I’m disappointed in the amount of criticism we in higher education are getting from all sides – the media, elected officials, even our own colleagues, and on our campuses. I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership as it relates to maintaining momentum in the current political landscape, despite perceptions of higher education.
We are being criticized for not doing enough to support students. They’re saying we aren’t fighting hard enough against the current federal administration’s policies and executive orders. In some cases, they’re saying we’ve failed – and that further hurts our message with the public.
No matter what state, county, or city you are serving as a leader, it’s harder than ever to be a higher education leader with all of the above factors at play. The level of criticism leaders face from their own campuses, communities, states, and the federal administration is burdensome and overwhelming. Over the course of my career in higher education, but especially during my tenure as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Compton College and the Compton Community College District, I have faced my share of criticism, discrimination, and racism at all levels. I also know that criticism, discrimination, and racism cannot stop the work that needs to be done in higher education for the students and communities we serve.
I hear what all the naysayers are saying. Still, at the end of the day, higher education leaders have to focus on delivering a greater return on investment from going to college and greater economic mobility for our alumni. We need to be able to promise to every one of our graduates that if they complete their degree or credential, they can secure local employment with a livable wage.
Our students and the communities we serve deserve leaders to be able to show up as their authentic selves while also addressing what I call Real Love, which means:
Responsive
Equity-minded
Aligned with the community
Liberated
Learning-driven
Outcomes-focused
Value-connected
Exceling
Responsive- Being a responsive leader means staying alert and paying attention to everything happening on our campuses and in the communities we serve. Most importantly, it means we, as leaders, are actively addressing issues and concerns and taking swift action, rather than letting them fester. In some cases, when you delay making a decision or taking action, you come off as ineffective. More importantly, delayed action often means the situation becomes more serious.
It is tough doing this work – we have a lot of responsibility, and we can’t be experts in all of the areas we manage. Many times in my career, I had to address issues that I wasn’t an expert in.
Being responsive also means being responsible. When major issues arise on campus, it is critical that all senior leaders be made aware of what’s happening. (This step is critical in ensuring continuity in the event of leadership gaps.) .Together, we develop an action plan outlining what we have done or will do to address the issue at hand.
Finally, as a responsive leader, I highly recommend developing a timeline for the action plan, one that details each step you will take to address the issue, identifies who is responsible, and sets deadlines. Not only does this help keep you and your team accountable in working toward your goal, but it also acts as a case study that you and other educational leaders can refer to later should they encounter this issue in the future.
Equity-Minded: There are self-proclaimed “equity leaders” in many spaces, not just education, but they aren’t creating meaningful change – they’re just talking the talk and not walking the walk. At the same time, we have leaders who are closing equity gaps for students, using data to drive sound decision-making on their campuses and in their organizations, and many of them are not being recognized. Too often, leaders are criticized for not doing what others consider good enough, but they don’t get the recognition when they are doing the work. I was catching up with a colleague in California, who said something that stuck with me. They said, “I don’t have to get awards for what I do for my students; my institution is doing the work and will continue to do the work.”
Make sure you are collecting good data at your institutions, and then let data guide your work. At Compton College, we have created institutional set-goals through 2035, disaggregated the data by age, race, and gender, and applied the goals to academic departments and student support services programs. Now we can address the equity gaps at the program and department levels by aligning these goals with the biannual program/department plans and the program review, and we can assess our progress annually.
Alignment with the community: In the years I’ve been leading Compton College, I’ve seen a lot – but there’s one thing that has always been true. As an institution, we are severely limited without the support and collaboration of our partners. The work we do must align with the communities we serve. As leaders, we must work with our K-12 school districts, four-year colleges and universities, regional industry, and municipal governments to achieve mutually beneficial goals. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with our counterparts wherever we can, sharing our respective visions for the future, and finding ways to make those trajectories intersect.
At this moment, we need to expand partnerships to provide students with clear, seamless pathways to noncredit and credit programs, training opportunities, and work-based learning. The pressures are real, and alignment with the community is key to improving our students’ return on investment and economic mobility.
Recently, Compton College reorganized our academic affairs division to clarify how we will support our students, adult learners, and workforce development, and to ensure alignment with the various budgets and grants we hope to secure. Increased oversight of this new division is key, so we moved the leadership role from director to dean and identified all the positions needed to support students. I am hopeful that in the next couple of years, we will see the needle move in employment opportunities for all our students, regardless of their major. However, the institution must commit to ensuring alignment with the community and engaging in self-reflection about how to improve in this area continually.
Liberation – College is often thought of as a place of free expression for all – students, faculty, and staff. As a higher education leader, you must encourage that kind of liberatory culture at your institution. It benefits our students when all parties feel safe and secure to freely exchange thoughts and ideas on our campuses (even some of the more divisive ideas). I am always a proponent of free speech – even if it’s not accurate. And the remedy is more speech – we have to stand up when we need to set the record straight when someone says something inaccurate or not factual.
This feeling is communicated in various ways to our students, faculty, and staff, so it is critical that it comes sincerely from leaders at the institution. Let me explain what I mean: do day policies, systems, and structures that make students’ lives more difficult communicate a liberatory culture? Probably not.
You may have perfected this before, but it is ongoing work. I strongly encourage leaders to review all policies, at a minimum, every 5 years. You must take a hard look at everything and assess whether they are still serving students as intended – and address anything that harms students immediately. At this moment, Compton College is prioritizing ensuring students have educational plans and completing their student orientations. The responsibility of addressing these two areas is the responsibility of the institution, and everyone must be involved. We cannot assume students will show up to see a counselor or an advisor to receive assistance. We need to ensure that all programs and departments know which students lack an education plan and make sure faculty have the list of students in each of their classes who don’t. If we want to liberate our students, we need to take a hard look at our own institutional barriers, which have been a major problem.
Learning-driven – At the end of the day, this is our core mission: to effectively help our students learn and grow toward whatever their goals may be. We must engage and work with the entire institution to stay focused on learning and growth. A major issue for many of us in community colleges is ensuring that students can complete transfer-level English and math during their first year. This requires intentional and strategic effort to implement structures that support their learning inside and outside the classroom. If our students are avoiding transfer-level English and math, then that’s on us. If they are not passing transfer-level English and math, how do we expect students on a transfer pathway to successfully transfer?
Outcomes-focused: We need to make sure data is driving all conversations, and all data should be disaggregated by age, race, and gender, and publicly available. Ensure and facilitate conversations on campus about your data. Equally important is building that culture around data – everyone needs to know the goal, and everyone must be accountable. One of the things I have learned over the past couple of years is to ensure everyone is aware of the data dashboards you have and to provide talking points to your department and division leaders so they can lead these conversations – they don’t always have to start with our Institutional Effectiveness divisions.
Value-connected: This is not just about the federal government requirements regarding return on investment and economic mobility; we have to ensure all of our programs are value-connected, and if they are not, we must explore new ways to articulate how we talk about how our programs will make a positive impact on students and in the community we serve.
And value goes far beyond actual expected wages for graduates – Child Development is a program that does not necessarily have higher expected earnings. Yet, we all know these positions are desperately needed in our communities. In these programs, it’s on us to find ways for our students to recoup that value, ensuring they leave our institutions with the lowest possible debt is one way to do that. If we have done our job as leaders and secured partnerships in our service areas, we can offer these students paid internships and apprenticeship opportunities while they are still in college.
Right now, Compton College is working on a concept paper, in partnership with our local K-12 districts and California State University, Dominguez Hills to explore opportunities for students interested in child development to examine possibilities in teacher preparation programs that connect to employment opportunities at our local K-12 districts. To do this, we have to think differently and be open to innovation. We all need to innovate, innovate, and not stop innovating.
Excelling: Put simply, we have to make sure we continue to push our institutions to excel. We cannot rest on our accomplishments; we have to always strive for more. Often, I am asked why I continue to push and not rest — and here’s the reason: I don’t want Compton College to be seen only as an institution that recovered from its accreditation being revoked in 2006. I want to continue to work with the governing board, faculty, staff, and students to transform the institution to meet the needs of our community.
As institutions, we have to set our goals. We can’t look at what other outside organizations or accrediting bodies are doing. We can consider it, but we ultimately must decide what is right for ourselves and our community. We have all of these people saying what we should do, and many of them are not connected to our neighborhoods – our goals cannot be the same because our communities are not the same.
At this moment, we have to lead with Real Love, because our students, communities, and partners deserve that from us. While leading with Real Love, we will never lose our way. A colleague and friend of mine sent this to me this week when I was thinking about this article, and I want to leave it with you.
“It takes such courage to lead with love and through that lens, rather than lead by fear. Love requires commitment to a path, to honesty with ourselves and others, and to putting in work for continuous improvement. We have to truly love ourselves enough to want better personally, and when we do that, we want better for others and our communities too.”
Keith Curry, Ed.D., is the President/Chief Executive Officer of Compton College and Compton Community College District. This article is inspired by Mary J. Blige’s song, “Real Love.”