The ground is shifting daily in higher education—policy changes, legal battles, funding threats, and challenges to equity and access. These aren’t just headlines; they have real consequences for students, educators, and institutions. That is why Student Affairs Now is launching a limited weekly series called “Current Campus Context.”

In this week’s rapid-response episode, Dr. Heather Shea is joined by Drs. Brendan Cantwell and OiYan Poon to break down the latest developments—from the Department of Education’s uncertain future to new guidance in the form of a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague Letter and FAQ, and executive branch threats to punish campuses that hold “illegal” campus protests. Why does it matter? And what can student affairs educators and higher ed leaders do to respond? Tune in for expert insights and actionable takeaways.

Shea, H. (Host). (2025, March 7). Current Campus Context: Dear Colleague Letter FAQ, “Illegal” Protests, and more (No. 249) [Audio podcast episode]. In Student Affairs NOW. https://studentaffairsnow.com/currentcontext_march7/

Heather Shea
Welcome to the very first episode of current campus context brought to you by Student Affairs. Now the online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside and adjacent to higher education and student affairs, I’m your host, Heather Shea, and this episode was recorded at 5:15pm

Heather Shea
on Thursday, March 6. Things might have changed by the time you listen. This new limited series is all about making sense of the moment. We’re in higher ed is facing rapid change, and each week we will bring two experts to break down what’s happening, why it matters, and what we can do within our spheres of influence. Our goal not just provide the news, but context, perspective and strategies for action. So I’m so excited to introduce our first two correspondents for today. First, Dr Brennan Cantwell is an expert in higher education policy, governance and the political economy of higher education. He is a professor of higher adult and lifelong education at Michigan State University. Hi, Brendan, hey, great to be here. And Dr oyun Poon is an expert in the racial politics of education, access, college admission systems and Asian Americans in education. She is a co director of the college admissions futures collaborative and consultant on higher education equity to Eleanor Governor JB Pritzker education team. Hello, well, welcome, hey, great to be here. Yeah. Thanks so much for joining. So this week, we’re focusing on a few key developments with some significant implications for higher ed the first item earlier this week, Linda McMahon, immediately after being sworn in as Secretary of Education, issued her first statement about the department’s final Mission. Pretty ominous sounding statement, and I think we expect it hasn’t dropped as of the recording yet, an executive order charging McMahon with dismantling the Department of Education, even though we know that officially abolishing it would require an act of Congress. But this leaves me with questions about TRIO programs, Pell Grants, FAFSA. So that’s Topic number ONE. Topic number two, february 14, your colleague letter. And then the subsequent FAQ document, which I think was meant to provide some clarification, but for me, made it more hazy in terms of what if anything we should be doing. And then meanwhile, the Chronicle of Higher Ed has been reporting that many campuses are taking anticipatory measures to comply. So that’s topic two. And then the third topic, well, I don’t want to bring in every single social media post. Earlier this week, Inside Higher Ed reported that the President doubled down on social media posting that college and universities that allow a legal protest would be at risk of losing federal funding. I’m thinking this maybe flies in the face of free speech. Maybe so. I think it goes without saying that these three issues will all shape the future of higher education in the coming months, maybe years, and so I’m going to turn it to you. Brendan, what does this all mean, given what I’ve just shared, where would you like to begin? And what do you see as the broader implications of these issues for colleges universities in the field of student affairs?

OiYan Poon
Well, it means potentially a lot, because the Broadside attack on higher education that’s coming from the Trump administration is sort of multi pronged. It’s happening on many fronts, and it covers almost every aspect of what we do in higher education. It’s pretty terrifying, it’s chaotic, and it’s really hard to understand what’s happening when it’s happening and what it means for you, but I think we can sort of categorize what’s going on in those three points that you just identified as, like three key developments that have happened in a couple of ways. First, there’s the Move fast and break things mode that Doge is implementing, and they’re trying to dismantle many aspects of the federal government’s ability to administer programs and policies that have been passed by Congress and appropriated right by Congress, and that can lead to either short or long term disruptions of vital federal funding. So if they, if there is an executive order to start to dismantle the Department of Education, and they move parts of the department’s mission out of education and into other parts of the federal government, we could see things break. We could see financial aid break, and I think it’s legitimate to be concerned that financial aid payments on time could be disrupted, right? And that would be devastating for students and for institutions. Then there’s another category of things, and those are the sort of real things that could happen, the material, the money, stuff, right? Then there’s the like, we’re going to say that if you do anything that acknowledges the differences between people based on race, gender, national origin, religion, whatever, that it’s illegal. And what does that mean? Does that mean you can’t teach about racism? Does that mean you can’t teach a course about American history? Does that mean you know that you can’t acknowledge the existence of trans people, and most of that is illegal. The federal government is unable to legally enforce that they will try to by investigating, and I don’t think it’s too strong a word to say terrorizing individual institutions in order to probe where what they can get away with, what they can enforce, and as you mentioned, to prompt anticipatory compliance. And so there’s that level of sort of psychological violence that’s happening. And then the the sort of third thing is like, how does your campus respond? And what, where does that put? Put you right. So a lot of what the federal government is doing is trying to provoke a reaction on your campus, and and, and, and from you and from your colleagues and from the leaders on your campus. And so that’s the way I kind of try to sort out what’s going on, even when all the details are changing really fast and hard to keep up with.

Heather Shea
Yeah. Oyan, what? What would you add? I think that is definitely a tactic, right? It’s making it too quick, too fast to keep up, and that velocity is really confusing, too. Yeah. Thank

OiYan Poon
you so much Brendan for doing that. Because I was like, I have no idea how these three things I know. Thank you for modeling and offering that analysis. I think you know. The only thing I would add is, we’ve known all of this was coming right. Last year, I was a fellow at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Thurgood Marshall Institute, and we wrote an analysis on Project 2025, and offered that analysis. I wrote the education chapter, you know, the ACLU did one. Lawyers Committee did one right. Every single public interest organization out there still has on the interwebs right their own analyzes, right shorts, the briefs, right on what was coming. And you know, as Brendan, you said, it’s all about the money part of it, I think the only money part that we haven’t really explicitly named is loan forgiveness. Student loan forgiveness, I would just add that part to it, because in the project 2025, document, it was very clear they want to end all of that, and they want to extract as much money from everyone. And you know, when I was a student affairs professional, I had student loan debt, right? This is not a profession we make a whole lot of money from after going through advanced degree training. So that is something, and I think I that’s, that’s the piece that is, is just an additional piece, right? We’ve mentioned pal, we’ve mentioned trio, we’ve mentioned SSS grants, all these federal things, breaking everything. I think when in this chaos, the implications, I want to move us back into a space of action. And you know, I’m just going to thank Brendan again for reminding us, in the pre conversation to this recording that we need to get really good on campus at building relationships and organizing again, right? So while our leaders, right, the folks in the senior leadership on our campuses are responding and acting and doing their own risk analysis and decision making processes, they need to hear from the staff, they need to hear from students, right? I remember working in student affairs with students who were protesting the war 20 years ago, 25 years ago, right? And what is the role of Student Affairs leaders and on the ground professionals in supporting students, right? But then also caring for yourself and making sure that you are sustaining yourself. And none of this is individual. You have to do this in collectives, right? I think too often in American culture at large, we think in individual terms, right? So when you go and talk to your president. Don’t do it alone. Do it strategically and collectively, and learn together from others in deciding how you approach the the work and at the same time to do that is to build communities as foundational to the learning and to the figuring out of the strategy, yeah, and to support each other, right? And to to keep each other healthy,

Heather Shea
yeah, I really appreciate you moving towards the kind of the action steps and what we can do to kind of create that sense of solidarity between and among different communities. And I, like, I keep going back to the way that a lot of our, like student leadership models have really moved towards this collective perspective. It’s not as much about a hierarchy or as much about a positional leader. It’s about working together to accomplish things for the common good. And so can we pull back the social change model of leadership and think about that within this context? Brennan, what else would you add, as far as recommended actions for what we should do in this moment within our spheres of influence, given that, you know, at least for me, I’m a mid level manager on on a on a really big campus, and I feel like I don’t have a lot of power, but, but maybe in collectives I do, or maybe with associations. So,

OiYan Poon
yeah, so I guess one one point would be to develop a framework for yourself for understanding where threats are coming from, who’s a who’s responsible for that threat and where there are sources of resistance or protection from that threat, because I think what’s happening is so intense, and it can make all of us feel alone and scared, and it could lead us to not really think things through. And so I think one thing that that that that folks should do is talk with each other, make sense of you know, it’s pretty simple, obvious, and I’m sure that most people are doing it. But also talk with your talk with your supervisor, ask your supervisor if it’s possible to have sort of conversations with senior leaders, and if the communication that’s coming from your university, your college or university, doesn’t feel like it’s helpful for you, for making sense of what’s going on and what’s going to happen at your institution. You know work to create those channels of communication yourself, and I think that that kind of less formal internal conversation can build and help to build trust and also help to inform decision makers about the perspectives and the work that people are doing on campus and the need to ensure that it continues. I would my my view is that that kind of work is more important than than the sort of external facing like I really want my my campus president to come out and say dei is super important. And of course, that would be great if all campus presidents did that, and some are. Some have been this whole time. Oyan pointed out that there are some states where this is happening, and may be able to share a little bit more about that, but I would look to see at, you know, the kind of what’s happening in the way the institution speaks. Are websites changing? Are program names changing? Are people losing their jobs? Are you being told not to teach certain things or to run certain programs? And that would be what I would sort of would provoke a lot of concern for me, and tell me that now is the time to push back and really push on my leader, if my if my campus executives, were not changing things, even if you thought things before weren’t ideal, but they weren’t changing things. They were continuing to support the work that was going on, but just not really being super vocal about it. I would read that as actually a fairly supportive campus in this environment and and, you know, work with your colleagues to make sense of what is actually happening here. Do we are we in a supportive place? Can we talk about this internally, rather than looking to these like, I want a big statement kind of, kind of signals, yeah,

OiYan Poon
yeah, statements only go so far, and so I would even actually add to the what else you can do is what I’m seeing on the ground in Illinois at some of these institutions that are starting to restructure quietly. Um. Let go of people, quietly, scrub websites, quietly, right? But being reported on through the media is on those campuses. Faculty, tenured faculty, are coming out to connect with the student affairs professionals to they’re doing in home, like at their homes, house, kind of potlucks and teach ins amongst themselves, right? So that’s what I mean tangibly when I’m talking about building community, and they’re doing kind of collective study of things like, what is shared governance on our campus look like? Is that a pathway, right? So tracing and mapping out the lines of power and levers, right? So the statements are important. So the nine public university presidents in Massachusetts, this is all within the last 24 hours, right? Like they issued a statement collectively, like we still believe in these things, in the last 24 hours, or 12 hours, I don’t know. You know, 15 states attorneys general, such as Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, California and several more, came together and put out a statement to remind higher ed institutions in their states, hey, the threat of an executive order, dear colleague, letter that is just meant to strike fear if you act on that in such a way that is exclusionary and discriminatory. We’re watching you too. Yeah, right, yeah. And so these are levers of power, but we cannot wait for, you know, senior leadership to make action right. That’s great. These states, these very blue states, are doing these things right, but we also have to remind ourselves that we have power on the ground in our communities and collectives as well.

Heather Shea
Yeah, yeah. I feel like those public statements of solidarity and resistance, right? And seeing that happening in other places might embolden or give give some other, you know, institutions and collectives in other states, maybe a little bit of that, and obeying in advance and anticipating, you know, what might be happening. You know, I think at the end of the day, and it will, we’ll post a bunch of things in the show notes for this episode, but the end of the day, a Dear Colleague letter is not law, it’s not a statute, and if you were obeying or complying in advance of that, any directive that actually has legal teeth. The law is the students for fair admissions in Harvard, the law is title six. You know, those are the things that we should be paying attention to so we were in compliance of those before february 14. Technically, we’re still doing operating within a legal framework today, and

OiYan Poon
we still have to address discrimination where it is, right, right? And that’s what the law says.

Heather Shea
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I know this. We are intending for these episodes to be short, quick snaps of SNAP, snippets of news for folks. And so I do want to give each of you some time to give final thoughts, like, what do you see on the horizon? You know, what’s keeping you up at night, and then what are you pondering, thinking about, what’s giving you hope and joy, maybe now and oyan, why don’t I start with you? I’m

OiYan Poon
going to start with what’s bringing joy. There you go. Because I just it’s too easy to spiral into the depths of all of this, right? And I think what’s bringing me joy is I’ve been some friends, and I have been organizing kind of local monthly potlucks, and we’re just getting together. We’re not all higher ed folks, and it’s just kind of just a touch point. Our kids get to play together. I don’t have to think about dinner that night, right? And just being with each other and playing games and whatever, yeah, and just working out. I guess it’s still bringing me a lot of joy. What’s on the horizon is it we have to sustain ourselves, because this is not letting up anytime soon. And you know, oftentimes people are like, Oh, we just have to. It’s just, it’s going to be a very long four years. And I’m like, no, no, this is much longer than four years, especially if everything’s broken and it it’s been ongoing, right? Don’t forget that january 20, 2025, was not the start of this mess, right? And disaster, right? And so we have to build our muscle for the long haul and the connective tissue and muscle memory and practice to. It to act together, because a lot more is coming. It, you know, having had to read the education chapter and other parts of project 2025, there’s a lot more coming. Unfortunately,

Heather Shea
yeah, yeah, yeah. Folks haven’t read that. I think it does.

OiYan Poon
Oh no, no, don’t read that. Read everyone else’s analysis. Read the analysis. Because, you know, we’re talking about keeping up our mental health here, right?

Heather Shea
This is true. Do not read it. Whoo

OiYan Poon
it is. Unless you really want to engage in some suffering, go for it.

OiYan Poon
It’s not so badly written.

OiYan Poon
They can’t write I’m sorry. It’s

OiYan Poon
poorly organized and like, proposals are split across different sections, and you have to, you have to do a lot of detective work. Not only will you feel horrible about what’s being proposed and much of which is being enacted in one way or another, but it must. It takes a lot of mental space to try and figure out what are these people talking about, yes,

OiYan Poon
if you’re going to read, read so much other stuff, that’s the other thing bringing me joy. I’m reading a lot of smutty romance these days. Highly recommend. I love it.

OiYan Poon
The thing that, the thing that keeps me up and that has me worried is the settling into a new state of, you know what I’ve been writing with my colleague Barrett Taylor, about post liberal governance, so that higher education, increasingly is directed by state and federal governments with compliance of university Leaders in a way that achieves political power for for what would right now be the sort of far right version of the Republican Party, and that that leaves higher education in a much diminished state as a sector, so that it would be smaller, it would serve fewer students, it would do fewer good things, and that it would have many fewer possibilities to to engender critical thinking and identity, identity development and launching people into agentic lives, and that it would do less Things like scientific discovery that expands what we know about the world and May, in many cases, lead to tangible benefits, you know, in medicine or in other places. So I really do worry that this is a moment where higher education faces lasting transformation in a way that is not good, and so that that’s what keeps me that’s what keeps me worried. I think this is going to sound strange, but I think the thing that brings me the most hope, I’m not sure that I experience a lot of joy. I need to work on that. I should probably see it. See

OiYan Poon
Smutty romance Brendan.

OiYan Poon
I don’t know if that’s gonna work for me, but a basketball game, a basketball game, oh yes, a beer and a basketball game is people, for a long time, sort of very serious people have been sort of willfully ignorant about the threats that are facing higher education and facing our, you know, multicultural democracy, and those people are, most people are no longer in that place of, kind of being very in very serious denial. And that brings me hope, because I think that there is a possibility to mobilize action in a way that even if tremendous damage happens and it lasts for a long time, there will be a point, whether it’s in four years, whether it’s in a decade where we can start to rebuild. And I was talking to a colleague, and said, What, what’s the what can we do? And I said, we can survive to be around to rebuild. And you know, that doesn’t sound hopeful, but it but it is. Yeah,

Heather Shea
well, with that, I’m going to send my deepest appreciation for the two of you for joining me for this first episode of a series that will hopefully continue on, and we will be here each week to bring the news to folks. So thank you, both Brendan and oyan, for sharing your insights and space. We will continue and be back next week. If you are tuning in today and haven’t already subscribed to Student Affairs now’s weekly newsletter, please take a moment to enter your email on our website at WWW dot Student Affairs now.com you can stay in the loop with all the latest episodes delivered straight to your inbox. And if you have feedback, feel. Free to email us at host at studentaffairs now.com or find us on Instagram, Facebook or blue sky. And I really appreciate everybody who’s watching and listening today to current compass contacts brought to you by Student Affairs now we will see you next week. Thanks again.