting right now?

And Tyler is the person who’s closest to that end point. I’m gonna start with you.

Tyler Bradley: Yeah. So history and econ beyond being two conventionally pre-law degrees have also served me well and just, I I really do genuinely feel that walking out of the. The hypothetical doors of this university I’m gonna be leaving a better person thinker than when I came in.

And that also applies to the difference that I hope to be able to to make in the world. I graduating high school, I would’ve said to anyone, I wanna be in a career of down the line where I’m helping people. But my history and economics classes have honed in on like, why, like why is that?

What are some of those issues that you wanna fix? And I think, certain economics class that I took really pushed me towards economic inequality. And some of the history classes pushed me towards the history of workers and rights that have had to be, had to have been earned for workers over the years, which is what pushes me towards those and employment and labor law things.

But overall it’s the, some of the most valuable advice that I’ve been given during my years of undergrad are from a law school professor that I had who taught one of my history classes. And she asked me why I wanted to go to law school. And I said I wanna help people.

And she’s there’s not just one way you can do that. And this I don’t find this to be an oversimplification at all. But she said, you can go go in mind with making a large difference in the world that you might not necessarily see the impacts on an in individual basis.

Or you might be able to go and make a really big difference for smaller groups of individuals. And you are able, you’re going to be able to work with them on a day-to-day basis and see that you are helping them in very specific ways. So I think moving forward I still see the value in learning as much as I can.

And I, I find that in the form of a law school degree. But I just will still have to be asking that question of what sort of change I wanna be.

Heather Shea: I love that.

Tyler Bradley: That’s great.

Heather Shea: Claudia, how about you as a future educator? What do you hope to contribute and how would you attribute that to your undergraduate experience?

Claudia Strollo: I think obviously just to be a good teacher and I think be a conscientious and effective teacher. I mean we’ve been talking about some of the systemic problems in higher ed today, and I think I’ll also throw the class. And those problems are also mirrored in K 12 systems and in kind of a lot of the early childhood and elementary systems.

And so taking my education and all of the theory and pedagogy I’ve learned and always be analyzing the systems. I’m working in the community and I’m working in the curriculum that I’m teaching. And then my positionality in classrooms just always not becoming complacent as like a teacher.

And every year the students I have will change. And so I’ll always be reflecting and thinking about all the theory and making sure that, the systems are set up in my classrooms to produce students who are ready to go to the next grade, but also down the line be effective members of society.

Heather Shea: I love that. That’s great. Future Doctor Dr. Young, tell us what your thoughts are.

Hannah Young: Yeah, 10 years. I’m planning on being in school for a while, but hopefully 10 years, I’m done. Hopefully I got the degree by then. But yeah, I think, yeah, everyone wants to help people and I think it’s about how you want to do it and I think even just getting an undergraduate degree, it gives us as individuals a unique position in society and also in our communities and what we’re able to do and provide for people.

And I think that’s even more true for doctors. I think being a doctor is a very, I like doctors hold a very unique power and therefore a huge responsibility in the world and in their communities. And I think something that. At least I feel, and I feel like a lot of people our age feel, is that it’s very intimidating to go out into the world and see all these like things that need fixing, quote unquote in the world.

And all the things that we should be doing or that we can be doing. But I think the best thing for me that I’ve heard a lot is a reminder that change starts at the lowest and most immediate, like local level. And so taking care of the people that you can take care of, so like your friends and your family and your peers is the best place to start.

And ultimately, I’d like to take care of people and hopefully in 10 years I can do that in the way that doctors do. Because again, yeah, I think doctors, it’s very it’s a unique and and powerful position. And I think that there’s a lot of responsibility, but also so much potential to be impactful and hopefully a positive way.

Because I think taking care of, your community on that smaller scale, I think it is what enables those more large scale or radical changes that I think a lot of people our age are really looking for and really wanting to make.

Heather Shea: Yeah. That’s hopeful, right? To me that’s what we’re here hopefully to do, is to think about like, how do we get people excited about that next phase in life and also.

Connect. So I, we’ll come back to the students here in a second. Mike, I have a couple of questions for you because I know you talked a bit about your pathway into into faculty life and your current research on student development and career pathways. So for you in your career in recent years, how have your perspectives on the purpose of college evolved and have you seen those shifts among your students?

And do you know if there are any specific things you could point to that are driving those shifts? Yeah,

Michael Stebleton: thank you. That’s a really thoughtful question and I think my response will build on the insightful responses from the students. Previously, I think one piece that I’ve noticed over the years.

Of being in higher education from a career perspective. It also relates to the purpose of higher ed is that students are coming in more with a focus. And I don’t know if it comes from their parents or them specifically. Probably both, but they wanna return on investment of their degree.

And years ago, Heather, when we were undergrads, if you asked undergrads and the UCLA American freshmen study did, does this for years why are you going to college? And we might have said to better understand ourselves to figure out the purpose of life, and oh, by the way to get a job.

Of course, right? Now that same survey is done and over 90%, if not more state that students state that the purpose is to, live the American dream, get a job and lead their lives. And so I think now we’re seeing even at orientations like family members, students, even asking questions about specific majors and what are the starting salaries in, in those jobs.

And I think those are fair questions to ask, but maybe 15, 20 years ago that wasn’t the top priority. So I think students are coming in. The trend is to be maybe focused on more practical kind of vocational type career pathways. The most popular majors in, at across universities and colleges, students, what are they

Tyler Bradley: business.

Michael Stebleton: Business and healthcare. Yeah. Those are the two top areas. And so we’ve had some conversations in class about purpose, and I think students still want purpose, but they also want to make an impact as Hannah alluded to. And they also want they wanna make it a decent living, right? So it’s this combination of high impact plus high income.

And I think that’s a little bit harder for students to visualize. But I think that’s still the goal. So that’s one significant change or shift that I’ve seen in my time as a faculty member. The other one is and we’ve talked a little bit about this in class today, was the transactional nature of higher ed.

There’s this idea, and I think faculty are guilty of it as well, but I think students and educators see higher ed as almost sort of a. It’s almost like a retail exchange. It’s I’m gonna, I’m gonna teach you that you’re gonna pay me the tuition to the university, and in exchange you’re gonna do the work and I’m, as a faculty member, I’m gonna give you a good grade.

And we’re seeing a lot of those grades are a’s now, right? There’s a lot of discussions in the chronic chronical, higher ed and elsewhere about grade inflation. So I’m a little cautious about that. I think students were, today in our discussion about how we might shift that to, to not be so transactional in nature and really focus it back on learning.

’cause one of my concerns as an educator is that when we overinvest in outcomes and grades and GPA and getting into competitive schools is we lose track of the learning and investing in the learning. And for me, being a the teacher of this seminar, and I’ve told the students this and I’ll tell everyone again at the end of the semester is I’ve gotten a lot from this because I could tell that all 19 of these students were truly invested in in the learning process and they really engaged in discussions to, to foster that environment.

It makes my job easier, Heather, as well. So I love that. Those are the two pieces that I think that I would offer at this point.

Heather Shea: I, so I wanna ask a follow up maybe related, but I’m thinking a lot about this idea of consumerism and return on investment and our students’ customers, but like learning is so intangible and not necessarily measurable in all of the ways that we think about like income and job placement and all of that.

So like we think about return on investment. Higher education is also really expensive in the United States. And I started by talking about how I go lead an undergrad study abroad with students who are studying to be teachers. And we visit a couple of different colleges or universities or similar types of structures where students are also studying to be teachers.

And they, across the board every year since 2017 are astounded at how expensive it is to go to school in the us. And I think there’s a gap there. And, maybe this is a societal conversation, but like, when we think about what is the purpose of higher education? Is it for the individual to be able to get a job and make money?

And is that just the only private benefit or is there a public good kind of conversation? And if we believe that there’s this. Public good. That should come from getting a degree that an educated populace or citizenship is an important part of our democracy. As we were talking about earlier, wouldn’t we societally invest in that pay higher taxes so that higher education doesn’t cost so much, but we’ve shifted all that cost over to the individual student and now it’s job and money and return on investment versus I just wanna be a good person and go to the polls and vote and raise my kid.

So it’s an interesting kind of push pull. I dunno, thoughts on that? There’s lots of ways we could go with that question.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah I could turn that over to the students. ’cause we spend an entire week, maybe two weeks, talking about this idea of, is higher ed a, a public good or more of a private commodity, that, that is purchased. And, certainly my comment about return investment needs to be in context. There are students that definitely put a lot of money. Their family puts their lifetime resources in it, and so they should expect a good return investment or a good paying job upon graduation.

But students what do you think, what, I know it’s been a few weeks since we’ve had that discussion, but I feel like we, we come back to it through different themes private commodity or public good or responses to Heather’s insights.

Tyler Bradley: To dig into the, to the e-com major aspect of, of my education. You can a hundred percent look at higher education as a public good. And that’s something that the United States does not do. But if you look at the European model of funding for higher education that’s what they do and they do it quite well.

It, it all deals with spillover effects. Which are just the, that’s the return on the investment that goes beyond the fact that I’ll be paid this much money when I go out of school. It’s also that I am going to be equipped to be a better member of my community. I’ll be able to be a better member of my family.

You name, you name it. It very much is a reasonable approach to look at higher education as a public good.

Michael Stebleton: Are there other thoughts?

Hannah Young: I think. Yeah I think we should look at it as a public good. And I think the American system of higher education doesn’t, so I think it does make sense that more and more students and their families are just adjusting to how we function in higher education and adjusting to what they feel is worth it.

Because it is a huge investment. It’s, it is really okay, all my life savings are going toward my kid going to school. They better get something out of it because yeah, it’s huge. So I think it makes sense that’s the response increasingly.

Heather Shea: Is there, Mike, is there anything you would also add about just how do we better support students in imagining these futures, right?

Yeah. That are not just meaningful, but. Also market, right? There’s the parallel. Yeah. We want students to be able to be effective in the job search and market themselves and build their own kind of their own brand, right? As a marketing person.

Michael Stebleton: Yeah. I

Heather Shea: think about that a lot. But how do we do that with, alongside this idea that getting a degree and being an educated person is also a meaningful pursuit?

Michael Stebleton: That’s a great question, Heather. And I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this. In particular this month of November when we’re recording this it’s actually National Career Development Month. I don’t know if anyone knew. Thats probably not on your calendars, but It’s true. And one of the elements that I’ve been trying to talk about this month is this idea about student affairs, educators, instructors, even non-educators to engage in more career conversations.

And some listeners might be thinking I’m, I don’t, I’m not employed in career services. I don’t have a career development background. How do I do, how do I do that? And I think any career conversation can be career related. When you define career holistically, right? So oftentimes we think about paid roles or a paid job as career, but really career, the way I approach it, and some of my colleagues do, is career is a constellation of your life roles, both paid roles and unpaid roles.

So I, I have a colleague who is in England Dr. Tristan Ley, and I love his definition of career. He says, career is how we spend our time. Isn’t that great? So holistic, so broad. Yet personal, right? So it’s yes, we have our paid roles, our paid job, whether it’s gonna be a teacher.

Lawyer or doctor, but hopefully we have other fulfilling roles that make up our meaningful lives. And so I think what I would do, my kind of message is to engage in more career conversations with students, because we’re all gonna be living longer lives. So tomorrow’s graduates might have between 20 and 25 different jobs.

This is a stat I share in class. So my students have heard this and they might be jobs across seven or eight different industries. So what they’re doing, when they’re 25, might be very different than what they’re doing when they’re 45 or 55. And so I think in terms of preparation, we put a lot of effort on preparing our students for their first job, right?

You do the informational interviews, you go to the job fairs, you get, you do the resume, all that. That’s really important. What’s probably more important is preparing our graduates for that fifth job, the 10th job, the 20th job, because we’re gonna have to continually to repackage our narratives right?

As we shift to different positions and being able to tell really good stories about the skills and experiences we have. I think that’s gonna be really critical. So I guess my takeaway is in terms of how we can foster these changes moving forward, is to engage in more career conversations. ’cause I think it’s only gonna help our students.

Heather Shea: That’s great. Happy Career Development Month. Yeah. As we’re closing out in the month of November we always end our podcast episodes with a similar question. So our podcast is called Student Affairs Now what are you thinking about troubling or pondering now? And you can talk about this from the role that you’re currently in, in higher ed or beyond.

And Claudia, we’re gonna have you start final thoughts off, and then we’ll go to Hannah and Tyler and then Mike. I’d love for you to also share your thoughts at the end.

Claudia Strollo: I think definitely just the question of where teacher education programs are gonna be in the next a couple years. The Department of Ed federally is being overhauled and changed and I’m in one of the more lower funded programs across like the board.

And so I’m worried like where will the program be like next year and then my graduate program or is that gonna be in two years from now? So I was thinking about teacher education and what those pathways will be. ’cause we always need more teachers in the K 12 system. So

Heather Shea: absolutely Hannah.

Hannah Young: Something that I was thinking about similarly is just how higher education itself is going to change. Especially like it is changing currently a lot under the current administration and also just how everyone is functioning and how they’re operating. And like also the question of AI and all these things that are changing really quickly.

And we did read something this week that was like, college as we know is crumbling and it’s not gonna exist soon. Which was also a little extreme, but I don’t think they were like unfounded in what they were saying. I think it is realistic in that there are some things that are just outdated about her system.

And then also a lot of things are changing because some people don’t really like how things work in higher education. Yeah. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about a lot, like how things are changing and how will we all adjust to it.

Michael Stebleton: And I always try and pick the articles with the most dramatic headlines.

Heather Shea: Yeah. That way it gets your attention. I was gonna say, that’s a trick to get the students to read them, right? They’re like, exactly. I have to learn more. I have to learn more. Yeah, exactly. That sounds great. How about you Tyler? What are you thinking about?

Tyler Bradley: Yeah I’m definitely with my peers here about concerns about the changes being made by the current administration especially as it regards the humanities and academic freedom.

I know that the the sliver of universities being particularly target are a specific sect but they’re a very important sect of higher education. And especially the humanities wings at those schools. If the professors within those departments and students within those departments are no longer able to function within those tenets of academic freedom as has been known previously I think that it’s going to be a really that would be a really concerning day for our country.

And also just the general anti-intellectualism that’s being spread about about getting a college degree. And if you look at the male demographic specifically, the number of men who are going down going to college is going down. And I believe that it’s because of very specific message is being given to them about.

The fact the proposed fact that there’s no value in a college degree, which I think you could probably do a whole podcast on. But I think that those messages are a real cause for concern and are definitely not something that are, that’s separate from what’s going on at the federal level right now.

Heather Shea: Yeah, that’s really true. Mike, what about you? What are you thinking about pondering? Yeah,

Michael Stebleton: I I wanna close with a note of hope, hopefully. And I’ve been thinking a lot about student interactions and how student affairs educators really can play important roles in an undergraduate.

Experience. And there’s a book that I return to and I’ll, we’ll put it in the notes Heather, but it’s by Kaufman and Shipper. The title is called Teaching with Compassion, an Educator’s Oath to Teach From The Heart. And I keep coming back to that book because it was, it’s really powerful and I think there’s been a lot of discussion even today about AI and tech and this consumer mentality, and I think.

Student affairs educators and teachers have a role in this too, right? If we get caught up in this game, we lose track of why we’re here and the work that we do, and ultimately it’s to, to serve the students, right? Hopefully from a sense of compassion. And one of the final quotes from that book is one that I keep close to me and I’ll close with this.

The authors state that students are ultimately the endpoint of our actions, right? Students are the endpoints of our actions. And what that means to me is that whatever we do, and hopefully it’s from a sense of compassion and love, is that we’re there to support our students so that they can have hopefully a powerful experience and be better individuals as a result of their interactions with us.

And it’s not just faculty, but also. To our, all our listeners, right? The student affairs educators and those that, that interact with students on a daily basis. So closing with a note of hope.

Heather Shea: I love that. And I think about that concept of hope quite a lot. And I think the notion that we can’t just be naive, right?

We we need to recognize the challenges and complexities of our world, but then do work towards change anyway. And what I am taking away from this conversation is a feel of real hope for the future, right? I feel this every time I get a chance to talk to undergraduate students in my actual house since I have a daughter who’s in college, but also in my day job.

So thank you to the three of you for spending your time, chairing your thoughts with us. And I am just really super grateful to Mike for you. Bringing, not only these amazing students, but just this topic to the podcast. And it’d be really interesting to do what changes in the future, maybe a year from now, another kind of revisit and what are the students a year from now thinking maybe differently.

So

Michael Stebleton: yeah, we can have a sequel. We could have a sequel. Yeah. Yeah,

Heather Shea: exactly.

Michael Stebleton: Bigger and better. Part two. Yeah.

Heather Shea: I love it. Again, thank you all so much for your time. I’m also always grateful to our sponsor. The Evolve Institute of Higher Education Leadership Evolve is evolving. Dr. Brian Ara, Don Lee, and our own Keith Edwards are excited to announce the Evolve Institute for Higher Education Leadership.

Evolve offers leadership coaching journeys for executives, emerging executives and emerging leaders, as well as specific leading for equity focused cohort. If you are ready to evolve your leadership team or invest in your own personal leadership, they would love to connect with you and talk in person online, or engage in a hybrid mod modality to evolve your leadership.

As we mark our fifth year, five year anniversary of student affairs. Now we are so grateful to everyone and for all the ways that this community of listeners yes and collaborators has grown over the years. We’ve hosted hundreds of conversations like this one grounded in care reflection, and a shared commitment to learning and leading with purpose.

So for everybody, whether you are listening to this episode, this podcast for the first time, or whether you’ve been around since 2020 when we first launched, we hope today’s episode leaves you feeling renewed and connected to a larger community of educators and students who make this work really possible.

So again my name is Heather Shea. Thank you for listening, and let’s make it a great week.

Article citations: 

https://www.naspa.org/blog/the-70-year-work-life-preparing-our-students

Ho, C., & Stebleton, M. J. (2024). Not all who wander are lost: Redefining career exploration and indecision in undergraduate students. Journal of College and Character, 25(2), 196-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587X.2024.2326220

Books: 

Buford, M., Sharp, M. J., & Stebleton, M. J. (Eds.). (2023). Mapping the future of undergraduate career education: Equitable career learning, development, and preparation for a new world of work. Routledge. 

Jack, A. A. (2024). Class dismissed: When colleges ignore inequality and students pay the price. Princeton University Press.

Kaufman, P., & Schipper, J. (2018). Teaching with compassion: An educator’s oath to teach from the heart. Rowman & Littlefield. 
Thomsen, R., & Hooley, T. (2025). Careers (Reflections). Aarhus University Press.