Kaleb Briscoe: But you know what? Why does it always take an institution to be embarrassed or their image to change or, you know, funders to, to roll back some of this for them to address this, right? It should just be, “This has happened and we’re going to do right by the victim, the victim’s family.” Mm-hmm. Like, “We’re gonna do right by our students.” So I also, you know, really hope that administrators take something from this moment in a very meaningful way and address this issue more broadly because this continuously happens on college campuses, and it shouldn’t. And then we graduate the students, and then they become rapists as adults,

Heather Shea: Welcome to Student Affairs NOW, the online learning community for student affairs educators.

I’m your host, Heather Shea. It’s Tuesday, October 13th, 2026, and we are back with our current campus context series. We are recording this episode at 3:51 PM Eastern Time, and as always, things might have changed by the time you listen. This month, we are looking at three stories that raise some big questions about institutional accountability, campus culture, and the future of higher education, from a new national attention on sexual violence in Greek life following allegations at Cornell University, to federal investigations involving international scholars and the J-1 visa program, to widespread layoffs and budget cuts across higher ed.

So these stories may seem somewhat unrelated, but I think they carry a common thread, the tension between institutional commitment and institutional action. So are colleges and universities investing in the people, the programs, and the structures necessary to deliver on their promises of student safety, belonging, and success?

And what happens when those decisions institutions make don’t align with the values they claim to uphold? So we will link news stories in our show notes for today so that you can go explore these issues further and bring these conversations back to your campus communities. As I mentioned last month, we are super excited to relaunch current campus context this fall with an expanded lineup of expert correspondents who will be joining us throughout the year.

And today I am thrilled to welcome two new correspondents, Dr. Caleb Briscoe and Dr. Ethan Russ. I’ll tell you a little bit about both of them, and then we’ll get into the conversation. Dr. Caleb Briscoe is an expert in higher education policy and politics, campus racial climate, and organizational leadership and governance.

She is an associate professor of adult and higher education at the University of Oklahoma. Welcome to the podcast, Caleb.

Ethan Ris: Hi.

Heather Shea: And Dr. Ethan Russ is an expert in higher education policy and reform with a specialty in historical analysis. That perspective’s gonna be super helpful, so grateful for your presence here as well.

He is an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Nevada, Reno. Together… Oh, so welcome, Ethan. Nice to have you. Thank you. Yes. So together they’re gonna help us look beyond the headlines to examine what these developments reveal about higher ed’s pri- priorities right now, whose experiences are at stake, and what it will take for institutions to live up to their commitments.

All right, so let’s dive in. Segment one is all about campus sexual violence, Greek life, and institutional accountability. This is a story that I think has received significant national attention beyond the higher ed media certainly within the past couple of weeks. So to catch you up, the allegations involving fraternity members at Cornell University have reignited conversations about campus sexual violence, Greek life, and institutional accountability.

And while the details of this case, as they always are deeply troubling, the questions that this case raises are not new. So despite decades of prevention education and compliance efforts, concerns persist about campus culture and whether institutions are doing enough to prevent sexual violence.

So Caleb, I’m gonna start off with you. What does this case reveal about the limitations of higher ed’s current approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence?

Kaleb Briscoe: So thank you, Heather. I think for me, this case, everyone that, all of my friends, we’ve been talking about this case. Primarily because many of us were student affairs administrators, and so Greek life or m- many of which is called sorority and fraternity now was underneath our umbrella.

And so we’re deeply troubled by how the university has responded, but also specifically around what are the continuing conversations that we need to be having with our fraternity members, particularly IFC organizations.

On, and not just from a university stance, but also I think of IFC organization boards and leadership more broadly around sexual violence, assault, and prevention measures.

It is a culture. I was looking at some of the data coming out of Cornell, and looking at the high percentage around campus climate and this connection between campus climate and sexual violence. And so it reveals a couple of things. One, what is happening there, right? What is happening, what is not happening, and why aren’t we having deeper conversations about not just prevention, but the overall culture?

So from an institutional stance, how can that be embedded into how they think about mission and values, right? We’re going to be a campus that is safe that cares about women rights, women ability to consent. Also thinking about drugs, right? Someone being roofied and drugged, what does that say about the culture around drug use there?

And so as someone who is deeply passionate about staff members’ experiences and often think about what does that look like, so my conduct officers out there, what are we thinking about- … how we do our due diligence to address issues like this when they arise, right? So it’s this o- overall organizational cultural piece that needs to be addressed, but also in the event that something like this happens, what is the reporting system?

How do we address some of the disparities around reporting?

And the part that I think is really something that’s interconnected, campus police, right? Yeah. That sometimes-

Yeah …

Kaleb Briscoe: is within student affairs, sometimes it’s not within student affairs. But you see just a trickling effort or lack of leadership in this moment, right?

And how is this connected to wealth, right?

The wealthy nature of particularly these fraternity members and what seems like a cover-up, right? Of knowing that this has taken place, knowing the harm that this has caused, based off of the reporting piece very likely that people know that there’s a culture there, but refusing to address this.

The other thing I’m in- incredibly proud of is that the student newspaper is the one that wrote about this and led this issue. Yes. And this also speaks to our continuous need of journalism, right? The need for having student newp- newspapers at this moment to reveal things that unfortunately our institutions may not reveal.

So that’s just a little couple things that are on my mind. I probably went all different types of directions, but- No … we’ve been talking about this and I continuously hope that this particular case has nation- national sparks national conversation about how we reimagine what should happen in this moment around sexual violence.

Heather Shea: I really appreciate you naming this conversation about culture because I do think, and E- Ethan, I love your take on this, I think institutions become really focused on compliance, which to me is the floor, right? Versus addressing this overarching culture that allows sexual violence to persist. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Is this something that we should be concerned about, too focused on individual incident and the compliance focus versus this broad- broader culture?

Ethan Ris: Yeah. Great question. Thank you. So I think, so y- I like your categorization of compliance is the floor. And the, the reality is compliance is easy.

All you need is the office of general counsel to, write up a, a protocol of things you need to do and workshops that need to be executed, and then you check off things on your list, and then you’ve done compliance. And the lawyers make sure that it is aligned with whatever, arcane laws are on the books or policies that are coming from the state or the federal government.

That’s super easy. Addressing culture in a way that will hopefully prevent these kinds of horrific assaults from happening again is hard. And so that’s why people don’t do it ’cause it takes a lot of thought and effort and hard work. The culture at hand here, we should be very forthright and call it what it is.

It’s rape culture. And in this case, it seems very obvious that an actual rape occurred. But rape culture, of course, is, goes beyond that specific crime and talks about a whole way of how communities are pervaded by typically misogyny and an acceptance of violence, an acceptance or an embrace of victim blaming.

All kinds of things that, that go into rape culture are really on display in this case, and it’s sickening to see it all and to, to see h- it not just, at the inside that fraternity house, but really across campus as well- … including with professionals and administrators at Cornell who clearly failed.

And it’s really sickening. So I think we need to think about what that culture looks like. It’s not just Cornell, of course. Many colleges- … and universities also have endemic rape culture or, other forms of incredibly toxic culture that exists in the student body but is tolerated by the administration or tolerated by the larger community.

So we need to think really hard as professionals, as faculty, as researchers, as students in how we can combat that at every possible turn. More extreme responses to this would involve banning Greek life entirely, and that conversation has come up big time in the last couple of weeks.

What would that accomplish? And I don’t have an answer one way or another if that would actually help. But clearly something sick is happening here and that’s hugely problematic on so many levels. And I’m thinking about the institutional level too here in terms of the failures of Cornell and, one thing that kept coming to mind for me was especially after the facts weren’t entirely clear at first about what Cornell had done, and then over the, the last week or 10 days we’ve learned more.

And initially there was this narrative that, oh, these, these students who had been credibly accused of rape only had to write essays to get out of it. And then Cornell put out… They went above and beyond to basically say no. They were… they didn’t just write essays.

They really were punished.” Including two students who were expelled. And that got me… so first I was like, “Oh, good, they’re punished.” But then I was like wait a sec. Hold on. The, the punishment for rape shouldn’t be you’re expelled from college. It should be you go to jail for a long time.”

And so what the hell is going on here? Yeah. And as I’ve been thinking about it, my- the way I’m conceiving of it is that Cornell and other universities definitely do this, too. It’s not that they think that they’re above the law, it’s that they think they are the law. And that they are a separate entire ecosystem, including a separate judicial system, that manages its own internal affairs.

And in the v- in that worldview, which I don’t totally have a name for, but maybe one’s out there, we can think of one. In that worldview of the university as judge, jury, and executioner they think they gave those students the death penalty. Because in the world of higher education, expulsion is the death penalty.

So they, in this sick and twisted version of reality, think, “Oh, we gave them the ultimate punishment. Our work is done.” Not realizing that actual crime was done to an actual human being, and probably others we don’t know about, and that these, these assaulters are likely to go out and do it again. And that we have a responsibility to everyone, starting with the victim but everyone, to give this to law enforcement with the full roster of every single piece of evidence collected and, do everything you can to make sure that these people are, face justice in the actual justice system.

And I think what happened was this sort of idea that “Oh, we’ll handle it ourselves, and we did, and the process worked,” is a really sick and twisted alternate version of reality.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Kaleb Briscoe: You raise so many good points especially around the judicial piece, right? Yeah. And the lack of institutional response.

They have a duty, right? And expulsion is not enough, right? It is rape, right? And I think about, a- and I say this from two folds, right? When you mentioned about the conversations, which is a consistent reemerging conversation around defunding Greek life, I say this as a person that’s in a sorority that loves my sorority.

All of my immediate family members are in Black Greek sororities. I don’t think we should defund Greek life. I think we need to defund rape culture, right? It is, it- not just fraternity men do this, right? Or and we know especially-

Ethan Ris: Athletes,

Kaleb Briscoe: yeah … a- yeah, it’s, it is a culture that persists because we allow it to.

And what would it look like if institutions said, “We’re not going to allow this,” right? And they’re the face of- Sending someone to jail because of this, right? And having organizational practices that demonstrate that they don’t support rape culture.

And so I do s- believe in this moment we really need to sit with this a little bit more, right?

From just not even a research sense, but also staff members who did or did not show up, how this was given to the DA’s office. It’s so layered. Yeah. And we think of this from a governance issue and institutional response, it is a great case study of what you should not do. Yeah. And then I think-

Ethan Ris: Yeah.

Kaleb Briscoe: I also think about, everyone’s focused on Cornell and they rightfully should be, but I think these are conversations that need to be had everywhere right now about how are you responding to instances of rape, instances of response how do we support our sorority and fraternity offices who are, often on the ground trying to respond to this.

And this is a great example of also why we need n- student affairs professionals- Yes … and those who are doing the work and socialized to respond to these issues.

Heather Shea: Yeah. I was also thinking as you were talking about kind of this concept of a secondary justice system or whatever, there was a book that was p- and I just looked it up on the side here.

A book published in 2015, it was John Krakauer wrote, Oh … this book called Missoula- Missoula, yeah … Rape and Justice in a College Town. So that was like athletes, right? A whole nother population that kind of exists with this level of impunity and clearly are breaking the law- but the system is helping, … cover that up to protect themselves and the student, frankly. So what do you think meaningful institutional accountability and lasting culture, let’s dream for a moment that could occur. What role and particularly what role do student affairs professionals play in that kind of culture change?

Ethan Ris: Yeah,

Kaleb Briscoe: I think-

Ethan Ris: Oh, go ahead, Kate. Go

Kaleb Briscoe: ahead, Ethan. No.

Ethan Ris: I was just gonna say bef- before we zoom in on student affairs professionals I will say that, the larger, and maybe the conversation is shifting a little bit at least in New York, but the larger sort of judicial legal policy structure- needs to be number one here. The, the failures in the DA’s office in, in Ithaca are obviously sickening. And it seems like the state is, wise to that, and the governor has appointed the attorney general to be special prosecutor. And that’s, it’s too little too late, but at least there is some recognition there.

This is an area where if only we had an administration in Washington that enforced Title IX as it has been enforced for decades instead of gutting it this is exactly the type of situation where the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education- … should be rushing in and issuing sanctions- and issuing new guidance and making it very clear that they’re gonna take this seriously. Instead, recently the administration further weakened Title IX protections- … made it harder for victims to come forward and to seek justice because they seem to think the only thing that Title IX governs is who gets to play volleyball instead of literally preventing rapes and holding rapists accountable.

So- That’s where it needs to start. But there’s also stuff we can do on campus.

Kaleb Briscoe: Yeah.

Ethan Ris: Caleb?

Kaleb Briscoe: No, absolutely. And I appreciate you starting there, because there’s always been this confusion to me, as someone who studies hate crimes, like- … and if a hate crime happens on a college campus, so again, this, this act of violence happened on a college campus, but it still has both the judicial pieces on campus and at broad that should have been addressed, right?

And so I think about that disconnect, that continuance between like state policy pieces and responses. Ethan, you talked about the federal piece, which is often at play for, again, this additional layer to ensure that things are just, and then the connections within the institution. I also think about if we were to think about this within the student affairs world, I would love for NASPA and A- ACPA and others to really take this up and talk about this more broadly within the association, how we should be supporting and responding to matters of sexual violence.

I also think from an institutional stance, I’m really concerned, right? Where do these conversations happen within the presidency? Where do they happen within co-curricular settings and, after-hour parties and engagement, things like that? Like, how do we embed and respond to this within our institutional missions and values that we do not support rape, right?

And so I’m thinking of do we talk about this in new student orientation, that we have a zero rape co- culture here, that we do not support rape or, the mistreatment of individuals, and here’s what we do here, right? And I hate to put it that blunt in your face, but it’s almost saying, “We have a zero tolerance to rape,” right?

Yeah. “People, and we will not accept that at our institution, and here’s what will happen in the event that ever happens.” And I know that might be scary for a incoming freshman, but it’s also a wake-up call that we’re not going to allow that culture to exist here.

Heather Shea: Yeah. Yeah, being on a campus that had its own major sexual violence crisis,

The, the response and I think the ways in which our campus pivoted and really actually deeply expanded its prevention education and outreach office to the point where it is maybe now one of the most well-funded prevention offices, I think, in the country. It is… It’s sad that sometimes it takes a crisis- to turn this into a point of attention, and I do think, though, that’s an… it still exists, right? It, the, just because we have a prevention office that’s well-staffed doesn’t mean that we’ve changed the culture that does live outside our institution’s walls as well. But I, I agree with both of you.

I think that we have a number of different things that sc- scaffolds that have fallen away with regard to Title IX and, the ways institutions are thinking about themselves and not necessarily thinking about the students who they have a duty of care, right? To pr- to protect to the extent that we can ever protect somebody from harm.

So s- significant

Ethan Ris: Yeah just one note there I would say in terms of the crisis you mentioned, that it does take a crisis to make change, and you saw that at MSU but what was the crisis? Was it the actual assaults that happened or was it the public relations crisis- … that actually got it?

And I think, Penn State- … similar situation. USC- … similar situation. These, these assaults and abuses went on for years-

Kaleb Briscoe: Yep …

Ethan Ris: in some cases with plenty of people knowing. At Cornell, we had two years pass- Yeah … from this attack to now when people are finally p- all of a sudden, “Oh, there’s a crisis.”

No, the crisis happened two years ago. The, the current crisis is just that, the student newspaper ma- to Caleb’s point, were heroic and put themselves out there and named names. That’s the crisis is that they’re embarrassed. The university’s embarrassed. Yep.

Absolutely. So it’s it’s really demoralizing that’s what it takes. On the other hand, to those journalists’ credit and to everyone who comes forward and speaks up, look, you need, sometimes you need to drag universities through the media. You need to put their names in print.

You need to get ’em on TV before they’ll do anything. And when you embarrass them enough, then maybe actually they do take action, as you’ve- Yeah … you’ve maybe seen at Michigan State.

Heather Shea: Yes. Absolutely.

Kaleb Briscoe: But you know what? Why does it always take an institution to be embarrassed or their image to change or, funders to roll back some of this for them to address this, right?

It should just be, “This has happened and we’re going to do right by the victim’s family.” “We’re gonna do right by our students.” So I also, really hope that administrators take something from this moment in a very meaningful way and address this issue more broadly because this continuously happens on college campuses, and it shouldn’t.

And then we graduate the students, and then they become rapists as adults,

Ethan Ris: right?

Kaleb Briscoe: Yes.

Ethan Ris: Out in the greater world. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kaleb Briscoe: Yeah. No.

Heather Shea: Oh my goodness. Let’s move in maybe, as I always say in a very awkward way, to a new topic. I think, as I think about kind of institutional responsibility, I think now we’re also seeing the interference of the federal government.

So the second story kind of raises questions, I think, as we have for the last year and a half on current campus context, about federal oversight. And this time it involves international exchange scholars and visitors. So in the news recently, nine universities are facing federal investigations into the alleged misuse of the J-1 visa program raising concerns about immigration enforcement, international academic exchange, and of course about the experience of international scholars on our campus.

So Ethan, I’m gonna start with you this time. What broader implications might these investigations have for our international education units, research collaboration and frankly, for our institution’s ability to attract and retain global talent in the academic space?

Ethan Ris: Yeah, so this, this new thing should be, come as a surprise to nobody because- it is two of the Trump administration’s favorite things to attack, and of course it was JD Vance who gleefully made this announcement. What are their two favorite, punching bags? Higher education and non-citizens. And here you have a case where they come together and these are the enemies, right?

The enemies of the people. These horrible, these horrible universities recruiting these horrible people from all over the world, and it’s all a conspiracy to undermine American greatness. Needless to say I, I’m not gonna get into the long history of how international exchange and international collaboration has strengthened both the US higher education sector and the United States itself.

Let’s just summarize it to say that JD Vance would’ve happily rejected Albert Einstein’s visa application- Yeah … as a refugee, coming to work at Princeton. He would’ve gladly turned him back, sent him back to Germany. These people, they don’t have any understanding of what actually makes America great.

Yeah. And having, really good scholars, no matter where they were born at US universities is such a wonderful thing about the United States of America over the last 120, 130 years that we’ve had this incredibly rich influx of international scholars. And of course it is a two-way exchange where Americans go overseas and contribute to other countries, learn things, bring them back and continue with that exchange.

But this has been such a unquestioned positive force for generations now to have such a rich international community in our universities and colleges. And so of course the ad- administration wants to crush that. So they’ve named, nine institutions, all of which happen to be, great schools with great graduate programs ’cause obviously the vast majority of these, these J-1s involve graduate students or post-docs.

And so yeah, so of course they’re attacking them. Their logic makes no sense that these, oh, these nine institutions that who knows how they picked them, but they have, a higher percentage of international, J-1 holders on research grants than other institutions do.

You could cherry-pick nine institutions to prove almost any- Yeah … statistical point you want. Really what they’re trying to do is to, yet again, intimidate institutions and intimidate potential international students and researchers- … and warn them away. And so they’re gonna make life difficult for these universities.

It’s yet another, by the way, federal- agency department. Now it’s the Labor Department. They’ve already gone through the Department- Yeah … of State, Homeland Security- … of course, Department of Education, the Justice Department. They’re throwing everything at universities. So far it, very little has been accomplished other than harassment and intimidation, and this is just another example.

And it is very much, in line with other recent moves the administration’s tried to make over the summer limiting visa status to four years- … including for- … PhD candidates, which just makes zero sense. Zero sense. And is purely punitive. And then even more recently, cracking down, so they claim, on OPT training- Yep.

Yep … after degree completion, which is a one-year visa extension, and is just so not a big deal, and yet they’re, they’re now saying, “Oh universities have to pay $100,000 per OPT application,” which is so high as to be, like, absurd, so all of this is simply intimidation.

It will get struck down by courts, but who knows how much damage will happen in the meantime. And your questions were about the implications, and it’s what, it’s what lawyers call a chilling effect- … in that it doesn’t necessarily have the force of law and it’s probably illegal, but it will still chill the ambitions of international students from coming here.

It will chill- … universities from, bringing on more international students, issuing these visas, bringing on post-docs from overseas. And all of that is really to everyone’s loss because it, it hurts our universities, it hurts our research programs, it hurts incredible- important programs in science and technology and all kinds of fields, and medicine. It’s just unbelievably, bad faith and sick.

Yeah.

Heather Shea: Yeah. I think, Caleb, the, the thing that also strikes me is the role of student affairs educators in really creating a sense of safety and belonging and, support for communities, re- regardless of the country from which they came.

So I think this federal scrutiny, the chilling effect is really real. What does that do to our responsibilities for support, and then- … that sense of belonging that our international scholars and communities are feeling or not feeling?

Kaleb Briscoe: Yeah. I think right now especially when, as Ethan said, it’s already a chilling effect- it’s already a, a very chilly environment right now for international scholars and students, this only further complicates how they feel, right? They … It’s not just they don’t feel like they belong on campuses, they don’t feel like they belong in this country, right? Yeah. And a lot of that is coming from the, that federal narrative that they don’t have a place here.

They can only stay here for a certain amount of time. It feels very transactional, very business-like, right? In a very disheartening manner, right? And we will never understand what it’s like to come to a different country, the homesickness piece, the not- … being able to go home, right? I’ve international students who are afraid to go home despite many family challenges and life challenges because they’re afraid they can’t get back to- Come back

to the United States right now. Yeah. And what does that say about our educational system? But what does that say about us as a nation that we are in a sense, cruel to people who are not born here, right? And then again, we have scholars who go to other countries. We’re not treated … They’re not treated that way, right?

So h- why are we treating individuals in this manner, right? So when I think of belonging in this political climate, to me it doesn’t exist. The best thing that we can do as student affairs educators, as scholar practitioners, is to support them and show up for them. Make sure that they understand that we do value th- them being in the United States, value the contributions that they have in classroom and co-curricular spaces ensure that we have support services for them through international offices it, that the inter- international offices actually have support and resources, because those are some of the most under resourced centers on campus I find too.

You may or may not have one or two student affairs professionals in that unit. And so also thinking about they also support the students, but they need supportive staff members as well, right? They need resources as well. And usually some of our students end up working in those offices. So what does that also mean for they’re going through these challenges, but they’re working in this environment and also living this.

So how do we speak to all of these things at the same time? I also think about- This piece around enrollment, right? And the enrollment cliff. And I strongly do not like how many… Let’s fast-forward maybe, what, five to eight years ago- … there was this push for increasing international enrollment, and I love that, right?

Yes- Yeah. Yeah … let’s increase that. But then we get them here and we’re not supporting them, right? And then the political environment has shifted, the culture has shifted, the environment, and we have all of these students here, and they’re hearing all of this about O- OPT. They’re hearing all of this from the federal government.

So I would love to imagine in this world, no matter who’s in office, that we have things in place to support international scholars and students who are coming here to get education. So I think we really need to think about that a little bit more critically in this moment.

Heather Shea: Yeah. I absolutely agree, and I think this really leads us to the final story, which is about all the increasing expectations that are being placed upon student affairs educators.

And yet there’s a growing wave again this fall, of layoffs, budget cuts, and restructuring across higher ed. We’ll link several stories that talk about this just in over the past month. And when I think about this and the, the other two stories, our student affairs educators h- are facing increased expectations around creating climates of student safety, belonging, student success.

How do you do that when the people and resources, many of whom are housed in student affairs and who are responsible for this work are being eliminated? So Kailin, I’m gonna stay with you for just a second. Are these cuts temporary financial adjustments or, and as a previous episode we talked about the signals versus the noise.

Or do they signal a more fundamental shift in how institutions are valuing the work of student affairs and student support offices?

Kaleb Briscoe: I think it absolutely signals.

I- I’m thinking back to COVID, right? And how student affairs staff very much so felt like their positions were disposable.

Like they, who they were as individuals weren’t present and recognized and valued. I’m seeing that same trend, right? I know that the federal research cuts have been grueling for many institutions, right? We recognize that the challenges within states, the funding mechanisms. Yes, but we need student affairs educators on our campus.

We will not make it without them, right? Having been both, we will not make it without student affairs administrators, and I don’t understand why we always look to staff, particularly in student affairs, as the first line of cuts.

And so to me, it is a direct signal of what institutions continuously don’t value, what leaders don’t value, and also this larger conversation to me about if we’re not able to lean on federal funding, what other funding agencies and/or models exist in this moment that we need to think about more critically?

Because it can’t just be laying off staff. That’s not the solution. And as we’re preparing future student affairs administrators, what does that signal to them?

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Kaleb Briscoe: That they will get educated in this way, understand the complexities, get in these roles, support students. And then be potentially laid off, right?

And then we then turn to our graduate preparation programs “Why aren’t you recruiting students? Why aren’t students here?” They’re not here- … because of how you treat them, which is not indicative of our programs, but rather to the larger lack of institutional accountability around supporting staff members.

I don’t know how people are doing it in this moment. I’ma be honest. I just don’t know.

Heather Shea: Yeah. And a decrease in number of graduate assistantships, and all- … of that is overlapping and interrelated- Yep … right? And there’s visible consequences of that, right? Offices shuttering do- doors, programming that’s just not happening, or other types of of gaps. But Ethan, I’d love to hear what you’re, as some of the less visible consequences for student success, belonging, and particularly retention, right? ‘Cause if we’re worried about the bottom line a- and we’re worried about our institutional budgets, it costs a lot less to keep the students we’ve recruited- than it does to continually admit more students to fill the gap when those students depart. So retention’s another thing that’s always on my mind.

Ethan Ris: True. And one thing I’ll quickly say you’re 100% right, but efficiency is never actually followed by university leadership. They have a very specific idea of what, is worth spending money on, and if you point out to them “Actually it would be cheaper to do it this other way,” they’re just not gonna listen to you, even though you’re right.

Yeah, there’s so many consequences. I, I do wanna address two things that just came up while I was listening to Caleb. One is I think there is… it’s not a good reason, but I think there is there is a sort of benign reason for why student affairs gets the first line of budget cuts so often.

And my sense is that it’s universities, like a lot of other employers, but especially colleges and universities prefer to do cuts not by laying people off directly and firing them, but rather by not filling vacancies. And there’s a lot of churn in student affairs. We all know that, right?

Some people make a career out of it, but a lot of folks, you know, switch positions or leave the, the field entirely after two, three, four, five years. So it’s a more more painless way of doing cuts rather than you know, focusing on an area where there’s very little turnover- like academic faculty. … Especially tenure line faculty. So that’s, it’s benign. It doesn’t make it a good reason but it is a problematic thing. There’s definitely an inefficiency there which is that student affair professionals don’t make a lot of money. We all know that and our students definitely know that.

Nobody does this work to get rich. So it’s ridiculous to, see eliminating- four positions that could, six positions in some cases, which is like one associate dean’s salary. So it’s like this is not efficient at all. So I think, we need to keep in mind those motivating factors.

And then you bring up retention and also Caleb brought up this idea of where else, Yes, the, the federal money cannot be counted on right now. Many states, not all states, but many states are really slashing higher ed budgets- … even though there’s no particular fiscal crisis or urgent need to do we’re not in a recession and yet they act like we are. And I think some of these things not that this is… I, there should be, permanent public funding for all of this, but I think institutional leaders, presidents, deans, development officers, you can go out and fundraise on this stuff, honestly.

Yes. Things like retention. Things like supporting first gen students. Things like supporting international students. Our local communities are invested in those things to a much greater extent than they are about, raising faculty salaries. If you go out into the community, go to the rotary club and say, “I want you to, all write $10,000 checks so we can give our professors a raise,” nobody’s gonna open their wallet.

But if you say, we just need to hire some more advisors or some more counselors on campus to help retain students who are the first in their families to go to college, who are coming here from overseas and maybe don’t have a community. All we’re trying to do is put on some social events, make them feel more included,” people will open their wallets for that.

But you need to prioritize it, and you need to go ask for it. So I encourage… and faculty will help you with that, will help make the cases. And the students, the current students will help too, and the alumni. But it needs to be a priority. You need to go ask for it. And I think in many cases institutional leaders that’s just never what they’re gonna ask for ’cause they want buildings or they want new programs or whatever it is that are actually harder to raise money for.

But but also, you get to cut ribbons. Yeah, that’s my quick response. But there is no doubt, both from research and anecdotally we all know that having high, well-trained, available student affairs professionals 100% helps with retention, especially- … for students with minoritized identities, low SES, first gen.

It makes such a difference, and it is such a good use of funds. And it’s tragic to see these positions being eliminated.

Heather Shea: I

Kaleb Briscoe: also think to your-

Heather Shea: Yeah, go ahead.

Kaleb Briscoe: No. I was gonna say to your point, Ethan, I think the other thing that I continuously watch, we keep pouring funds into athletics.

Ethan Ris: Yes.

Kaleb Briscoe: And I…

Listen, we have SEC on every weekend in our house, okay? Yeah … but what does that signal? We’re pouring into athletics or we’re pouring into athletic programs, and then we’re cutting funding for student affairs, right? And we are heavily, when coaches don’t do what we want them to do turning over contracts of millions of dollars to pay out coaches-

Heather Shea: Yep

Kaleb Briscoe: that could go into the university and the functions of the university and support services, right? So again, I’m really looking to our presidents and our leaders to think about how do we make better decisions, fiscal decisions around money that protects staff, particularly student affairs members too.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Ethan Ris: You know what would be amazing? Could we have one university step up and say, “We’re gonna go out and recruit the best vice provost for undergraduate affairs,” or whatever it is, director, VP of student services in the country. We’re gonna go recruit him. We’re gonna pay him $2.5 million a year, the same amount we pay the basketball coach, and go headhunt that person.

And just to see what that would do. Wouldn’t that be amazing for- You know what? I- … oklahoma State- I’m gonna challenge it

Kaleb Briscoe: more …

Ethan Ris: oklahoma’s

Kaleb Briscoe: not gonna do

Ethan Ris: that. Sorry. Cut that. I know. But I’m just- but just imagine. Imagine if they did, and they went out and said, “We got the number one in the country,” right?

Yeah. We poach this person from, Vanderbilt. How cool is that? I don’t know.

Heather Shea: Yeah. And I think that’s the other thing, right? If retention and enrollment and persistence and all of that matters to the institutional bottom line, like, putting money towards these programs really matters.

And- Yes … and filling vacant positions. I think when you mentioned that, I was like, oh my goodness, that is totally… yes, we are seeing a wave of people being laid off. But the fact that we are asking our student affairs educators to take on the task of the vacant staff person- Oh, yeah … the person who just vacated the staff- To do three

Ethan Ris: jobs

Heather Shea: three jobs, right? And so this idea and Kayla, love to hear your take on this we’re asking fewer professionals to do more. Student affairs leaders, we need to advocate for the work of our staff- … for protecting their wellbeing sustaining meaningful student support at the same time.

But we can’t support students if we don’t have enough people to do that, right? It’s just not a… It’s the-

…

Heather Shea: Put your oxygen mask on first so that you can then support students. And this is part of the, the drain, right? The retention of- … student affairs educators too.

Yeah, so- And

Kaleb Briscoe: I feel like, yeah, I feel like this is why a lot of people don’t wanna be in the profession of student affairs. It’s not that they don’t enjoy it and they don’t love it. They don’t wanna do the roles of three people. Yeah. They are burnt out. They see others who are burned out.

They see they’re not gonna make a lot of money, right? They see the devalument from institutions, and then they don’t wanna do it. It’s not that they’re not passionate about supporting students. It’s just that this level of betrayal and mistreatment is not something they wanna do. So I think that also signals to us how can we support, like, student affairs educators in this moment through this, right?

And care about their will- wellbeing and wholeness just as much as we care about students’ wellbeing and wholeness as well. Yeah. And so I just really think this is a calling for institutions at this moment to show up for staff. Think about what programs exist for them, what opportunities for them to get raises and incentives and additional hours for holidays and things like that.

I just… W- we don’t do enough. We just don’t do enough. And cutting these positions further points to the ways we don’t do enough. Because if you had a director, associate, assistant, a coordinator, a specialist, and now you just have a director and an assistant. N- no pay raise, no, no GA support, no student leader support.

Two people running an entire office is ridiculous

Heather Shea: Yeah. It’s just not, that is not a sustainable formula and it’s certainly not gonna continue to serve students.

Kaleb Briscoe: No.

Heather Shea: Oh my goodness. We have covered three fantastic topics today. And I think one of the things I’m so excited about with our expanded correspondent pool is the opportunity to hear more about what you’re thinking deserves our attention.

So we’re introducing this new segment. It’s called, What Are You Watching? Not what are you watching on, you know- … must-see TV. That dates me a little bit. But what are you watching in terms of the topics, the stories that haven’t become the headlines yet? And I’m really thinking, as we near the midterm elections in just a couple of weeks, what is one issue, trend, data point, court case, policy development, or campus dynamic that you think the rest of Student Affairs should be watching too?

And Kahlilah, I’m gonna hand it to you first.

Kaleb Briscoe: Okay. I really have been nerding out over the midterms. Me and my father have just been talking about it nonstop. We watch the, the governor races, the Senate races. We’re talking through everything. We’re talking about who values higher ed, whose underlining messages don’t support higher ed, or what would this midterm election look like, right?

And so one of the things I’ve been really critically wondering is party, right? This, this dynamic between race and party, right? Thinking about the Florida governor’s race and what will happen, right? A potential candidate who is a Black Republican and a Democratic who’s a little b- more liberal moderate, and just thinking about how does that play for- residents of Florida, but more broadly, how does that play- are people voting party, race, both? What does that mean for our country? What does that mean for higher education more broadly? So I’m really interested in the next couple of weeks how this all plays out. And looking hopefully for some shifts in policy that support higher education practices more broadly.

So nerding out a little bit. I will keep y’all posted. I, I don’t write about it anywhere, but I’m really paying attention to what’s happening on the ground.

Heather Shea: Yeah, absolutely. I am too. And Michigan, the Michigan Senate race has reached those national headlines in a way that I- … had not anticipated, but it has been fascinating to hear and, hear in my own state.

This is- … becoming such a c- a conversation. Ethan, what about you? Yeah. What’s on your kind of watch list?

Ethan Ris: I’m just gonna echo that and, I think, yes, we’re gonna learn a lot, obviously, in a few weeks. And I’m really, I’m very interested in a handful of races, and actually Michigan, not just the Senate race- your district, Heather, Oh … there’s a guy named Will Lawrence who’s running. Yes. I’m sure you’ve-

Heather Shea: Yeah …

Ethan Ris: gotten to know his campaign. Yep. And he’s one of a very few handful of people that I’ve seen out there who have made defending higher education part of their platforms.

In his case- MSU specifically, which I don’t need to tell you has had some very challenging politics of late. But, higher ed in general, and I’m watching that race very closely both because it’s it’s a toss-up district that could kinda go either way, but also to just see if that message has any weight because we’ve certainly seen folks from the Republican Party run against higher education.

… But in recent years, There haven’t been a lot of people who are running for it- … who say, this is a public good. We should invest in this. We should invest in our students. We should invest in research.” There hasn’t been nearly enough of that, I think, and I think- … i think people are afraid because there is this sort of right-wing rhetoric that universities are bad and wasteful and- Absolutely … and drive students into debt- yep … and all of this stuff. And I’m very eager to see what happens in a handful of races, including in Michigan for candidates who are gonna stick their necks out.

And- … and then certainly whether that translates in Congress into any sort of movement towards, sensible higher education policy. As I will yell at anybody who will listen this is one of my things, it has now been… I should have a clock. It has now been 18 years since the Higher Education Act was fully reauthorized.

It has been relying on stop-gap funding now for 13 years. It was supposed to be renewed 13 years ago. And there is just- … no- nobody in Congress who is making any meaningful noise about reauthorizing that, changing that. Obviously, the current president is not gonna sign any meaningful legislation.

But if Democrats do take back Congress, I would love to see some committees or some members who are going to actually start working on that so that- … that in 2029 when we have a new president that something might actually happen. Yeah, at that point it’ll be, you know- … 15 years past due.

Fif- that’s… Come on, people. That’s crazy. Yeah. 15 years since it expired? What are we doing? It’s still the law. We- Yeah. It should be updated.

Heather Shea: Oh my goodness. That is making me now also reconsider some of the things that I’ve been thinking about, and that, that point alone I think is one of the things we definitely need to have some unity w- when- and just thinking about the Department of Education period, right? Yes. And the work that they do. I oversee the Trio Student Support Services office. Oh. Federal grants are also being slashed. Fortunately- … we received funding, but- Oh, good … it requires annual reauthorization of- … an annual giving the money back, so yeah.

And then this district is fascinating because the, the history is that Elissa Slotkin, who’s one of our oth- our senator, one of our senators was the rep in that district. And then the person who’s now occupying that seat is just a one-term representative, Republican Tom Barrett.

And so Will Lawrence is coming in to take that seat back as it was Elissa Slotkin, Okay … seat before. So there’s some, i- Interesting … there’s some really interesting things to watch in Michigan, which we consider to be still a purple state, but man, I think with Gretchen and our governorship also up for we have a lot of work to do, for sure.

We’re gonna keep coming back to that. In fact, we are recording our next episode of Current Campus Context after the midterms, so we’ll get some hot takes from the expert correspondents then. I am so grateful to you all for your time and energy. As I’ve listened to this conversation today, I keep coming back to this tension, right?

The tension between- … what institutions say they value and the decisions they actually make. And I think these stories remind us that these values aren’t just in mission statements and strategic plans. They are revealed in our decisions, what we fund, what we protect, what we prioritize, whose jobs we continue to fill, right?

And values are also said by what we’re willing to let go of. And so for those of you in student affairs who are listening, we know these are not abstract policy debates. We see the human consequences. And students come to us for the support. So as we are trying to sustain programs with fewer resources and in communities that are working hard let’s keep asking the question, are we building institutions that have the capacity and courage to deliver on the promise that we’re making to students?

Again, thank you, huge thank you to our expert correspondents. Welcome and thank you, Kayla Briscoe and Ethan Riss for helping us make sense of this moment. We are releasing bit by bit the larger gruel- group of expert correspondents, and we’ll be sharing more about that expanded lineup soon.

To stay in the loop, if you haven’t already subscribed, you can get all of our episodes delivered weekly to your inbox every Wednesday. Join our newsletter, browse our full archives, including every episode of Current Campus Context which are time-sensitive. I’m gonna, I’m gonna say, they don’t have staying power in the lineup as some of the others do.

But they, if you wanna go back and see where things have been that inform where we are today and how often topics repeat, it’s super interesting to take that deep dive. And as always, thank you to our amazing producer, Nat Ambrosey. Nat’s gonna turn around this episode in just a few hours so we can release it tomorrow, October 14th.

We appreciate you, Nat. And to everybody who’s listening and watching, thank you for being a part of our learning community. I’m Heather Shea. We’ll be back next month to make more sense of what’s changing across higher education and what it means for students and the communities that we serve. Have a good week

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/safety/2026/10/09/what-does-law-require-colleges-prevent-sexual-assault

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/2026/10/09/9-universities-accused-j-1-visa-fraud

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/cost-cutting/2026/10/06/some-campuses-announced-massive-personnel-cuts-september

https://forum.academica.ca/forum/what-institutions-lose-when-they-cut-student-affairs

https://www.entrepreneur.com/entrepreneurs/universities-face-a-budget-squeeze-cutting-spending-is-only-part-of-the-answer

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-u-of-michigan-bows-to-malicious-misinformation