Deseret Magazine Sept 2023

THE PATHWAY A GLOBAL CLASSROOM COMES TO AFRICA

RESTORING THE PROMISE OF

AMERICAN EDUCATION

BY CLARK G. GILBERT & SHIRLEY HOOGSTRA

IS COLLEGE FOOTBALL DOOMED? AN ODE TO THE TRAMPOLINE

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CONTENTS

THE EDUCATION ISSUE

34 MONEY BALL WILL COLLEGE FOOTBALL SURVIVE? by michael j . mooney

50 FINDING THE LIGHT HIGHER EDUCATION IS AT A CRISIS POINT. DO RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS HAVE AN ANSWER?

42

by clark g . gilbert and shirley hoogstra

THE PATHWAY

with essays by ted mitchell

ilana m . horwitz

MEET THE AFRICANS PIONEERING A UNIQUE APPROACH TO HIGHER ED.

scott pulsipher

by tad walch

gailda davis eric bettinger

michael b . horn tristan denley

60

THE PATHWAY

THE MISEDUCATION OF THE AMERICAN MIND

A UNIQUE APPROACH TO

EDUCATION IN AFRICA

IS COLLEGE FOOTBALL DOOMED?

THE BROKEN PROMISE OF

AMERICAN EDUCATION

BY CLARK G. GILBERT & SHIRLEY HOOGSTRA

AN ODE TO THE TRAMPOLINE

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COLLEGE TEACHING IN AMERICA STINKS. HERE’S HOW TO FIX IT. by william deresiewicz

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CONTENTS

“The front-page attention to higher education has only brought flashy, faux solutions that sound good on the campaign trail.”

COMMENTARY

IDEAS

A DEGREE OF RISK

64

Raising the bar for American colleges and universities. by beth akers

VALUE PROPOSITION

68

How higher ed can provide more bang for the buck. by michael m . crow and derrick m . anderson

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A CRISIS OF MEANING Finding purpose in an age of consumerism. by ari berman

MODERN FAMILY

PASS OR FAIL

20

When you’re a mother, there are not grades.

Two Pack

CULTURE

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

THE SAFETY NET OF SCHOOL

26

72

In troubled times, home canning makes a comeback.

Sometimes, all a kid needs is a person who cares.

by meg walter

SELF-PRESERVATION

by natalia galicza

by alexandra rain

AN ODE TO THE TRAMPOLINE

76

Our favorite vehicle for recreational near-death experiences. by marc nielsen

BREAKDOWN

OUT OF PRINT

DON’T ASK ME HOW TIME IS SPENT

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78

by ruth arce

Can libraries survive the digital age? by marc nielsen

HUMAN BY DESIGN

18

AN OPEN DOOR TO AMBITION

THE LAST WORD

THE WEST

LEADERSHIP

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

24

THE DISRUPTOR

The promise and peril of gene editing.

Astrid Tuminez is on a mission to make degrees matter.

Could this mayor’s nonpartisan win be a bellwether for American politics? He thinks so.

by marc nielsen

as told to meg walter

by ethan bauer

30

ON BUILDING FAMILIES

80

Sliding into marriage doesn’t work. by lois m . collins

SEPTEMBER 2023

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CONTRIBUTORS

CLARK G. GILBERT

MICHAEL M. CROW

GAILDA DAVIS

TED MITCHELL

Gilbert, a General Authority Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is commissioner of the Church Educational System. He previously served as president of BYUPathway Worldwide and BYUIdaho, and as president and CEO of Deseret News. His essay on restoring the promise of education is on page 50.

Crow is the president of Arizona State University and a former vice provost of Columbia University.

He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His article about the public perception of higher education is on page 68.

Davis is the assistant vice president and executive director for the American Council on Education.

She is an author, speaker and adviser. She served 10 years on the District of Columbia Higher Education Licensure Commission and was an adjunct faculty member at George Washington University.

Her essay on lessons from religious schools is on page 54.

Mitchell is the president of the American Council on Education.

He served in the Obama administration as undersecretary of education. Mitchell is a former president of Occidental College, and vice chancellor and dean at the University of California, Los Angeles and department chair at Dartmouth College. He writes about lessons from religious schools on page 54.

ERIC BETTINGER

WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ

TRISTAN DENLEY

ILANA M. HORWITZ

Bettinger is a professor in the Stanford University School of Education. He is also the director of the Center for Educational Policy Analysis, co-director at the Lemann Center for Brazilian Education at Stanford and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. His essay on the power of mentoring is on page 57.

Deresiewicz is the best-selling author of “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.” He is the recipient of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle’s Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing and a Sydney Award.

His essay on teaching at American universities is on page 60.

Denley is the deputy commissioner for academic affairs and innovation for the Louisiana Board of Regents.

He is a former executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University System of Georgia and vice chancellor for academic affairs for the Tennessee Board of Regents. An innovator in higher education, his article on helping students succeed is on page 55.

Horwitz is a religion and education sociologist and assistant professor of Jewish studies and the FieldsRayant Chair of Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University’s Stuart and Suzanne Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience. She recently served on the board of the Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education. Her report on the power of mentoring is on page 57.

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BETH AKERS

DERRICK M. ANDERSON

SHIRLEY HOOGSTRA

SCOTT PULSIPHER

Akers is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributor to the Sutherland Institute’s “Defending Ideas” podcast. She served as a staff economist for the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and is the author of “Making College Pay: An Economist Explains How to Make a Smart Bet on Higher Education.” Her essay on student debt is on page 64.

Anderson is an associate professor and senior global futures scientist at Arizona State University.

He is also a senior vice president the American Council on Education. He has been published in Public Administration Review and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. His article about the public perception of higher education is on page 68.

Hoogstra is president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. She is also a member of the American Council on Education, National Association of Evangelicals, Trinity Forum, Evangelical Immigration Table and Washington Higher Ed Secretariat.

Prior to her career in education, Hoogstra was a lawyer. Her essay on restoring the promise of education is on page 50.

Pulsipher is the president of Western Governors University.

He also serves as the chair of the President’s Forum and is on the board of the American Council on Education. Pulsipher has been named one of the Top 100 Influencers in EdTech by EdTech Digest in 2020. His essay on the value of innovation in higher education is on page 58.

MICHAEL B. HORN

ARI BERMAN

CARLOS ARROJO

KATHERINE QUINN

Horn is a speaker and author on the future of education and the cofounder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.

He also serves on the boards of a range of education organizations.

Horn is the author of several different books on education including “Choosing College.” His essay about the value of innovation in higher education is on page 58.

Berman is president of Yeshiva University. He received his doctorate in medieval Jewish philosophy from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and was ordained from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He has served as the rabbi of the Jewish Center in New York City. His commentary on finding purpose is on page 14.

Arrojo is a freelance illustrator from A Coruña, Spain. After more than 10 years in the publishing and advertising fields, he has a wide variety of clients, including The New York Times, El País, Volkswagen and UNICEF. His illustrations have been recognized by the World Illustration Awards, among others. You can see Arrojo’s work on 50.

Quinn lives in New Zealand and works in both traditional and digital illustration. Her fully illustrated picture books include “Pets and their Famous Humans” and “The Secrets of Magnolia Moon.” Her clients include Walker Books, Zahori Books, Roger La Borde, Cote Bordeau, Paperie and Windham Fabrics. Quinn’s work is on page 20.

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THE BUZZ

OUR READERS RESPOND

June’s cover story (“A Portrait of the Colorado River”) explored the complexities of the hardest working river in the West through the photojournalism of Spenser Heaps and commentary by Lauren Steele. The Mountain Pact, an outdoor recreation organization, called the story “a stunning photo gallery that shows the intricacies of this critical river” in a tweet. And reader Shane Roe commented, “Good article about the challenges we face with the artery of the West — the Colorado River.”

Michael J. Mooney profiled former Vice President Mike Pence and explained how his faith informs his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination (“Mike Pence is on a Mission”). Daniel Silliman, news editor for Christianity Today, tweeted, “Maybe I’ve read too much Sophocles, but I think Mike Pence is the most interesting/strange/tragic/cautionary-tale-with-too-many-lessons politician on the American scene right now.” Reader Nathan Andelin added, “Pence has been steadfast in his faith-based convictions to the point that I don’t detect any hypocrisy in that regard. His spiritual side seems to be the basis for his calm and unflappable demeanor, even in the face of a nation’s conflicted masses.”

Natalia Galicza detailed the long history of inmate abuse in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, in particular the Dublin prison in California (“The Women That ‘Me Too’ Left Behind”). “So important — please read and share!” wrote Solitary Watch, a watchdog organization on the U.S. punishment system. Shanna Rifkin, deputy general counsel at the FAMM foundation (Families Against Mandatory Minimums), also tweeted, “Great article about the systemic problems at Dublin, and the need for robust oversight.”

Heather Hansman reported on the overcrowding of national parks during summertime and the possible impacts (“The Tipping Point of National Parks”). Reader Talon Jensen offered this solution: “This isn’t a difficult thing. As national parks become overwhelmed we just need to implement a reservation system and eventually timed entrance reservation systems with lotteries. This will just drive people to many, many beautiful locations that are not overwhelmed.”

In our Point/Counterpoint department, Ethan Bauer explored the complicated debate surrounding transgender athletes in elite sports. Reader James LaForce suggested creating a separate competitive league: “Paralympics was created for this reason. To provide physically disadvantaged athletes the opportunity to compete and feel the joy and exuberance that comes from a level playing field.” Reader Kelly Soelberg added, “This issue can be resolved at the ground level

A PORTRAIT OF THE

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THE FAITH OF

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As national parks become overwhelmed we just need to implement a reservation system.”

much better than at the state or federal government level.”

CORRECTION: A story (“The Cost of a State Line”) in the July/August issue incorrectly stated that Malheur County is one of Oregon’s

biggest producers of marijuana. The county is one of the biggest sellers of marijuana in the state.

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THE VIEW FROM HERE

LEARNING CURVE

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lear back in 1930, educator Abraham Flexner was already critiquing higher education spending for neglecting “the central university disciplines.” Meanwhile, Robert Maynard Hutchins, the wunderkind president of the University of Chicago, became a household name in 1939 for pulling the University of Chicago from the Big Ten Conference and ending the school’s varsity football program, dubbing it a distraction. A library would be built where the school’s football stadium once stood.

“It is a good principle,” Hutchins observed, that universities shouldn’t do anything that “any other agency can do as well.”

The future of higher education, however, was not with Flexner, and it certainly wasn’t with Hutchins. Over the next century, college football emerged as a multibillion-dollar industry in which coaches are better paid than many lawyers, engineers and doctors universities produce. In this issue of Deseret Magazine, Michael J. Mooney examines the chaotic state of college football (page 34).

As college sports transformed, so too did institutions of higher education, growing from small communities mostly for clergy and a few learned disciplines into sprawling microcities with a dizzying array of services and experiences, extending well beyond what’s commonly understood as a “college education.”

And, as campuses ballooned, so too did the costs of earning a degree.

According to the Brookings Institution, the sticker price of a college education tripled from 1979-80 to 2020-21, even after controlling for inflation. On a positive note, access to higher education during this time has expanded and there are many more entry points and services today to attract students. But, as the former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, Clark Kerr, has written, on college campuses there’s also been something of a loss in purpose and community.

For this issue of Deseret Magazine, we joined with HarrisX to

understand how Americans feel about higher education today (see charts and graphs featured on pages 50 to 59). We found Americans are concerned about costs of a degree as well as the ideological environment of college campuses.

As students pour into dorm rooms this month, this issue of Deseret Magazine examines higher education’s crises of completion, cost and meaning. Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a General Authority Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the commissioner of the Church Educational System, and Shirley Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, introduce a package exploring the crises of competition, cost and meaning through the lens of what faith-based campuses offer (page 50).

Additionally, William Deresiewicz, author of the bestselling “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life,” tackles the need for better teaching on college campuses (page 60) while Beth Akers, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, outlines Congress’ role in higher education reform (page 64). The president of Arizona State University, Michael Crow, joins Derrick Anderson of the American Council on Education to examine innovative models of higher education that provide greater outcomes and public value (page 68).

“If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has written, “that word would be ‘education.’”

Ensuring that education continues to serve students by addressing the ongoing crises of completion, cost and meaning remains of imperative importance to the nation. And, if done properly, as Tad Walch’s cover story from Africa demonstrates (page 42), education’s impacts for good can have ripples that reach across the globe.

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OPENING SHOT

MAMMATUS A STORM CLOUD OVER BOLTON, KANSAS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MITCH DOBROWNER

IMAGE COURTESY OF VITAL IMPACTS

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COMMENTARY

A CRISIS OF MEANING FINDING PURPOSE IN A MATERIAL WORLD

BY A R I B E R M A N

W

e live in a consumer society, one in which the acquisition of goods, products and status is often seen not as a means to an end but an end to itself.

One of our great philosophers, the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, once lightly put it this way: “The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad 1 and iPad 2, and the result is that we now have a culture of iPod, iPhone, iTunes, i, i, i.”

This focus on the “I” fosters a very individualistic, egocentric culture in which one is constantly reminded by product placements and commercialism of all that one does not have instead of being thankful for what one does have. The result is obvious, as Rabbi Sacks writes: “Through constant creation of dissatisfaction, the consumer society is in fact a highly sophisticated mechanism for the production and distribution of unhappiness.”

But there is another model of life which is not based on the consumer but the covenant. The concept of a covenant was first introduced by God to Noah and all the descendants of the world, and then afterward was said specifically to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children, the Jewish people.

In this worldview, one’s goals, life decisions 14

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and very sense of self are thought of in a whole different context.

By illustration, I will share a story that recently happened to me that highlights one aspect of this covenantal perspective.

Eight months ago, my father passed away. My father was an important and loving presence in my life. While over the past number of years he lost some of his strength and vitality, his passing was still

THE CONSUMER FOCUSES ON THE “I” AND WHAT IS MISSING FROM LIFE, CREATING A MECHANISM FOR FUNDAMENTAL UNHAPPINESS BY DRIVING ONE TO FILL THAT HOLE THROUGH BUYING MORE MATERIAL GOODS.

unexpected and difficult. During this challenging time, I turned to my faith tradition for support. Judaism provides a series of laws and customs that enable the mourner to integrate the new reality of loss into one’s life. One of the customs of mourning is for the mourner to recite a prayer every day,

three times a day, during our daily prayers, which publicly sanctifies God’s name. One of the requirements of this prayer, called Kaddish, is that it can only be said in a prayer service with a quorum of 10. Now this is not difficult when I, for example, am in Yeshiva University, where there are prayer quorums running throughout the day, but when I travel, it becomes more of a challenge.

So here is my story. I was visiting a group of Yeshiva University students who were on a trip to Marrakesh and my travel plans had me first flying into Casablanca. Knowing I would fly in too late to catch the community’s evening services, my office contacted a parent of one of our students from the local community and asked him for his advice. No problem, he said, just come to the synagogue whenever you arrive. My flight was a little delayed. I took a taxi from the airport and got there after 10 p.m. Meeting me at the synagogue was the parent with eight other men who I never previously met, but who came to pray at evening services with me to commemorate my father’s memory. In addition, they were concerned that I might be hungry after my trip, so they arranged a four-course catered dinner and we ate together until long after midnight.

And I have many stories like this in so many different places in which Jews around the world, whom I never met previously, have prayed with me and helped me commemorate the life of my father.

What is it that moves them to help someone who on the surface is a total stranger to them? Here is the secret: We are all the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We all share the same mothers of Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel. Although we have never personally met, we are all one family.

Now, if our personal identity began when we were first born, this would not make any sense. But our sense of identity is covenantal — not defined by the moment but by our past. From a consumer perspective, the past is history. You can learn from it.

It might be interesting, but it’s just events that occurred at a different time and place.

From the covenantal perspective, the past is not history, it’s memory. Stories about the Exodus, Maimonides, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel are not historical matters to us. They are passed down from generation to generation, they are all part of our memory and our identity.

What greater expression of this point than helping me commemorate the memory of my father? Our whole lives are memory. My loss is their loss. My story is their story. We are linked in our grieving for the dead because we are bound by a covenant for life.

And this is one of the key differences between the consumer and the covenant.

The consumer focuses on the “I” and what is missing from life, creating a mechanism for fundamental unhappiness by driving one to fill that hole through buying more material goods. The covenant, however, is focused on the “we.” It guides one to contemplate life in a broader sense of memory, so that others are not strangers but fellow members of a family, and that the goal of life is not to focus life ambitions on filling one’s own needs, but to look for opportunities to fulfill the “needs” of others.

These covenantal values are what is needed to nourish the lives of our next ILLU STR ATION BY KY LE H I LTO N

generation. There is a crisis in America today. It is not a crisis of faith but a crisis of meaning. Our youth are seeking purpose and they are not finding it in the ephemeral answers offered by our consumer society. Our educational mission is to help our students discover their own individual story within the context of a much larger one. As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

We teach our students to bend the arc. To use their God-given talents and skills and to live a life of contribution and service. To locate their studies and personal development within a greater story. Iin this story they are all leaders. Our students are the leaders of tomorrow because they contextualize their lives within our covenant of faith. Faith is a reminder that your life is part of a larger story. Faith is a reminder that your life has a story. That you are not just accidents of history but drivers of history.

The recognition that each individual is created in God’s divine image — and as such is the essence of a covenantal education — rests at the heart of our higher educational enterprise. So long as higher education is exclusively focused on information and research for utility, we will be outpaced by technological change. Information drives consumer decisions, and there are better ways to access information than the halls of a university. Just ask ChatGPT. But the covenantal model will always provide meaning and values for the lives of our students, as it guides one beyond acquisition of information toward an earnest quest for self-discovery and truth.

A consumer questions value. A covenant discovers value. And a life of covenantal values brings a life of mystery, meaning and purpose that we should all be seen as equal objects of favor and respect before God and build lives of intrinsic human dignity and individuality. This is the promise and vision of an education infused with the values of the covenant.

FAITH IS A REMINDER THAT YOUR LIFE HAS A STORY. THAT YOU ARE NOT JUST ACCIDENTS OF HISTORY BUT DRIVERS OF HISTORY.

A R I B E R M A N I S P R E S I D E N T O F Y E S H I VA U N I V E R S I T Y.

SEPTEMBER 2023

15

THE BREAKDOWN

OUT OF PRINT CAN LIBRARIES SURVIVE THE DIGITAL AGE?

BY M A R C N I E L S E N

Andrew Carnegie called libraries “palaces for the people.” The renowned 19th-century industrialist funded 2,509 such structures — including 23 in Utah — supporting literacy and culture in small towns and underserved communities.

He scarcely could have imagined how libraries have transformed in recent years, embracing new roles as Americans spend less time reading and more time staring at screens. Perhaps we should be heartened that they’re still around at all, but the romantic notion of these quiet repositories of knowledge stacked to the brim with books is largely a thing of the past.

How are libraries changing, and why?

Here’s the breakdown:

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9,057 AND HOLDING

THE COVID-19 EFFECT

That was the number of public libraries in the United States in 2019, according to an annual survey by an obscure federal agency called the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Despite significant cultural turbulence, that number has stayed rather steady since 1992. This seems to indicate a remarkable degree of success as libraries evolve with their changing communities.

Most libraries suspended in-person services at the onset of pandemic-era lockdowns and restrictions in 2020. But rather than tanking the institution, this accelerated a process of reimagining how libraries can best serve their communities, which was already underway amid social changes like the increased use of mobile phones. Some creative solutions that seem to be sticking: virtual story times, lending laptops, extending Wi-Fi outside and more digital items like e-books.

BILLIONS SERVED

#EBOOKSFORALL

Americans visited the library a whopping 1.59 billion times in 2009.

That was the peak of a sort of golden age, a robust 35 percent increase over library visits in 1992. But numbers have been falling ever since, adding up to a 21 percent decline by 2019 — the year before the pandemic. Today we check out 19 percent fewer books, with less to choose from. That same year, collection totals had fallen to 693 million volumes, down from 816 million in 2008.

Just over half of all library collections are now digital, but e-books present challenges of their own. According to Virginia Public Media, digital copies cost more than twice as much as print copies and often come with special limitations, like premium fees for simultaneous readers or caps on how many times a copy can be loaned out. Some electronic publishers won’t sell to libraries at all. In response, the American Library Association has led an online campaign to make e-books universally accessible like their print counterparts, anchored by this hashtag.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

17 MINUTES OF SHAME

That’s how long the average American spends reading books each day. In fact, we’re reading less now than at any point since Gallup first surveyed our reading habits in 1990.

On the other hand, we now spend about seven hours of a typical day looking at screens — watching TV, playing video games, using our phones and working on computers.

Public and academic libraries have found themselves caught in the crossfire of culture war debates around freedom of speech, book bans and budgetary austerity. Government funding for public libraries has come under attack in places as diverse as New York City and Llano County, Texas. In some cases, threats have even turned violent. For example, a school library in Rochester, New York, received a bomb threat over a book covering LGBTQ+ issues.

ILLU STR ATION BY K R I ST Y N BA I LE Y

“Libraries don’t just provide free access to books and other cultural materials, they also offer things like companionship for older adults, de facto child care for busy parents, language instruction for immigrants and welcoming public spaces for the poor, the homeless and young people.”

— Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University and author of “Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life,” writing for The New York Times.

FIRST RESPONDERS

Today’s librarians do much more than help patrons navigate research databases or teach kids how to find books using the Dewey Decimal System. As one of the last open public spaces with cost-free services, libraries often attract marginalized communities and

homeless folks. Some come to use a computer or read books; others to shelter from the weather. This has pushed librarians into a frontline role in national crises like opioid addiction. Naloxone, a drug used to save overdose victims, is freely available at libraries from Salt Lake City to New Orleans.

A LITERACY CRISIS

According to the Library Journal, one-fifth of American adults are “functionally illiterate,” which leads to worse life outcomes across the board. Libraries look to address that through a variety of programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. These include English as a Second Language (ESL) courses, youth reading programs and adult literacy classes.

Two Pack

SEPTEMBER 2023

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POINT / COUNTERPOINT

HUMAN BY DESIGN THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF GENETIC ENGINEERING

BY M A R C N I E L S E N

S C I E N T I S T S H AV E D E V E L O P E D tools that don’t just alter human DNA but in-

troduce or remove traits that can be passed down to the subject’s children.

Known as germline gene editing, this technique offers hope that certain hereditary health conditions can be cured, while others might be prevented. In fact, a rogue Chinese scientist has altered the genome of twin human embryos, trying to create sisters who would be resistant to HIV. But He Jiankui’s actions earned him three years in prison, a ban from reproductive research and global opprobrium. One reason: The world is still grappling with the ethical implications and jaw-dropping potential of this new technology.

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UTOPIAN HOPES

DYSTOPIAN FEARS

For as long as humans have existed, we’ve developed technologies that help us to survive and thrive as a species, from fire and wooden tools to solar power and the internet. In simple terms, gene editing is one more example, not unlike vaccines or MRI machines.

But this one could also become our next great leap, a tool that helps us to live longer but also to experience healthier, happier lives. It could also enable us to alleviate a great deal of human suffering.

Consider Huntington’s disease, an incurable hereditary condition that causes nerve cells to break down and die. Symptoms start with mood disorders and graduate to difficulty speaking or walking and uncontrollable body movements. It affects 5 to 10 in 100,000 Europeans, with similar prevalence in people of European descent. Many die by suicide. This is just one condition gene editing could treat. “There are more than 10,000 single genetic mutations that collectively affect probably hundreds of millions of people around the world,” says Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a biologist at Oregon Health and Science University. Up to 5 percent of babies are at risk of being severely affected with genetic disorders. Could they be saved by removing certain sequences of DNA? Further, humans could be enhanced. Countries such as the United States, France and China are already exploring the idea of genetically engineered “super-soldiers.” In the style of comic book heroes like Captain America, these warriors could be equipped with greater strength and athleticism or resistance to chemical or biological weapons.

Gene editing would let them pass those traits on to their offspring. Similar genetic enhancements could become part of our everyday lives, granting individuals new skills and abilities. Inventors gifted with greater creativity or super-intelligent scientists could spawn innovations that benefit us all. What if the key to curing cancer lies within the mind of a genetically enhanced human?

Besides, the cat’s already out of the bag, according to Helen O’Neill, a molecular geneticist from University College London. “Far too much energy is spent on speculation and dystopia, and much more energy should be spent on real risks and applying the technology so that we understand it better, because it will be done elsewhere and is being done elsewhere.”

What is the true cost of gene editing? We may not know until it’s too late. It’s tough to argue against a treatment that reduces the horrifying impact of genetic disorders, but alongside that promise, we must consider the risks for individual patients and how such a technology might change society as we know it. Even our place in the universe.

Our understanding of how genes work together with other elements is still limited. That makes manipulating them a risky prospect. The babies edited by He experienced health problems at birth. Did these issues occur naturally, or were they side effects of his work? We don’t know.

More broadly, we could risk inadvertently introducing new genetic disorders that will now be passed on to future generations.

Science fiction has been wrestling with genetic engineering for decades, often hinting at eugenics and warning against caste-based futures. In his 1932 novel “Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley describes a system that gives embryos traits to suit pre-assigned roles — like limited intelligence for the working class. In the 1997 film “Gattaca,” people conceived naturally are called “in-valids” because they lack enhanced attributes. It’s not difficult to imagine a dictatorship using super-soldiers to crush dissent.

The free market presents its own fears. “Where are the people who are most likely to benefit and are they going to have access?” asks Francoise Baylis, a recently retired bioethicist from Canada’s Dalhousie University. Current gene therapies bear million-dollar price tags. Such costs would likely make the treatment uninsurable. What happens when cures or enhanced traits are only available to those with great wealth?

On a grander scale, gene editing could change what it means to be human, a concept central to the faiths that guide most people through the world. The 1993 film “Jurassic Park” confronts the question of “playing God” through an imaginary zoo of dinosaurs brought back to life using fossilized DNA. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could,” says Dr. Ian Malcolm, as portrayed by Jeff Goldblum, “that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

ILLU STR ATION BY DAV I D E BO N A ZZ I

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MODERN FAMILY

PASS OR FAIL THE ANGST OF PARENTING WITHOUT A REPORT CARD

BY M E G WA LTE R

I

start each summer break with every intention of creating a rich, nurturing, educational environment for my children for the three months school is out. I imagine us gathered around the kitchen table, my kids scribbling furiously in the pages of their math and language arts workbooks while I peer over their shoulders, beaming with pride when my 8-year-old successfully determines the square root of 497. “Well done, I’m so proud of you,” imaginary me says, then, “Enjoy these healthy cookies I just baked,” as I gesture to a plate piled with steaming baked goods on the counter.

This fantasy takes me as far as ordering workbooks and paying for expedited shipping. But the second the packages arrive I’m snapped back to reality where imaginary me does not exist, only real me does, and real me does not want to spend her precious summer hours forcing kids to solve math problems any more than her kids want to be forced to spend their precious summer hours solving math problems. Especially when those math problems won’t even be graded by an actual teacher.

I don’t know what specific psychological illness I have, but my primary symptom is an unwillingness to do anything if it’s not being evaluated by an authority figure.

I’m not always expecting a letter grade, per se, though that would be ideal. I am, however, expecting some sort of validation, 20

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a pass or fail at least, from the nearest person with perceived authority in any given place or interaction. I show up to salon appointments with my hair done so my stylist thinks I’m doing a good job with his work out in the world. I floss before dentist appointments, often for the first time in a year, just to get a “good job” from the hygienist. I’ve stopped using budgeting apps because I’m embarrassed by what the algorithms must think of

IF I HAD TO GUESS, A THERAPIST WOULD TELL ME I HAVE SOME SORT OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT DISORDER, THOUGH I WOULD NEVER TELL MY THERAPIST ABOUT THIS FLAW OF MINE BECAUSE I WANT TO GET AN A IN THERAPY.

my overspending in the restaurant category every month.

If I had to guess, a therapist would tell me I have some sort of arrested development disorder, though I would never tell my therapist about this flaw of mine because I want to get an A in therapy.

Regrettably, this thirst for affirmation has extended to my children’s lives as well

as my own. I’m always looking to their tennis coaches, piano instructors and Sunday school teachers to know not only how my child is performing, but by very unhealthy extension, how I’m performing, too. Have my kids perfected their backswing? Are they practicing enough scales? Do they know the difference between testaments old and new?

I need to know what grade I deserve as a parent, and I need to get that knowledge from the people in charge.

This began, I believe, when the nurses handed me a literal report card to fill out as we headed home with our first baby. I was instructed to mark the times and durations of feedings, the frequency of diaper changes and the number of hours we all slept. Then, at our first visit to the pediatrician, the doctor evaluated the sheet I had dutifully completed and evaluated my very first parenting efforts.

Though I was not awarded letter grades (again, I wish), I read between the sweet encouragement from the pediatrician and determined I had received an A for feeding her enough and swaddling her properly, and C for the diaper rash because I had failed to change her diapers promptly enough.

I was disappointed and confused when we left the appointment without a fresh card to grade the rest of my kid’s childhood. And I’ve been confused ever since. How am I to know how I’m performing if I’m not receiving constant, quantifiable feedback?

ILLU STR ATION BY K AT H E R I N E Q U I N N

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IF THE LAST 11 YEARS HAVE TAUGHT ME ANYTHING, IT’S THAT I NEVER REALLY HAD CONTROL TO BEGIN WITH. TO MY DISMAY AND SLIGHT RELIEF, I’VE LEARNED PARENTING IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN SIMPLY INPUTTING PROPER CARE AND GETTING AN EXPECTED PRODUCT IN RETURN.

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I’ll never forget the morning when my oldest daughter walked into our neighborhood elementary school for her first day of kindergarten. I was anxious for all the reasons any parent has to be anxious when their children go off to school — fear for her safety, concern that she wouldn’t make friends, and worry that she wouldn’t eat the carrots or drink the juice packed in her lunch. But I was also anxious because she would be reflecting all my parenting efforts for the last five years, and I would not be there to see how her teacher would respond to the results of those efforts. I had no idea if I was going to pass or fail in the eyes of my child’s educator. It was an abrupt and jarring adjustment when I lost that level of control.

But if the last 11 years have taught me anything, it’s that I never really had control to begin with. To my dismay and slight relief, I’ve learned parenting is more complicated than simply inputting proper care and getting an expected product in return, like a plant or Tamagotchi, or the newborn whose life can be evaluated on feeding, changing and sleeping worksheets. As that newborn and two subsequent children have grown, I’ve learned, again to my dismay but also delight, that children can not be scored. That kids are, in fact, their own unique individuals with their own internal lives, temperaments, likes and dislikes.

And the one dislike they all have in common is doing math and language arts workbooks in the summertime.

They dislike it so much that it takes multiple reminders, often met with great resistance, to even get them to open the workbooks. Then triple the reminders to get one problem finished. And after nine months of fighting this battle to get real homework done during the school year — the homework that is actually graded and therefore counts — we’re all a little tired.

So every year I give up my dreams of providing a rich, nurturing, educational environment and instead try and limit screen time to just the edge of total brain rot, buy enough ramen and mac and cheese packets to keep the snack requests at bay, and a

couple of times a week yell, “go read for a minute.” Because what’s the point of trying any harder if it won’t be reflected on my, I mean their, permanent records?

But now it’s time to return to school and I’m realizing that my parenting efforts, or more accurately lack thereof, during the summer might actually matter once my kids get back in the classroom. We’re about to start the school year with hair unstyled and teeth unflossed. I don’t foresee any “good jobs” at our back-to-school nights or fall parent-teacher conferences.

So now I’m trying to make up for lost time. Doing whatever extra credit I can at the last second to make the grade. I mean, help my children make the grade.

I’m quizzing them on addition and subtraction as we drive to and from the pool.

I’m making them practice their handwriting on the back patio with sidewalk chalk.

But I know it’s too late. We can’t cram three months’ worth of learning into a week. I’m going to have to accept a parenting B minus, at best. Maybe a C plus.

I know that’s the grade I deserve, and probably the one I need. A grade that will remind me that, much to my chagrin, parenting will never be perfect and that not all of my efforts can be reflected in an A, B, or C, or even a pass or fail.

It’s impossible to grade the long summer nights we spent together in the backyard eating the terrible popsicles my 8-year-old made out of just lemons and water and watching the sunset. There’s no metric to evaluate the road trip we took where we played “Guess the Animal” to and from southern Utah and my 4-year-old made us guess giraffe every time it was his turn. No report card can capture the hours my 11-year-old spent making an intricately-sketched comic strip about a preteen female explorer about to enter middle school. We watched every “Mission Impossible” movie, made ice cream, grew tomatoes, took our dog on long walks, threw water balloons and hiked the hills near our home together, and there’s just no way to grade any of those memories.

But if there were, I’d get an A.

Photography © Henry Leutwyler

Misty Copeland

Picture yourself winning.

PERSISTENCE SEPTEMBER 2023

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LEADERSHIP

AN OPEN DOOR TO AMBITION MEET THE WOMAN ON A MISSION TO MAKE ALL DEGREES MATTER

AS TO L D TO M E G WA LTE R

A

s a student at Harvard University — where she earned a master’s degree in Soviet studies — Astrid Tuminez would only sleep a few hours a night, spending the rest of her time studying. “When you’re the underdog, you have to work double hard. Triple,” she says.

Tuminez knows a thing or two about hard work. She learned to read and write from nuns who found her and her family in the slums of Iloilo City, Philippines. That fundamental education, fueled by her innate curiosity, eventually led her to Brigham Young University.

There, she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Russian literature before moving on to Harvard University and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned a Ph.D. in political science.

Her career is as equally impressive and varied as her education and includes an executive position at Microsoft, roles in philanthropy and venture capital, published works, and government relations. But at every step, she witnessed male colleagues get promoted before her. So she kept working two, three times as hard. “I hope to be a source of hope to women and anyone who’s ever felt underprivileged or underestimated,” she says.

Now, as the first female president of Utah 24

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Valley University, she’s using the lessons she’s learned along the way to empower every student at her institution with an education that is both accessible and valuable. In an interview with Deseret Magazine, Tuminez discusses the future of higher education and the reason why she still believes in it.

“THE OLD MODEL OF ACADEMIA IS SNOBBERY. THE NEW TEST IS WHETHER YOU KNOW HOW TO GET STUFF DONE.”

I STILL REMEMBER attending a big meeting

on campus as an undergraduate. I heard one of the faculty members comment, “She’s a doll, isn’t she?” I was only 20, but I felt so self-conscious when I heard that comment.

When I first arrived in Utah County, I had quite a few people walk up to me and shake my hand. They would look at me with sad eyes. And they would say they felt sorry

for me and that they felt nervous for me because I had such big shoes to fill, referring to my predecessor at UVU. Honestly, I was amused by those comments, but it was also a little bit of a microaggression. After six months in Utah County, nobody said those things to me anymore. I think people had gotten to know me. But if I had been a tall, male blond, I don’t think anyone would have shaken my hand and told me they felt sorry for me. So it means a lot to me to be the first female president as a woman of color.

My experience, in part, is why I believe we should have a lot of universities like UVU that accept a person no matter what their past was. No matter what their ACT or SAT scores are, we don’t care. We want to help.

But when you provide access to everyone, the questions become: What are we actually training people to become? Is our instruction actually worth attending? And what I’ve seen in the last five years is that it is more than worth it. UVU is ranked No. 1 in Utah among nine colleges and universities for alumni earnings. Business Insider ranked us as one of the top three universities in the nation for the best return on investment.

Every year, we graduate 5,000 students to four- and five-star jobs, as defined by the Department of Workforce Services. We

WHAT IS …

ASTR ID TUMIN E Z, W H O IM MIG R ATE D TO T HE U. S. F R O M THE P HIL IP P IN E S, I S THE F IR ST F E MA LE P R E SIDE N T O F UTA H VA LLE Y UN IVE R SITY.

An essential part of your daily routine?

Listening to a podcast. One of my favorites is “The Way Out Is In.” It’s Zen Buddhism. Oh, and I listen to Taylor Swift music every day.

The best book you’ve read recently?

AUGUST M ILLER/UVU M ARKET ING

The most entertaining book I’ve read recently is “Less.” It reminded me of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” It’s so entertaining and so well written.

place graduate students at MIT, Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge.

The old model of academia is snobbery.

The new test is whether you can make it in the workplace, and whether you know how to get stuff done. I know graduates of elite universities who are on their third or fourth internships and cannot transition those internships into jobs. Yet at UVU you can get a two-year mechatronics degree and begin at an $80,000 salary at Micron or Texas Instruments.

It is a moral imperative that we give access and that we make sure students get support and as many of them succeed as possible. Whether or not I’m the president of this university, I’ll always be blown away by the UVU model because I love what it does for real lives and real potential.

The core values of that model center around care, accountability and results. We must see our students for their struggles in life and their journeys as individuals. We

Your favorite motto?

“The way out is in.” When you have a problem, you’ve gotta go through it. must understand how we can best use our money, time and technology. Then come the results.

We shouldn’t be embarrassed to be ambitious. I was at Microsoft for six years before I came to UVU, and that job actually prepared me for the challenges of higher education today. We leverage technology so students can watch lecture recordings if they get sick or their child gets sick. We run data analytics to identify the students who need the most help. We train faculty to teach online. We are constantly examining ourselves.

Historically, academic culture is very slow to change. Hundreds of colleges and universities have already closed in the United States. But we live in a very fast-paced world. We need to read the writing on the wall and ask ourselves how we can be more agile and how we can actually be more impactful. Then we have to really measure that impact.

One thing you can’t live without?

Chocolate. Maybe I should have said “my husband.”

Your secret superpower?

My husband. There is nobody who has been more supportive of me and more proud of everything I’ve accomplished than my husband. After we got engaged, we were walking at Harvard Square and he turned to me and said, “You know, you’re responsible for your own happiness.” That was the wisest thing he’s ever said. I am responsible for my own happiness, but he has supported me every step of the way.

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NATIONAL AFFAIRS

THE SAFETY NET OF SCHOOL FOR MILLIONS OF KIDS IN POVERTY ONE MENTOR CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

BY A L E XA N DR A R A I N

J

ust help me help who I need to today, Mindy Smith softly prays as she opens the doors to the halls of Highland High School, removing the barricade between herself and the noise of teenage-dom.

She knows this Salt Lake City school well.

She attended Highland. So did her husband and their five children. Smith moves through the maze of youth to her office. Her official title is family support coordinator, but to take her work at the face value of her job title is an understatement. It’s on her to make sure that, no matter what, no one gets left behind.

That’s the aim at least.

In the Salt Lake City School District, 50 percent of students belong to low-income families. At Highland High School, about 600 students of the around 2,000 student body check that box. There’s a thin line — sometimes only a paycheck wide — between “low income” and “impoverished.”

Numbers for the national child poverty rate are estimated to fall between 17 and 33 percent. It’s not an easy number to determine, because there’s shame, as well as practical obstacles, to reporting the facts. But the reality is that millions — more than 11 million — of children are impacted.

Children growing up in poverty suffer. Their biological stress markers are elevated, which leads to varying negative 26

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cognitive, emotional and behavioral consequences. One longitudinal cohort study by researchers from Duke University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan found that children growing up below the poverty line have reduced gray matter volume in their brains, eight to 10 percent below developmental norms. Under poverty, children are at risk for homelessness. In the neighborhood where Highland is, the median household income is $98,043. But there are enough

CHILDREN GROWING UP IN POVERTY SUFFER. THEIR BIOLOGICAL STRESS MARKERS ARE ELEVATED, WHICH LEADS TO VARYING NEGATIVE COGNITIVE, EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES.

students without a home to fill a classroom.

Lack of stability — especially if that means not knowing if there will be a roof over their heads or where the next meal is coming from — leaves children more vulnerable to trauma, lack of medical care and education interruptions. Students without a home are more than twice as likely to be chronically

absent compared to their housed peers, resulting in measurably lower academic performance. And research from the American Psychological Association shows that these students are more likely to be bullied.

But for the millions of American children living on the edge of poverty, the solution appears to be simple: Adults who can, in oftentimes small ways, show them support.

“You hear some of these kids talking about teachers … ‘this teacher likes me,’ or ‘this teacher cares for me.’ And that means that they’re going to listen to that individual,” says James McMillan, educational psychologist and professor emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University. “That individual becomes a role model and maybe even gives them some tough love when needed.

That connection is very, very important.”

Smith volunteered for nearly a decade at Highland before she was hired full time in 2018. Over the years, she’s organized a food pantry, a room of clothes for students to shop without price, washers and dryers, and private showers in her school, made possible by the school district. She has helped students take advantage of a policy that waives fees for students to participate in extracurriculars and created a budget to supply the gear and materials they’ll need for those activities.

On a morning in August, she winds

ILLU STR ATION BY C I N TA FOS C H

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NATIONAL AFFAIRS

“IF YOU’RE TOLD THAT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE SO DIRE THAT IT’S HARD TO CLIMB OUT, OR NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE — THAT’S DEBILITATING, THAT’S NOT HELPFUL.”

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through the sea of students, passing out granola bars. Waving, smiling, asking, “How’s school? How did the test go?” Slowly, trust builds with each exchange. It might be on the 14th granola bar, a student says, “Hey, I’m in trouble. I need help.” It’s a balancing act of recognizing the needs of children at risk and acknowledging that their realities are different from what we normally expect — all while not adding to shame and disgrace.

Slowly, a safety net is woven. PTA moms participate. Teachers get involved. A lunch lady noticed a teenager wearing the same clothes three days in a row and brought her to Smith. The student was in crisis and Smith was able to connect her with the right resources and organizations. Students have begun providing support, too. Smith’s assistants sort through the food pantry, making sure no food is expired, and the pep club makes posters thanking community members for their donations. Even students who have graduated are eager to come back and keep the momentum going: Let’s keep helping.

Karen Sanchez Garcia is one of those students returning the favor.

Sanchez Garcia and her mom met Smith at the beginning of her freshman year at a community meeting in 2019. As a student, she visited Smith’s office, although, at first, she was scared. “I am a person that hates to bother people — I’m usually the type of person to try to fix my problems by myself,” she says. “But after that first interaction that I had with Mindy, I felt like maybe she’s someone I could rely on whenever I feel vulnerable or at a point where I can’t pick myself back up. And so I started visiting her office a lot more frequently. Not even to ask her for anything really, just to stop by and say hi and have someone to talk to.”

Even when things became difficult for Sanchez Garcia and her family during the pandemic — mentally, emotionally and financially — Smith was there. “She’s just a good person and she took care of me throughout all of high school, making sure that my grades are OK and that I’m doing OK,” Sanchez Garcia says. She graduated and became the first in her family to attend college. And she became a peer mentor, translating for students in need.

From organizations like Shoes That Fit, which donates brand-new shoes to children in need, tackling one of the most visible signs of poverty, and No Kid Hungry, which fights food insecurity, to local volunteering, the impacts of service are visible. Last school year, Amy Fass, the CEO of Shoes That Fit, received a call from a local principal who had noticed that even though one little boy was dropped off at school every day, his classroom attendance was coming up short. Turns out, he was hiding outside after the bell rang, avoiding the bullying taking place inside because he was wearing his sister’s hand-me-down jelly shoes. Fass and her team showed up with a brand-new pair of shoes, given to the student privately. He didn’t miss a day of school again that year.

Service and connection to others, no matter your circumstance, is empowering. “Meaningful achievement and being productive through your own efforts lead to high self-esteem, high self-efficacy and strong motivation for the future,” says McMillan. “I think that it can be very powerful whenever we engage in service to others.”

During his research, McMillan interviewed 62 students at risk who overcame their academic adversities. One common denominator was acceptance of their circumstances. Their sentiments expressed neutrality toward their environments: It is what it is. The lack of self-victimization parallels what Smith, Fass and others on the front lines prioritize in their own efforts: focus on potential, rather than problems.

“If you’re told that your circumstances are so dire that it’s hard to climb out, or nearly impossible — that’s debilitating, that’s not helpful,” McMillan says.

The second was a caring authority figure: A stable adult who believed in, cared for and encouraged them. Real impact and change comes from a mentor. A teacher, counselor, a “Smith.” “I really do feel like the most important component is that someone cares and is listening,” she says.

“We will never solve all these problems.

We can do something. I do think that if you can serve someone and help someone, it can change the world.”

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SEPTEMBER 2023

29

THE WEST

THE DISRUPTOR MEET THE INDEPENDENT BUCKING PARTISANSHIP

BY E TH A N B AU E R

S

ince Colorado Springs began electing mayors in 1979, it had never not elected a Republican. The city is historically conservative and proud of it.

Over 53 percent of El Paso County residents voted for Donald Trump in 2020. But Mayor Yemi Mobolade, a Nigerian immigrant and local restaurateur​, bucked the trend by running as an independent and building a broad coalition. ​In the midst of national partisan culture wars, his 2023 victory has served as a nationwide shocker. ​T he local newspaper called it a “seismic shift” in local politics. Alayna Alvarez wrote for Axios that his win “ushers in a new era” for a city that has borne some of the largest political movements in the country.

Colorado Springs, nicknamed the “evangelical Vatican,” was the birthplace of the culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s. Voters in what once ranked among the most conservative cities in America electing a Black man running on an aggressively​​​​nonpartisan, independent ticket means something.

But is this phenomenon something unique to Colorado Springs? Or, based on what history has shown us, could it be something bigger for the nation?​ Some forecasters think so. “A lot of 30

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people want the partisan temperature to drop,” says Vanderbilt political science professor and nationally renowned political observer John Geer. “I think there is an appetite for it.” Nearly half of all Colorado’s active voters are currently registered as unaffiliated, totaling over 45 percent,

“WE’VE BEEN ABLE TO PROVE THAT WE CAN TRANSCEND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND CAN TRANSCEND PARTY BOUNDARIES.​ I KNOW THERE’S A HUNGER AND APPETITE FOR THIS AROUND THE COUNTRY.”

according to the secretary of state. This is a marked increase from 40 percent just a few years ago. Those numbers are perfectly in step with a Gallup poll counting a record-breaking 49 percent of Americans identifying as politically independent in March. And on a warm morning in June, Mobolade addresses his constituents with

a vision of where he believes those steps are headed.

“Our city reflects the true spirit of the West,” Mobolade says from the stage at the 87th annual Western Street Breakfast in downtown Colorado Springs, dressed in a vest and a black cowboy hat he brought from home. “And as we look to the future, let us cherish the traditions of the past​​while embracing the opportunities that lie ahead of us. May we commit ourselves to building a city that is inclusive, culturally rich, economically prosperous, safe and vibrant.”

That last line came straight from his inaugural speech, given just two weeks prior, where his main theme was unity. “It is the only way forward; the only way to advance our quality of life; and the only way we get things done,” he said then. He cited Abraham Lincoln, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ, who in the Gospel of Matthew told the Pharisees, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined.”

CONSERVATISM IN COLORADO Springs has

had many branches over the decades, and its roots aren’t easy to dig up. Matt Mayberry, the director of the ​​Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, points to the city’s

YEMI MOBOLA D E BE LIE V E S T HAT A M E R IC A IS R E ADY TO E M B R ACE I ND E P E ND E NT P O L I TI CI ANS AND TU R N D OW N TH E PAR T I SAN VO LUME .

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founding — with significant development funded by Spencer Penrose, a devout Republican and the Colorado president of the American Liberty League. But perhaps more notably, the arrival of the military in the 1940s and the 1956 establishment of Robert LeFevre’s education project, The Freedom School (which called the future 32

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Republican megadonors Charles and David Koch students) set the tone.

The Freedom School was “a sort of capitalist boot camp to explore the true meaning of liberty,” ​writes University of Colorado-Colorado Springs geography professor John Harner. To a certain degree, it became a magnet for what political

scientists Christopher Ellis and James Stimson called “symbolic conservatism.”

Harner writes that symbolic conservatism “is much more than — and fundamentally different from — culturally conservative politics as defined by the religious right. It is respect for basic values: hard work, striving, caution, prudence, family, tradition, God, citizenship, and the American flag.

And the ranks of Americans who cherish these values is no fringe activist minority; it is the mainstream of American culture.

It is also not explicitly political except in the sense that strategic political elites have tried to make it so.”

Those values, plus an economic crash in the town, opened the door to the business of evangelical ministries. Between 1980 and 1995, more than 60 evangelical Christian ministries moved their headquarters to the city, including the notable move-in of Focus on the Family, an organization that promotes traditional evangelical views of marriage and sexuality.

Soon after these ministries arrived in Colorado Springs, the city’s national identity became political. Colorado for Family Values, one of the many evangelical organizations, proposed and campaigned for Amendment 2, an amendment to the Colorado constitution that would eliminate gay rights laws in the state and prevent the passage of new ones in defense of religious freedom. When Colorado voters approved Amendment 2 in November 1992 — stripping Coloradoans of gay, lesbian and bisexual orientation of claims to discrimination and minority status — legal historian William Eskridge wrote that “the country had seen nothing this broadly exclusionary since the slavery era.” James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, called the city the “Gettysburg in the civil war of values.” The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time and Newsweek all published profiles of the city, while PBS featured an hourlong special titled “The New Holy War,” documenting the politically-charged evangelical movement in Colorado Springs.

A RECORD-BREAKING 49 PERCENT OF AMERICANS IDENTIFY AS POLITICALLY INDEPENDENT, ACCORDING TO A GALLUP POLL IN MARCH.

Although the movement was undoubtedly effective and intense, it was somewhat short-lived. Amendment 2 was overturned in the courts in 1996, and bankruptcy and scandal in the years to come foiled many of the ministries that called Colorado Springs home.

While the presence of evangelical ministries became less palpable, the conservative culture of Colorado Springs remained intact. In fact, Schultz writes that the city “is probably more conservative now than in the 1990s. In the 2016 presidential election, as Colorado voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a five-point margin, El Paso County (home of Colorado Springs) voted for Trump by a 20-point margin.”

Mobolade campaigned during a time when many voters on the left and right are exhausted by polarizing debates, especially around identity politics. He believes his victory in Colorado Springs could be a bellwether for other purple states, maybe even the nation.

“We’ve been able to prove that we can transcend political leadership and can transcend party boundaries,” he says. “And I’m not the only one.​I know there’s a hunger and appetite for this around the country.”

The Vanderbilt Unity Index, which measures the country’s political unity, actually showed a slight uptick in the first quarter of 2023, driven by a decrease in “extremely conservative” and “extremely liberal” survey respondents. Moderate Democrats generally performed well against very right-wing Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, and MAGA-despised Republican Brian Kemp beat Stacey Abrams in the Georgia governor’s race. A desire for more middle ground is also reflected in the emergence of third-party movements, like Andrew Yang’s Forward Party and the

Joe Lieberman-founded group No Labels.

So, as Mobolade says, there does seem to be a growing appetite for turning down the partisan volume.

SITTING IN A café after his Street Breakfast

speech, I ask Mobolade, 44, why he’s right for this moment — why he feels that, in an era of intense polarization, his nonpartisan approach offers a way forward. ​​​His answer goes back to his 1980s childhood in Lagos, Nigeria, where he lived until he was 17. Among his t​hree siblings, he always felt like the one who didn’t fit in. “I was a misfit,” he says. “​In a culture where you did things as you were told, and your life was pretty much set and designed for you, I pushed against it.”

He always asked questions, always wanted to know why — much to the consternation of his father. His siblings called him “the adopted one.”

Growing up in a devoutly evangelical family, he thought his vocational calling pointed toward ministry, but in his late 20s he experienced a faith crisis spurred by a bad leader. ​“It was abuse​,​”​he says.

He’d discovered the pastor of his church taking advantage of his power.​He stopped attending and says “I almost lost my faith” — but, over time, he came to realize that it wasn’t Christianity he had a problem with; it was the abuses and exclusionary practices promulgated by some of his church’s leaders. That’s what led him to Colorado Springs in 2010. As a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical protestant denomination that was headquartered in the area at the time, he attended a conference and “fell in love” with the city. He decided to move to Colorado Springs and start a church that would explore the question, “How can we

transform from a religious experience on a Sunday morning to really transforming hearts and lives, and being a part of doing good in the community?”

His church didn’t take off as he had hoped. So, he joined the First Presbyterian Church congregation, started two restaurants and took a job working for the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce. He became the city’s small business development administrator in 2019 before deciding to run for mayor.

During his campaign, he didn’t sound like any mainstream Republican or Democrat. He talks, often, about his support for police, entrepreneurship and Christianity, but he also regularly touts the importance of diversity and inclusion; both of the restaurants he founded, Good Neighbors Meeting House and Wild Goose, display a progress pride flag in the ​​window.

His Republican opponent seized on those latter tendencies to tar him as too liberal for Colorado Springs. In an ad campaign that labeled him “liberal Yemi Mobolade,” his opponent Wayne Williams accused Mobolade of supporting a vague policy that “sounds exactly like socialism” and urged voters to “protect your city, vote conservative Republican.” Mobolade responded by calling Williams’ posturing “desperation” — and that was about as negative as his campaign ever got.

Some political experts are hopeful that Mobolade’s win will mark the beginning of a national shift. “Mayor Mobolade might be just what the doctor ordered,” says Sara Hagedorn, a political science professor at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. Maybe, a few years from now, it’ll become common to see a nonpartisan candidate win a local election. Or a regional one. Perhaps even a national one.

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E ’ D D E C I D E D W E E KS AG O, B U T

A RC H MANNING, NEPHEW OF PE Y TON A N D E LI A N D SC I O N OF AMERICAN FOOT BA LL’S R OYA L FA M ILY, SI G N ED WITH TH E T EXAS LON GHOR N S LAST Y E A R A N D, AS A H IGH-PROFILE COLLE GE PLAY E R , IS P ROJECT ED TO EARN $3 .7 M ILLION A N N UA LLY.

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now it was official. Arch Manning was in the wood-floor gym of Isidore Newman School, a private nondenominational prep academy in New Orleans where tuition runs roughly $27,000 a year, and he was ready to end years of speculation from college football fanatics across the country.

The gym was decorated with Kelly-green banners celebrating state titles the school won in a variety of sports dating back decades. This was late December 2022 and Manning, still just 17 at the time, was wearing a casual white and navy striped golf shirt and a gray zip-up fleece, and his hair was tussled and puffy. He was accompanied by his father, Cooper, and his grandfather, Archie, the former New Orleans Saints quarterback who’s become the patriarch of American football’s royal family.

“I’ve really enjoyed my high school athletic career, just really being a high school student,” Arch Manning said to a local television reporter. The kid has a straightforward delivery and subtle intonations that evoke his famous uncles, Peyton and Eli — which is part of why his recruiting process was such a big deal.

“Newman’s had a great community,” he said. “I’m gonna miss it for sure.”

Because the decision had been made and publicized already — almost everyone was wearing burnt orange University of Texas ballcaps — the official signing day event in the gym didn’t make big national news at the time. But looking back at this moment decades from now, the Arch Manning saga will be something historians point to when

they talk about the incredible transformation of college football.

The 6-foot-4 quarterback was so successful in high school — and comes with such a remarkable pedigree — that the university reportedly spent nearly $300,000 on a single weekend recruiting trip to lure him and a few other recruits to Austin. That’s enough to cover the annual salaries of several professors. And sure, that could contribute to enlightening the next generation of American leaders, but a few new professors probably wouldn’t make the university tens of millions of dollars. Successfully recruiting Arch Manning just as the Longhorns football program moves to the most important conference in college sports, though, will bring exponential returns on the school’s investment.

He hasn’t taken a single snap in a college football game, but the younger Manning is already worth a projected $3.7 million in annual name, image and likeness money. Even just a few years ago, that entire concept — let alone those numbers — was unimaginable. And that amount is just for him. The amount of money his presence will bring to the school, in the form of ticket sales, merchandise and brand awareness, is incalculable.

Manning is joining a Texas program that’s going through some changes. The Longhorns will play in the Big 12 for another season, overlapping with incoming BYU, before joining the Southeastern Conference, the most powerful and successful football conference in the country. (The last four national champions have come from the SEC.)

for these massive, realigning college football juggernauts, where every year the game attracts more money and seems more professional?

And, what’s going to happen to the smaller schools, like Utah State and Boise State, where football games are no less part of the college experience — even if they don’t have TV contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year?

The answer is: It’s complicated.

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I UNDERSTAND THE problems with college

M A N N IN G HA ILS FR OM ISID OR E N E W M AN, A F E E D E R HI GH SC HOOL TO BIG, M ON E Y E D COLLE G E F O OTB AL L P R O G R AM S .

If it’s been a minute since you’ve watched college football, there have been some tectonic shifts in the game’s landscape over the last few years. Bear with me.

Days before this issue went to press, one of the most storied athletic conferences in college sports — the Pac-12 — imploded, with Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah leaving for the Big 12. They will join BYU, Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston, who begin league play this year, and bring the total number of teams in the conference to 16, once Texas and Oklahoma depart for the SEC. Oregon and Washington announced they’re headed to the Big Ten, joining USC and UCLA, and bringing that conference to 16 teams.

If that sounds like gibberish to you, suffice it to say that college football as you know it ends after this season. Regional rivalries, tradition, Pac-12 decals, maybe even the Apple Cup. Gone. As of this writing, Cal and Stanford have no idea what conference they’ll even belong to in 2024.

What’s driving all of this isn’t the fans, alumni or, better, more competitive football. It’s money, plain and simple. And the main driver is TV. Television contracts for

the biggest schools and conferences are gigantic. The more marquee football programs a conference can put together, the more money it can bring in. The SEC’s latest deal with ESPN is reportedly worth $300 million a year.

Starting in 2024, the national champion will be crowned via a 12-team playoff resembling the NFL’s system. Those games will also generate hundreds of millions annually in TV contracts and ad revenue.

And yes, players can get paid now, too.

Not directly from the schools — not yet, anyway. But players can profit from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL). The change was initiated by a 2021 unanimous Supreme Court ruling that restrictions on “education-related benefits” for college athletes violated antitrust law. That’s why experts estimate that Arch Manning could make nearly $4 million his freshman year.

Oh, and like free agency at the pro level, if a college player isn’t happy at a school, there’s a “transfer portal” now, allowing student-athletes to relocate to a new team for every year they’re in college. And it happens every year at virtually every school.

So, what does all of this change mean

football. My abiding affinity for the sport comes with some reservations. Of course the game is gladiatorial. Every time these young men line up on the field, they’re risking career-ending, life-altering injuries — including less visible but even more dangerous head injuries — at least partially for the entertainment of obnoxious fans like me. There’s also all the uncomfortable professionalization, the social pressure the game puts on young athletes whose frontal lobes are still forming. The entire endeavor is exploitative.

Plus fans like me — I went to the University of Texas and root for the Longhorns — could almost certainly be doing something more enriching with our time than spending several hours every Saturday in the fall gaping at a television, right?

And yet, despite all that, college football is absolutely exquisite.

There are few things in life as dramatic as a tightly spiraling football cutting through the crisp, late-season air of a crowded college stadium in the waning seconds of an undecided game. The joy of a great win, the agony of a painful loss — those feelings are real, even if the game doesn’t really matter, which is why it’s so great. College football is the ultimate escapism.

In a frayed and fragmented society, college football forms some of the only connective tissue that still transcends geopolitical ideologies. It doesn’t matter who you voted for or where you worship. If come Saturday afternoon you root for the same colors, the same goofy mascot, you and I are on the SEPTEMBER 2023

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A MERICAN FOOT BALL, I N VENTED S OON A F TER T HE CIVIL WAR, A DO P TED TACTICS THAT MODELED BATTLEFIELD STRATEGIES. EARLY O N , 1 9 MEN DIED P L AYI NG TH E GAME IN O N E YEAR.

same team.

For these reasons, football has become an important part of the modern college experience. It’s a safe way for young adults to find identity beyond their own families and religions. Football fandom, especially in college, is a way to develop friendships that last a lifetime. Some of my closest friends are people I’ve stood next to during games, yelling and swaying and singing, for more than 20 years.

College football is a wonderful paradox.

It’s brutal but beautiful. The premise of the sport is simple — move this ball to that end of the field while stopping your opponent from moving it to your end of the field — but every play involves more moving parts than any human can track in real time.

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commercialized. But isn’t that fitting for what’s truly the most American of all sports?

American football was invented not long after the Civil War and quickly became a way for young men who hadn’t fought in battle to prove their toughness. Though the average player was much, much smaller than today, the sport was even more violent. Every play was one team lining up shoulder-to-shoulder directly in front of their opponents in a punishing fight for territory. The earliest tactics mimicked traditional strategies for war and it wasn’t rare for games to end with scores like 6-0.

The game was also fatal. In one year (1905) 19 players died on the field.

And for decades, this muddy, bloody, body-mangling sport was most popular with East Coast elites. The first college football game, in 1869, was between Rutgers and the school now known as Princeton.

The Ivy League was the first power conference, and Harvard and Yale were two of the first big programs. The game wasn’t about money. Players weren’t looking for endorsement deals or a chance to play professionally. It was instead considered integral to the development of a sophisticated man, with invaluable lessons about teamwork, humility and community pride.

Several U.S. presidents played college football. Dwight Eisenhower was a halfback at West Point in 1912, before an injury ended his playing career. His successor, John F. Kennedy, played at Harvard, but never made the varsity roster. Gerald Ford was a center and linebacker at the University of Michigan on two national championship teams in the 1930s. He was so good that

he apparently had offers to play professionally. Ronald Reagan was a lineman at Eureka College in Illinois, though his more famous connection to the game came a few years later, when he portrayed Notre Dame football great George Gipp in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne, All American.” That’s when Reagan uttered the line “win one for the Gipper.”

Now, the game is obviously different. The sport itself has morphed from a frustrating series of barely-moving scrums into a high-speed, wide-open sequence of colliding acrobatics. But as much as the forward pass changed the game, everything surrounding college football has changed even more. Multinational corporations clamor to get their names on big matchups. Every game is an event, a production.

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FOOTBALL HAS BECOME AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE MODERN COLLEGE EXPERIENCE. IT’S A WAY TO DEVELOP FRIENDSHIPS THAT LAST A LIFETIME.

M U LTI P L E F U TU R E U. S .

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THE SPORT HAS BECOME THE FOCAL POINT FOR THE LARGE COMMUNITIES THAT BUILD UP AROUND UNIVERSITIES BOTH BIG AND SMALL. A HOME GAME AT ALMOST ANY SCHOOL IS NOW AN ON-CAMPUS FESTIVAL.

If you wanted, you could probably watch just about any college football game from the comfort of your living room — and every timeout you’ll see a commercial for a new car or a new movie or a way to insure your life against mayhem.

Going to a game in person is an act of communion. College football stadiums are monoliths, sure to be studied by future archeologists and visited by tourists the way people today flock to the Colosseum in Rome. The sport has become the focal point for the large communities that build up around universities both big and small.

A home game at almost any school is now an on-campus festival, replete with elaborate tailgate parties, corporate sponsorship and often a stage featuring live performances.

And somehow, the injection of so much money — and so much cynicism — has made college football even more American.

E S P N , the official television partner of the College Football Playoff, surveyed more than 200 college football coaches, players and administrators about the future of the sport. Respondents were allowed to offer anonymous feedback, and the results were revealing.

A few notable trends emerged. Roughly 80 percent of respondents said that they believe universities will pay athletes directly within the next decade. Nearly 75 percent said they think the sport will become more like the NFL. And almost everyone surveyed (98 percent) said they thought the conferences would continue to realign.

Right now, there are five “Power” conferences. (Pac-12, Big 12, Big Ten, ACC, SEC.) It seems likely that the biggest, most valuable L AST Y E A R ,

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football programs will keep joining forces.

Think of merging conglomerates cornering an industry. It’s possible that the playoff tournament at the end of the season will continue to expand and bowl games become purely ceremonial. Maybe there will be more limits on the transfer portal — or maybe players start signing contracts.

While the NCAA forbids using name, image and likeness money for recruiting purposes, the vast majority of the respondents in ESPN’s survey said they think those payments have become a black market used to recruit both graduating high schoolers and transfers. Like so many of college football’s changes, if the team you support is benefitting, you’re less likely to have a problem with it.

More than half of the people ESPN surveyed said they think that college football should split off from the NCAA and create its own oversight system. And it does seem odd that the organization overseeing the business of college football is also responsible for regulating collegiate volleyball. It’s easy to imagine some sort of college football tsar, appointed by a collective of administrators, charged with steering the sport like the commissioner of a pro league. Because the business is so big and so geographically diverse — and involves so many public universities — governmental oversight isn’t out of the question either.

Or if one or two conferences dominate the postseason for long enough, those schools could essentially form their own league.

Maybe that league decides to pay its players, giving these juggernaut programs an enormous recruiting advantage that would only widen the quality of football being played

in college. What’s now Division I college football could become a tiered landscape.

The big programs would continue to grow.

Schools like BYU would probably be caught on the cusp. And a lot of universities would be on the outside, looking in, forced to play a different game.

Now, I agree with the idea that the players risking their health and future for a game that generates this amount of wealth deserve some part of that money. Amateurism, especially at the biggest programs, has always been a myth. But as the NFL expands its footprint from Sundays and Mondays to Thursdays, Saturdays, too, will become more and more professional.

That means that the experience of playing for — or rooting for — a Texas or Michigan or Georgia would continue to look even less like those early days of college football, when the game was about community and still only one part of the multifaceted transition from childhood to adulthood.

Some people are eager to see the game transform, though. “It is important for all of us in business to recognize that we’re in a time of change,” then-Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren told ESPN when it published its survey. “I think there’s two types of people in the world, that they look at change as a problem or they look at change as an opportunity. I’m one of those individuals that, when change occurs, I get excited about it. It’s really an opportunity for us to do a lot of things that people have thought about but maybe (were) a little bit reticent to do.”

But the Big Ten stands to benefit enormously from power consolidation. Other conference leaders, like ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, have warned about the dangers of moving too quickly.

One conference’s gain is another conference’s loss.

One thing most people in the college football world agree on: the game itself is as good as it’s ever been. Every year, the players get bigger and faster. The passes get more accurate. The offensive and defensive schemes get more complicated. There’s

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more money and time and intellect directed toward trying to win. And the separation at the very top of college football is palpable.

Last year’s national champion, Georgia, battled SEC competition all season. When the Bulldogs faced the Big 12 champion TCU Horned Frogs in the final playoff game, Georgia won 65-7.

Interestingly, the game has gotten better at small schools, too. Tulane, Troy and the University of Texas at San Antonio were all ranked in the top 25 in 2022. Utah State alum Jordan Love was a first-round draft pick of the Green Bay Packers in 2020 and he’s expected to take over the vaunted starting quarterback role there this year. Wyoming product turned Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen is one of the best — and highest-paid — players in the NFL. So far, some money has continued to trickle down to these programs. Though it’s not clear at all how long that will be the case.

Tectonic shifts can create mountains. But they can also widen chasms.

THE FIRST TIME Longhorns fans got to see Arch Manning play was in a 2023 spring

scrimmage. Dozens of reporters gathered in Austin hoping to see how the lanky freshman would play against college talent.

He didn’t look great. While there’d been some speculation that Manning would compete for the starting job this season, he was the third stringer at the scrimmage.

When he finally got to play, he seemed nervous, unsteady, outmatched — like a boy playing against men. (He completed fewer than half of his pass attempts, for a total of 30 yards.) In the burnt orange corners of the internet, there was immediate debate over whether recruiting Manning was one giant mistake.

Some parts of college football haven’t changed much at all.

How exactly Manning ultimately fares in college, how long he stays at Texas, how much he earns while there — it’s all still up in the air. Like so much of college football these days.

It’s entirely possible that, as the biggest schools and conferences continue making Saturdays look like Sundays, some smaller universities will shutter their football programs. While fans of the power schools

watch their favorite teams become more mercenary, fans of some have-nots will lose their teams entirely. Though I don’t think that’s likely.

Maybe someday soon, schools caught on the outside of the colossal realignment won’t produce any first-round draft picks or preseason polling favorites. But absent the massive audiences, absent the giant cash injections, removed from the national relevance, it’s also possible that college football at these smaller schools becomes more like those early elite programs — though hopefully not so fatal. Maybe the game at those schools will be less commercialized, more about community. Maybe players and fans alike will be there solely because they love the sport, the atmosphere, the way it can still help young people develop into productive adults.

The truth is, anyone who tells you they know for sure what the future of college football will look like is lying. There are too many variables. The big shifts may just be beginning. And each move has aftershocks.

There will be new rivals, new rules, potentially entirely new oversight.

There’s only one thing we know for sure about the future of college football: It’s going to keep changing.

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BE AT R I C E SAYWA AN D NI C H O LAS SA DAKA OKOTC H AT T HE I R HO M E IN THE RO N G A I S EC TIO N O F NA I R O B I .

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Meet the Africans pioneering a unique approach to higher ed

THE PATHWAY Written by t a d wa l c h

Photography by spenser heaps

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Beatrice Saywa doesn’t blame the sun for her despair. t h e s u n wa k e s her tenderly each

morning at the same time it begins to brighten the sumptuous hues in the red clay soil of Kenya. The light is soft as it strains through the fabric over the lone window of the single-room home where Beatrice is raising her four children.

She prepares a single meal for them and her husband each day. She lights charcoal outside every evening, then carries the fire inside to cook dinner on the cement floor of their room. After they eat, the sun departs and she begins to feel a chill. While the smell of smoke lingers in the room, she puts her three girls and baby boy down on a blanket on one side of a small, worn couch.

She and her husband, Nicholas Sadaka Okotch, take the cushions off the couch, place them on the floor on the other side of the room and lay down.

When she awakes, Nicholas is gone. He leaves their house to find internet access to do his coursework through an innovative program called BYU-Pathway Worldwide.

The program gives Nicholas access to an accredited online business management degree. Beatrice hopes this leads to a better future for her family.

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of Latter-day Saints, is now available in 180 countries to anyone who can speak English.

A student who completes an introductory curriculum with a B average can enroll in online degree programs that BYU-Pathway offers in partnership with Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho, and Ensign College in Salt Lake City.

Those involved with the program believe it’s impacting not just the program’s sponsoring faith institution in Africa but is reshaping what higher education might look like in African society writ large. On the continent today, only about 8-9 percent of the population has access to a college education. As one source puts it, there simply “aren’t enough seats.” With low supply comes pent-up demand. That demand accounts for BYU-Pathway’s explosive growth there.

Among Latter-day Saints who choose to serve two-year missions, in some pockets of Africa nearly 50 percent are currently enrolling in BYU-Pathway when they return home. Today, enrollment in online certificate and degree programs through BYU -Pathway and its partners is approaching 20,000 students. The program launched on the continent in 2017 and already Africans comprise roughly 27 percent

of BYU-Pathway’s global student body.

“Our compound annual growth rate has averaged 78 percent a year in Africa,” BYU-Pathway President Brian Ashton says.

“This is persistent, unparalleled enrollment growth. Within the next five years, we think that we’ll get to about 44,000 students in Africa.”

The stakes are high. Like Beatrice and Nicholas, more than two-thirds of Pathway’s African students — 69 percent — struggle to find two meals a day. To make BYU-Pathway affordable, tuition is strikingly low and varies based on national economic circumstances. Americans pay $81 per credit hour, a total of $9,720 for a 120-hour bachelor’s degree. In Kenya, where the average person makes about $3.50 a day and BYU-Pathway charges $7.25 per credit hour, through church-supported tuition, Beatrice and Nicholas can earn the same, accredited American bachelor’s degree for less than a tenth of the U.S. cost — $870. And with readily available scholarships, they pay far less.

Today, 84 percent of BYU-Pathway students in Africa receive aid, cutting tuition costs for most by 50 to 75 percent. Beatrice and Nicholas, if they finish, will pay only $435 each for a degree. A cottage industry of

formal and informal donors has grown up around BYU-Pathway to provide help. Pathway’s Heber J. Grant scholarship, available to every student, provides 10 to 50 percent off tuition. The Hall Foundation scholarship provides 25 percent off to recently returned Latter-day Saint missionaries who live outside the United States. Individuals and nonprofits like the Lord’s Hands (founded by a former Latter-day Saint bishop in Kenya) donate used laptops; they send one or two at a time, due to restrictions in some countries, with people who fly to Africa.

Underlying the program is a shared faith in Jesus Christ that compels students to work toward a better future, even when life is neither easy nor simple. The experiences of both recent graduates and others like Beatrice and Nicholas highlight ongoing hurdles for Pathway and its African students.

First, despite the scholarships, many students struggle to pay for vital educational tools like computer access and internet access. And while college degrees remain strongly linked to better jobs and increased pay in the United States, fewer degree-based jobs exist in Africa, where the informal economy can make up one-third to more than two-thirds of the

market. Those degree-based jobs that do exist regularly require not only a degree but experience in the field.

For Beatrice and her little family in the charcoal-fired, one-room home on a hill in Ongata Rongai, a suburb of Nairobi, BYU-Pathway is a promise of a better life.

GEORGE OCHIENG H AS A 3 . 95 G PA AT BYU - I DA H O A N D PLA N S TO G R A D UAT E W I TH A B AC H E LO R ’ S D E G R E E I N A PPLI E D T E C H N O LO GY I N 2024 .

h y e n a a c t i v i t y i s mostly noctur-

nal. George Ochieng, 25, sometimes hears them laughing when he rises at crazy hours for Zoom calls with BYU-Pathway study groups.

“They are masters of camouflage,” he says of the hyenas that roam beyond the tall, concrete walls that surround his family’s rural home. The antelope are gone because of suburban sprawl here in the Nairobi suburb of Rurui, but the hyenas remain. “You will hear them very near to you but not see them. They hunt the goats people have in our neighborhood.”

Ochieng is a charismatic, confident bundle of energy. “I hope to be the next big thing,” he says. He is a swimmer, piano player and proud gardener and landscaper with shoulders like a linebacker. He smiles and jokes easily, but he is driven. He

B E AT RIC E SAYWA P RE PARE S A S INGL E ME AL E AC H DAY F OR H E R H U S B AND AND T H E IR C H IL DRE N.

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LAUN C H ED I N AFRI CA I N 2017, TODAY AFRIC ANS RE P RE S E NT 27 P E RC E NT OF BY U - PAT H WAY ’S GLOB AL ST U DE NT B O DY.

“Here in Kenya, education is more theoretical and less of practical. They focus on theory, theory, theory. We used to call it CPF. You cram. You pass.

You forget.”

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works eight-hour days running marketing and social media as an intern for a local company while taking 14 credits a semester and maintaining a 3.95 GPA. He plans to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in applied technology in 2024. He has already earned a certificate in web and computer programming. He earns additional scholarship money for his high performance.

BYU-Pathway and its partners have created a system of stackable certificates designed to accelerate students’ access to better employment and pay. Students begin the first certificate while still in introductory curriculum. Earning a second certificate completes the requirements for an associate degree. Earn a third, and the student has enough credits to graduate with a simultaneous bachelor’s degree.

“In Africa, after students finish the introductory curriculum, which now takes six months, about 58 percent report improved employment,” Ashton says. “After they complete their first certificate, about six months after that, another 56 percent report additional improved employment.

So after one year, nearly everyone’s improved their employment, and many have improved their employment twice.”

Ochieng is working on his second certificate, in system administration. That is, if he survives the hours. He says he’s used to it. “As an IT guy, I get no sleep,” he says.

Ochieng lives in an outbuilding with two rooms to himself. When he has an overnight meeting, he climbs out of bed in the smaller room, which is about the size of a walk-in closet, then walks in his pajamas

into the other room — “here is my crib,” he says with a laugh. He puts on headphones and connects his laptop to two monitors.

It is 3 a.m. East African Time. The other study group members are in Nigeria, where it’s 1 a.m., the Philippines (8 a.m.), Peru (7 p.m.) and Layton, Utah (6 p.m.). This is common for African students. It is why Nicholas is gone when Beatrice wakes up five days a week — he goes to a Latter-day Saint chapel for internet access and studies in a group that has students on five continents. Both Nicholas and Ochieng enjoy their study groups.

“They’re all my peers in IT,” Ochieng says of his latest meeting. “That’s not always the case in other courses. In this group, we’re all passionate about tech. We want to make a difference through what we’re studying.

It’s challenging. The accents are so challenging. The time zone, it’s not easy. Not everyone can make it into every meeting.

The benefit is you get to grow your interpersonal skills.”

Ochieng’s room was once the coop for 200 chickens, but he gave up his businesses selling chickens and breeding dogs to focus on school. He pays for the family’s Wi-Fi connection and his own electricity. A meter on the wall above his desk reads 1.13 kilowatts of power remaining. That will last the rest of the week, he says, then he will send a payment for more.

No Kenyan has finished a bachelor’s degree through Pathway yet, but about a dozen are on track to graduate next year, says Tasara Makasi, Pathway’s director for central and south Africa. Naturally, Ochieng wants to know what graduation will look like.

“Will I get a paper that says ‘associates,’ or will I just have two certificates?” he asks Makasi, who assures him he will receive the former. Ochieng doesn’t ask whether he’ll have a job waiting when he gets his degree.

He has faith he will, but Ochieng says he knows there is no guarantee.

“Getting a job in Kenya is tricky,” says Amina Munene Inot, 42, an administrative assistant in a Nairobi office. “You know, you do what you get.”

Inot, who has worked in Dubai and Kandahar, earned an administrative assistant

certificate through BYU-Pathway. She now makes enough money that she declines scholarship help for tuition so that money can help others.

“Pathway has brightened my path and the path of many other people,” she says.

AMINA MUNENE I N OT, 4 2, H AS A N A D M I N I ST R AT I V E ASS I STA N T C E R T I FI C AT E FR O M BYU - I DA H O A N D N OW M A K E S ENOUGH MONEY T H AT S H E D E C LI N E S S C H O LA R S H I P O FFE R S AS S H E PU R S U E S A D E G R E E .

a s a c h i l d , Kenya’s president, William

Ruto, sold chickens at a railway crossing.

He was ushered into office last year in part because he promised to support “hustlers,” the one-third of Kenyans in the informal economy who work odd jobs in a daily

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struggle to feed themselves and their families. Some call Ruto the “hustler-in-chief.”

After nearly a year in office, frustration is growing among the hustlers who voted for him. Inflation is rising, and Ruto supported a bill to raise taxes.

Ochieng is fortunate. He has a job while he studies. His father is a successful farmer.

The family owns a car, Ochieng studied at a national boarding school and three of his four older siblings graduated from Kenyan universities in journalism, quality assurance and biochemistry. Ochieng planned to follow that path, but when he completed two years of missionary work in Zimbabwe for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the pandemic had shuttered Kenya’s schools.

The pandemic triggered a vast cultural shift in African education. Nearly overnight, online education became accepted, and Ochieng began Pathway. He and his Kenyan peers are impressed by the quality of BYU-Pathway’s education.

“Some in Pathway will tell you they’ve already finished university in their country, like the one in my study group from Nigeria, and yet they are back studying with BYU-Pathway, because they now are after quality, not quantity,” he says. “They finish studies at Kenyan universities and they find out there’s nothing much they can do. So they come and get these skills from BYU. That could have been me, too.

“Here in Kenya, education is more theoretical and less of practical. They focus on theory, theory, theory. We used to call it CPF. You cram. You pass. You forget. At BYU-Pathway, you can’t do that. They have a structure that helps you retain information, and you have to keep on studying, bit by bit. We have weekly quizzes, weekly assignments and, like, four exams in a semester, two of which are proctored. So you can’t hide, you have to read.”

For practical reasons, Ochieng wants to work for a while after he earns his degree.

It’s why he sprinted so hard toward an associate degree. Most local job listings in his field require at least that much education.

“Actually, here in Kenya, there are people with a master’s degree, and they have nothing to do,” he says. “Getting jobs is quite hard. So I want to focus on getting a job, so I can have job security and then study as I go ahead.”

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on job placement for its students and has teamed up with an array of formal and informal partners to do so. Pathway requires students to speak English, so it now offers EnglishConnect to prepare students to enroll in BYU-Pathway’s introductory curriculum. EnglishConnect quickly became popular in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s largest French-speaking country.

Timothy Wanyonyi, who has two bachelor’s degrees from other schools, completed the introductory curriculum and has a project management certificate. He plans to finish an associate degree this year, then a bachelor’s in 2024. Meanwhile, he has become a key employee for Bloom, a placement company that is helping BYU-Pathway students find remote employment with U.S. companies while they study. Nicholas is one of several dozen students with one of these jobs.

Ashton, Makasi and Wanyonyi and other Bloom executives see a future for African graduates in remote work. “Africa is setting itself up as a place for customer support,” Wanyonyi says. “Bloom is trying to help students gain remote worker experience.”

The average wage increase for Africans through Bloom is 239 percent, Ashton says.

BYU-Pathway has helped create a pipeline to 3,000 remote jobs worldwide, he adds, a fair number filled by Africans. Pathway is establishing other partnerships to help students find work while they study, both so they can support themselves and earn the experience employers require here. Another placement company hiring students is HireMango.com.

“What I find is that over half of our students live in countries where labor markets are fairly inefficient,” Ashton says. “In some places, there really isn’t a labor market. This idea that you can now get a remote job really changes things. If you think about what BYU-Pathway is really good at, our students are getting U.S. degrees in English while working across borders. We’re really good at preparing people for remote jobs.” b e a t r i c e wa s w i t h the children

when the landlord came to repossess their laptop. She walked slowly to the chapel to

TOP : GE ORGE OGIDI OC H IE NG AT H IS H OME OU TS IDE NAIROB I. C E NT E R: B OAZ OKOT H , 35 , A RE C E NT WIDOWE R WIT H T WO S ONS , IS ST U DY ING IN T H E PAT H WAY P ROGRAM. B E LOW: T H E ONGATA RONGAI S E C T ION OF NAIROB I, WH E RE B E AT RIC E SAWA L IV E S .

tell Nicholas, who’d been up since 4 a.m. “I am the earliest bird,” he says. Laptops are scarce in this neighborhood. Three other Pathway students had scheduled time with Nicholas this morning to use the laptop.

Now everyone’s course assignments will have to wait.

Before they had a laptop and before the chapel had Wi-Fi, Nicolas used to walk three hours to a chapel in Upper Hill that has a computer center dedicated to Pathway students.

This morning, Nicholas woke Beatrice before he left to have her lock their metal door behind him. He says it isn’t safe outdoors in the middle of the night. He keeps a bucket in the house in case little Martin or one of the girls need to relieve themselves before sunrise. Dogs barked as he walked.

When he passed a small hotel, he could smell cooks making Kenya’s traditional chapati bread and mandazi, a Swahili fried bread.

Beatrice worries about the loss of the laptop. “I feel bad because we were depending on it very much,” she says. “I have to wait, but I don’t want to submit my assignments late. There are penalties.” She earned an A in PathwayConnect 101, a life skills class.

Beatrice stopped cleaning houses when water began to trigger her joint pain. Nicholas lost his jobs as a security guard and swimming coach to the pandemic. They couldn’t pay rent for a year but were protected by emergency Kenyan laws. When the restrictions were lifted, their previous landlord evicted them and sold their belongings. “It was hell,” he says. Now, all of the family’s clothing fits in a purple plastic bucket. They buy five buckets of water a day for 18 cents a bucket to use for washing clothes and utensils and to splash on themselves for bathing in the latrine designated for washing.

“I feel so much stress, especially when I wake up,” Beatrice says. “I wonder how the day will end. He is gone. We have no money. He has left us with nothing. I wonder when the kids will go back to school. Will my life always be like this? Will I ever have a house?”

Like most Kenyans, she speaks her native tribal language as well as English.

She wants to earn a certificate in teaching

English as an international language.

The landlord confiscated the laptop on Friday. On Saturday morning, Nicholas left early again to walk several miles to a store that gave him food on credit. This afternoon, he takes Beatrice to Clicks Cyber Services, an internet shop in an alley off Magadi Road. It’s small, stuffed with 13 computer workstations, each equipped with headphones hanging on hooks. They sit near a man placing small online football (soccer) bets. It’s an open-air shop. The only door is a roll-down metal one for locking up. “It’s not a good learning environment,” Nicholas says.

Beatrice sits on his right, and he helps her navigate the BYU-Pathway website. Two years ago, he didn’t know how to turn on a computer himself, he says. Soon, he is immersed in an introspection assignment, summarizing what he learned this week.

Beatrice launches into math. She asks a bystander for pen and paper for a particularly thorny problem with a graph. Out the door and back up the alley, horns beep and motorbikes buzz. Shouts and chatter are occasionally drowned by machines clattering and whirring for the renovation project two doors down.

Nicholas finishes his assignment and transitions to his job with Bloom. He begins indexing, or digitizing, 1940 U.S. Census records. He works swiftly but carefully.

“It’s not a very difficult job, but it requires high-speed internet,” he says. He is supposed to attach 800 records a day. He can do this in as little as three hours with strong internet. He often is stuck with slow speeds.

On those days, “I can spend 10 hours and not get the target,” he says. He knows he needs to work fast and often to make more money to pay the bills.

The husband-and-wife team sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on black metal chairs with black cushions, working computer mouses back and forth and up and down, plugging ahead, is an image noteworthy to Makasi, the Zimbabwean BYU-Pathway director for central and south Africa.

Soon, Nicholas and Beatrice finish.

Nicholas pays 67 Kenyan shillings, about 47 cents, for one hour of internet at speeds the shopkeeper says were 40 mbps.

Nicholas admits this is a “bad time” for

NIC H OL AS SADAKA O KOTC H R E TU R N E D TO AC T IV IT Y IN TH E C H U R C H O F JE S U S C H RIST OF LAT T E R - DAY SA I N TS B E C AU S E OF T H E PAT H WAY PR O G R A M .

his family, but the pandemic was worse. He has faith in this pathway. “Right now, my future looks bright, because I know I’m going to be someone who contributes to society.”

It’s why he keeps his academic certificate in a safe place, a backpack hung high on the wall of their home, and why he displays it with pride for visitors.

“What BYU-Pathway has done for me,” he says, “I will never forget.”

“In Kenya, there are people with a master’s degree, and they have nothing to do. Getting jobs is quite hard.”

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N I FI D NG T HE H LIG T HIGHER EDUCATION IS AT A CRISIS POINT. DO RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS HAVE AN ANSWER?

BY CLARK G. GILBERT AND SHIRLEY HOOGSTRA ILLUSTRATION BY CARLOS ARROJO INCLUDING DATA FROM A DESERET NEWS HARRISX OVERNIGHT POLL ON EDUCATION IN THE U.S.

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E

Just under 2 in 5 voters say the COLLEGE DEGREE COMPLETION RATE is about what they expected.

Equal shares say the rate is highter or lower than they expected.

Lower than what you expected

32%

37% 31%

Higher than what you expected

Federal data shows that less than half (41%) of first-time college students in the U.S. seeking a bachelor’s degree had started and completed their degrees in a 4-year window.

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About what you expected

ducation opens doors. Students who earn a college degree realize lifetime earnings nearly double those with only a high school degree. Educational attainment breaks cycles of intergenerational poverty. College graduates are 3.5 times less likely to be in poverty than those who stop at high school graduation. Education predicts social mobility, personal development, and civic engagement. This transformative impact on the lives of students is why so many dedicated professionals pursue educational careers.

Yet the promise of education is in peril, stemming from the interrelated crises of access, completion and affordability.

Too many young people do not have access to education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, barely 38 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds enroll in college. The crisis of access is a national phenomenon that spans racial backgrounds — white, Black and Hispanic students all enroll at rates below 40 percent.

Completion statistics are more concerning. According to the Pell Institute, less than half of all college students complete a college degree. The data for students from the lowest income quartile is even more alarming.

Less than 15% of low-income students who start college will complete college.

With low access and even lower attainment, the cost of a degree is coming under increased scrutiny from media, policymakers and families. Only health care costs have increased as rapidly as education costs over the last two decades. Moreover, with easy

access to credit, college debt has ballooned to $1.6 trillion with default rates predictably highest where completion rates are lowest — the “high debt, no degree” phenomenon.

Despite these challenges, a growing number of educational leaders are finding innovative ways to overcome the crises of access, completion and affordability. For example, professor Eric Bettinger at Stanford University has shown how mentoring programs can increase graduation rates.

Tristan Denley in the Louisiana, Georgia and Tennessee state educational systems has validated the idea of a “momentum year” where mentors, a graduation plan and institutional connection increases retention. Pioneers like President Michael Crow at Arizona State University and President Scott Pulsipher at Western Governors University are innovating to lower costs and increase educational relevance. We applaud these innovators and hope others will build on their ideas.

Religious universities also can offer unique insights to contribute to these same challenges. Remarkably, some media and policymakers fail to recognize the impact of religious identity. At a recent editorial meeting highlighting religious universities, the response from one prominent education publication was: “We recognize some of your educational innovations, but we do not think they are tied to religious identity. They are simply evidence of good governance and talented people.” In what follows, we hope to show that not only are religious schools innovating, but they are

doing so because of their religious identity. Religious purpose can be the wellspring of innovation.

For people of faith, educational attainment is often seen as a religious responsibility. Tapping into that motivation can help bring the needed confidence and hope required to access education. We have seen this in Hispanic educational communities who access shared Catholic identity to reach out to at-risk populations. Many religiously focused historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, draw on their Baptist or Methodist heritage to build connection and purpose with African American faith communities. At Fresno Pacific University, a member of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, the Samaritan Leadership Program offers mentoring and academic opportunities for undocumented students in California. The program allows students to serve their campus and local community while completing their academic requirements under the university’s Mennonite Brethren Church denomination. BYU-Pathway Worldwide was created as a solution for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to deliberately open access to marginalized prospective college students by emphasizing divine potential and religious purpose.

Since its creation in 2009, BYU-Pathway enrollment has grown to over 70,000 students with more than 70 percent of its students coming from low-income households. In each of these examples, religious identity is a source of differential advantage in helping at-risk prospective college students find access to college education.

The pastoral care that religious institutions bring also offers unique opportunities to strengthen college completion rates. Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, describes how the “covenant” relationship religious schools have with students can provide deeper connection than a more transactional “consumer” relationship (p. 14). Professor Ilana Horwitz at Tulane shows how religious identity can have a strong correlation with graduation rates (p. 57). She and her Stanford co-author professor Eric Bettinger also suggest that religious identity can draw on religious volunteerism to support student mentoring efforts. In each of these examples, religious identity adds motivation for students, but it also opens access to a network of pastoral care.

Religious purpose also brings a call to care for the poor. This is manifest not only in needs-based scholarships, but also in cost innovations at religiously based universities. According to a 2018 study, 1 in

A growing number of educational leaders are finding innovative ways to overcome the crises of access, completion and affordability.

3 students attending a CCCU school are first generation and 50 percent of students come from families making less than $50,000 annually. CCCU member schools offer many options to assist these students.

Spring Arbor University, the second-largest evangelical university in Michigan, announced the Spring Arbor Cougar Commitment in 2023, utilizing state and federal funding combined with Spring Arbor University grants and scholarships to offer free tuition to prospective students with the highest levels of need.

Similarly, Greenville University in Illinois offers the Illinois Allegiance, which highlights the institution’s commitment to providing the opportunity for a private Christian liberal arts education to students in Illinois with the greatest need. Religious identity can also lead to cost innovations. When BYU-Idaho was created, one of its religiously inspired directives was to make quality education affordable to many more students. A unique university design was built on a three-track calendar system that allowed students to be admitted to one of three different calendar tracks, essentially serving 50 percent more students than traditional universities without raising proportional costs. The reason faculty support a teaching emphasis with such direct religious oversight was specifically because they shared a spiritual commitment to make quality education more affordable.

In their essay (p. 54), Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, and his colleague Gailda Davis state, “Religious colleges and universities can help the whole of higher education by adhering to the best versions of their authentic identity.”

A striking finding of a national survey of higher education conducted for Deseret Magazine by HarrisX is that respondents don’t feel secular universities are supportive of religion. Ironically, the courage to hold to their religious identity is what makes faith-based universities such a unique national resource in the first place.

Rabbi Berman’s introductory essay reminds us that today’s youth are not facing a crisis of faith, but rather a crisis of meaning. As religious schools continue to embrace their unique ability to help students find spiritual meaning, they simultaneously support efforts to address the nation’s educational crises and help restore the promise of education.

C L A R K G . G I L B E R T I S A G E N E R A L AU T H O R I T Y S E V E N T Y F O R T H E C H U RC H O F J E SU S C H R I S T O F L AT T E R - DAY S A I N T S A N D T H E C O M M I S S I O N E R O F T H E C H U RC H E D U C AT I O N A L SY S T E M . S H I R L E Y HOOGSTR A IS PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL FOR CHRISTIAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.

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RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS HELP HIGHER EDUCATION

By Ted Mitchell and Gailda Davis

F

or decades, higher education institutions have endured various pressures to conform to a narrow conceptualization of an ideal college or university. We worry about this pressure to conform and what it means for colleges with special missions.

Many religious colleges and universities have successfully navigated aspects of the conformity crisis and we think there are lessons for the rest of higher education in their experience.

In January 1918, amid numerous domestic and global challenges including the First World War, the American Council on Education (ACE) was established to help coordinate the considerable power of American higher education for the benefit of learners from all corners of the country and for the general welfare of the nation. Established first as the Emergency Council on Education, ACE quickly grew to include dozens of colleges and universities. More than a hundred years later, after having coordinated or shaped countless national initiatives including the creation of the General Education Development test (GED), the GI Bill and the Higher Education Act (HEA), ACE is home to more than 1,700 colleges, universities and higher education associations.

While the specific challenges America’s colleges and universities have been asked to address may have changed in the century since ACE was established, a central principle of the ACE theory of change is that the power of American higher education rests in the diversity of its colleges and universities. This is true of their participants and of the institutions themselves.

There are many different types of learners participating in higher education. And there are many different types of colleges and universities. This diversity of learners and institutions leads to collective works that ultimately facilitate progress for individuals, families, communities and our nation as a whole.

The reality of this promise drew both of us to ACE after our respective careers in the field. One of us, Davis, joined ACE after serving for years as a campus student services leader. The other, Mitchell, served as dean, college president, and, for a time, the senior higher education officer in the United States Department of Education.

Increasingly, we are worried that the evolution of 54

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Higher education, as an industry, is less welcoming of new, more diverse models and less supportive of the continued evolution of even existing models.

higher education, as an industry, is less welcoming of new, more diverse models and less supportive of the continued evolution of even existing models. We are worried about the increasing pressures to conform to a single model or a few models that are not representative of the diversity of learner needs and institution missions that exist. This means that over time, rather than seeing growth in the diversity and the variety of colleges and universities, we could start seeing more and more colleges that look identical to one another. While scholars and experts may disagree about how widespread pressures to conform are and whether they are bad for the sector, few disagree that they are real.

We believe that the pressures of conformity that afflict higher education broadly were experienced by religious colleges and universities much earlier than many other institutions. An example of an early pressure to conform is found in Andrew Carnegie’s insistence that only secular institutions could participate in an innovative professors’ pension fund he established.

That fund grew to become TIAA and now earnestly serves all types of institutions, irrespective of their religious, public or private status. However, before this inclusive pivot was adopted, a significant number of small religiously affiliated institutions severed ties with the churches who founded them so that they could participate in the fund.

While the early decades of the 20th century saw a reduction in the number of religious colleges and universities, a critical mass remained. Today, there are about 900 religious colleges and universities distributed across the country, many of which are members of ACE or members of associations who are represented within ACE. All of them contribute to the institutional diversity that empowers American higher education. What remains of religious colleges and universities is anything but a monolith. This subset of American higher education is comprised of very small liberal arts colleges, very large research universities, and everything in between. Some are online intensive. Others are work colleges. Many focus on serving underrepresented and minority communities.

There are religious institutions that focus on performing arts and religious colleges that focus on theology.

Sometimes these diverse commitments are found at the same institution.

From Rose Bowls to rowing regattas, religious colleges and universities show up in almost every corner of American higher education. At their best,

they show up in ways that represent their authentic identities. This is where a lesson for the whole of higher education can be found. Despite pressures to conform, including decades of pressure to secularize, many religious colleges and universities have remained committed to their founding identities. Many have modernized around those identities. The result is a heterogeneous mixture of institutions linked by a common design attribute — a formal tie to a church or a religious community.

Not surprisingly, the beneficiaries are often students themselves. In a world where more than half of those who start college never complete, religious colleges and universities stand out in their ability to engage students. According to the 2020 Wall Street WHO SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR COVERING COLLEGE TUITION IN THE U.S.?

69% 57%

58% 46% 57%

Students and their families

46%

69% 58%

Colleges and universities

47%

46% 36%

35% 24%

33%

32% 18%

Federal government

State government

LESS THAN HALF (46%) BELIEVE COLLEGES SUPPORT STUDENTS AND FACULTY WITH DEEPLY-HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.

63% 46%

43% 31%

Total Democrats Republicans Independent

Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings, 7 of the top 10 institutions recognized nationally for student engagement were religious. Separately, other reports demonstrate that religious colleges and universities often have higher than average graduation rates and lower than average costs of attendance.

With this background, ACE is pleased to see, and in some instances formally support, religious universities collaborating to help each other embrace the unique value their identities stand to offer students and the sector as a whole. The message within these collaborations seems to be that religious schools should look to their identities as a source of inspiration for charting new paths and the creation of new value propositions in the face of strong pressures to conform. We believe that this presents a powerful statement to the rest of the sector.

We actively recognize that conformity is just one of many challenges facing higher education. There are many other challenges that, like conformity, were experienced early by religious colleges and universities before being experienced by the sector as a whole. These include financial pressures, erosion of public trust and confidence, tendencies towards elitism, confusion and tension around the complexities of academic freedom, and assorted matters relating to diversity, equity and inclusion. In each instance, religious institutions have or can look to their distinctive missions to find unique and meaningful solutions to these challenges. In this regard, the promise that religious colleges and universities can help the whole of higher education by adhering to the best versions of their authentic identity is not to be dismissed.

It is possible, and indeed likely, that the whole of higher education can look to the best of religious higher education for inspiration in charting new and meaningful paths. We even call upon religious universities, some of whom are gifted with considerable resources, to help less wealthy special mission colleges and universities, especially those that serve vulnerable and

underserved learners, in their own efforts to resist pressures to conform. In this way, religious universities can not only serve as clear examples of what it means to be mission driven but can also empower more institutions to do the same.

TED MITCHELL IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN C O U N C I L O F E D U C AT I O N ( A C E ) . G A I L DA DAV I S I S T H E A S S I S TA N T V I C E P R E S I D E N T A N D E X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R O F A C E C O N N E C T.

HOW COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES CAN HELP STUDENTS SUCCEED

By Tristan Denley

S

pace is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think that it is a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts when it comes to space.

So begins the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The truth is that the sweeping scale of God’s creation really cannot fit into the scale of human consciousness in any meaningful sense. Yet, with austere brevity, the book of Genesis begins with God creating it all, at a word.

The grandeur of the first chapter of Genesis is exchanged in the second with a different mood. The scene changes just as if the director has put on their close-up lens, refocusing, not on the scale of planets and stars and super-novae, but to one single man and his Creator. The style of the language and the message of the text move to an astonishing intimacy. God, which only a few lines before had created on a breathtaking scale, now reaches down and carefully forms a man and breathes the breath of life into his body.

The universe of modern higher education is nowhere near as vast or complex.

Yet there are lessons to be drawn from the Genesis story and the contrast between the two halves of its telling, as we think simultaneously at scale and individually about higher education transformation.

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Over the last decade, I have led work that attempts to bring new understanding to what works in systems of higher education and, conversely, what does not; what barriers we have historically and often unknowingly placed in the way of our students’ success; and in what ways we might take their journey to new heights.

When I started, there was a firmly held mantra that the only way to improve graduation rates was to have better students. The fault for lack of college success once lay firmly on the students’ side. A decade later, we now see how wrong-headed that thinking was.

Indeed, it is now clear that much of the onus for college success lies in the structure of higher education itself, and that fundamental changes to that structure can unlock tremendous increases in the success of those self-same students that previous approaches have failed. Implementation of what have come to be known as momentum strategies has produced significant improvements in student success in several state systems, and closed equity gaps, especially for adult students, low-income students and students of color.

The strategies that have been uncovered were all in response to chasms in student success outcomes, brought to light by detailed big-data-style data analysis. For instance, at the course level, a student’s success in the English and math courses required for their degree during the first year of college turns out to be crucial to graduation success. Students who complete credit-bearing courses in both subjects are not just a percentage point here or there more likely to graduate, but five to 10 times more likely than their colleagues who do not.

The unique relationship religious schools have with their students may offer opportunities to further amplify the core momentum principles. For instance, whilst students who struggle to persist in college often fail to identify an early academic purpose, religiously based schools might draw on a spiritual catalyst or mentoring relationship as a way to develop an early academic plan. The BYU-Pathway program has connected momentum principles into its first-year curriculum. Not only do they teach college success skills such as notetaking, writing, math and planning, they teach students their divine potential as children of God. This sense of worth appears to elevate the learners’ belief in themselves and their potential to succeed, connecting their educational journey with their journey of faith.

It is important that, as we engage with the threads of higher education transformation at scale, our efforts are braided with the strands shaped by our students’ 56

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Despite increased college attendance rates in recent years, completion rates remain low, particularly for underrepre-

individual lives. We need to reflect and respect the diverse needs of students and ensure racial and socioeconomic equity. We must find ways to provide comprehensive supports to overcome barriers that non-academic factors or resource gaps might otherwise create. And we should create a learning environment that enables students to find purpose and value in their academic studies, creating a sense of belonging.

I often say that we don’t graduate statistics. Instead, higher education is an experience that impacts the lives of individuals one by one. John Henry Newman, the 19th-century English theologian and academic, described a university as “an Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill.” Even as we search for ways to implement the momentum strategies for all our students, we have to find a way to bridge the gulf between the abstraction of policy, practice, structure and curriculum, to the intimacy of implementing that work student by student. The students we serve come to us with unique life circumstances and challenges — with resource challenges and beliefs about themselves as learners.

It is only by looking along, not at, the policies and structures that we put in place that we can appreciate how best to serve those students as individuals, and truly transform the learning journey that we create with them.

T R I S TA N D E N L E Y I S T H E D E PU T Y C O M M I S S I O N E R F O R A C A D E M I C A F FA I R S A N D I N N O VAT I O N AT T H E L O U I S I A N A B O A R D O F R E G E N T S .

sented and low-income students who often lack

A PLURALITY OF AMERICAN VOTERS (41%), ESPECIALLY REPUBLICANS (61%) AND THOSE WHO HAVE A 4-YEAR DEGREE (49%), SAY COLLEGES LEAN LIBERAL.

social support

41%

networks.

Liberal

12% Politically unbiased

17% Conservative

30% Moderate

SURVEY METHODOLOGY: This survey was conducted online within the United States from June 16-17, 2023 among 930 registered voters

by HarrisX. The sampling margin of error of this poll is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The results reflect a nationally representative sample of registered voters. Results were weighted for age, gender, region, race/ ethnicity, income, political party, education, ideology and area type where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

THE POWER OF FAITH-BASED SUPPORT

By Eric Bettinger and Ilana M. Horwitz

A

nthony Williams, a first-generation college student, faced overwhelming challenges in his first semester.

Enrolling in an excessive number of courses, he contemplated quitting. Unfortunately, this is a common experience among students who lack the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Despite increased college attendance rates in recent years, completion rates remain low, particularly for underrepresented and low-income students who often lack social support networks.

Anthony found guidance from his family and church family in Houston. Encouraged by a mentor, he sought advice from school advisers to navigate college successfully.

“With their advice, I was able to reignite the flame. It took willpower to get through school.”

Nationwide, college advising and mentoring have proven effective in enhancing college persistence and completion. Many students start their college journey unaware of the hurdles they will face, including time management, mental health issues, self-confidence and social interactions.

To address these challenges, universities have implemented proactive mentoring and advising programs over the past two decades. Instead of waiting for students to seek help, colleges now reach out through various means to offer assistance before challenges become overwhelming.

Anthony attributes his graduation from Ensign College in April 2023 to the support of his mentors, who acted as guides and cheerleaders: “Without my advisers, I would have been lost. At the beginning it was overwhelming. I would have dropped out.”

Advising takes various forms. For example, Inside Track, a college “coaching” company, successfully implemented proactive

mentorship programs. A 2016 study found that active engagement from coaches improved college persistence and graduation rates by nearly 15 percent. Their approach involved listening to students’ concerns, helping them identify and address barriers to success, and connecting them with tailored resources.

While AI and predictive modeling help identify at-risk students, the personal connection formed through mentorship, advising or coaching is crucial in helping students overcome challenges. Comprehensive and proactive advising approaches have gained recognition in higher education. The United States Department of Education’s College Completion Network found that these strategies consistently led to improved college persistence and completion. These programs prioritize building relationships, guiding students toward support systems, assisting them in navigating challenges and linking college experiences to post-college opportunities.

Scaling these programs within institutions presents a challenge as successful initiatives remain limited to individual institutions, hindering widespread implementation.

Mentoring holds value in religious higher education due to its alignment with the principles of advising, ministering and care that transcend religious organizations. For instance, in Judaism, mentoring reflects the concept of tikkun olam (‫)םָלֹוע ןּוּקיִּת‬, or “repairing the world,” by positively impacting lives and guiding individuals through challenges. Similarly, in Christianity, ministering involves providing support and care, particularly in difficult times.

Religious organizations often prioritize community support, and mentoring programs contribute to fostering connection, unity and mutual support among students. Examples such as Harvard’s Faith and Veritas program, connecting students with alumni who share religious values, or Brigham Young University’s emphasis on assigning “ministers” to students through student congregations, demonstrate the

44%

56%

56% OF VOTERS SAY THAT COLLEGES IN THE U.S. PREPARE STUDENTS FOR THE WORKFORCE, BUT ALSO TEACH THEM TO MAKE A POSITIVE IMPACT ON SOCIETY. 44% OF VOTERS, INCLUDING 3 in 5 REPUBLICANS, SAY COLLEGES ARE FOCUSED ON TEACHING “WOKE” PRINCIPLES, RATHER THAN PREPARING THEM FOR THE WORKFORCE.

integration of mentoring in religious institutions. Jewish tradition places a high value on education and passing down knowledge, which mentoring facilitates as experienced individuals share their wisdom and life lessons with younger counterparts. Mentoring also aims to bolster students’ confidence in their student identity. Catholic University utilizes campuswide devotionals, while BYU’s student congregations strengthen both community and identity.

Effective advising can occur in both religiously-based and non-sectarian institutions, with no evidence suggesting one is inherently more effective than the other.

However, the principles employed by religious institutions often align with successful advising programs. In fact, coaches and advisers from secular and religious-based organizations often approach advisement with a passionate and dedicated mindset, akin to a “religious zeal.”

Anthony’s advice for other students who are struggling is to find those mentors: “Remember that there are people at the college and in your life who are ready to help you.

They are rooting for you!” Religious and nonsectarian colleges and universities can play a key role in connecting students like Anthony to vital mentors who can advise and support students on their path to college completion.

E R I C B E T T I N G E R I S A P RO F E S S O R AT T H E S TA N F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y S C H O O L O F E D U C AT I O N . I L A N A M . H O R W I T Z I S A N A S S I S TA N T P RO F E S S O R O F J E W I S H S T U D I E S A N D S O C I O L O GY AT T U L A N E U N I V E R S I T Y.

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INNOVATIONS SHOW PROMISE TO CONTROL COSTS AND INCREASE VALUE

By Scott Pulsipher and Michael B. Horn

I

n recent months, discussions on the escalating cost of college — and subsequent debt passed onto students and taxpayers — have illuminated an affordability crisis that is hindering the ability of individuals to get ahead in life. Paired with underwhelming and uneven student outcomes, the reality is that colleges in America have a spending problem. Only by increasing affordability and value for students can we reinvigorate the promise of higher education for all.

Higher education has long been on an unsustainable cost trajectory. Since 1970, spending from public colleges and universities rose from nearly $104 billion in today’s dollars to $420 billion by 2020. Altogether, post-secondary institutions now spend more than $670 billion per year — and for what?

Completion rates remain stagnant, significant equity gaps persist, and nearly one-third of all institutions leave their students with zero economic return after accounting for the cost of attendance, according to the Postsecondary Value Commission.

Though the institutions comprising our higher education system undoubtedly have good intentions, we must recognize that organizations will ultimately do what they are incentivized to do. Unlike other industries, colleges and universities aren’t incentivized to keep costs low nor accountable for ensuring those they serve gain real value.

Whereas market forces typically cause providers to seek efficiencies and reveal the true value of a given product or service, lack of transparency around higher education’s costs and outcomes coupled with government subsidies offer protections of which other industries can only dream.

Many institutions are instead incentivized to compete on superficial metrics that boost their reputations and perceptions of quality despite having very little to do with how well they deliver value to students. It’s why too many colleges and universities prioritize state-of-the-art research facilities, athletic programs, campus life and endless spending on administrative supports, all of which increase organizational complexity and drive spending.

Indeed, many institutions operate more like cities than centers of learning.

As faith in higher education continues to decline, it’s time to flip this paradigm on its head. And bright spots exist that demonstrate what’s possible when programs are purposefully designed to provide value.

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The lack of transparency around higher education’s costs and outcomes coupled with government subsidies offer protections of which other industries can only dream.

80%

16% 4% About right

Too low

Too high

Voters across party ID and educational attainment agree:

TUITION IS TOO COSTLY FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLEGE.

Western Governors University, for example, was one of the pioneers of online learning and competency-based education. Coupled with a financial model that charges students a flat rate per six-month term regardless of how many courses they take, WGU saves students time and money, with the average cost for a bachelor’s degree less than $18,000. Critically, the university doesn’t boast a campus or feature other amenities typically found at traditional institutions.

Although BYU-Idaho boasts a campus, similar to WGU, it focuses its assets relentlessly on lowering costs and improving student outcomes. Whereas many campus-based institutions mix teaching and research, BYU-Idaho focuses exclusively on improving teaching.

That reduces its administrative overhead, as it can optimize on one value proposition: improving its students’ learning.

Southern New Hampshire University, which has both online and on-campus offerings, has worked to rethink the business model underlying higher education for years. To take just one example, its online team partners with physical, third-party campuses around the country in cities like Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco to offer an affordable hybrid college experience. The result is a competency-based model similar to WGU — in which students move on to the next learning experience upon demonstrating mastery — and students are allowed to take as many credits as they want per semester.

These aren’t the only accredited higher education institutions seeking to lower costs and deliver a more valuable educational experience, of course. The American College of Education, for example, offers master’s degrees for under $9,500. The Quantic School of Business and Technology offers an MBA for just $950 a month over 14 months. Georgia Tech offers an online master’s of computer science for less than $7,000. And the University of Illinois’ MBA program is less than $25,000 total. Innovative institutions like these offer hope for what’s possible.

It’s time to rethink the incentives underlying American higher education. And it’s time to reject outdated mindsets that associate spending and other superficial metrics as part and parcel of delivering a higher-quality education.

Although the recent focus on student loans has elevated the cost crisis to that of a national imperative, we must recognize that the debt passed onto students is merely a symptom of the larger problem: Our colleges are addicted to spending, and it’s time to shake things up.

SCOTT PULSIPHER IS THE PRESIDENT OF WESTERN GOVERNORS U N I V E R S I T Y. M I C H A E L B . H O R N I S T H E AU T H O R O F “ C H O O S I N G C O L L E G E ”.

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MISEDUCATING THE AMERICAN MIND WHY COLLEGE TEACHING IS SO BAD. AND HOW TO FIX IT

BY W I L L I A M DE R E S I E W I C Z

I

was talking with a group of honors students at a large public university. This was several years ago. They were telling me how deeply unchallenged they felt by most of their classes. They liked their honors courses, of which they took one a semester, but the others were largely abysmal. The material was superficial; the assignments were mostly busywork; the classes asked for little in the way of writing. Teachers were disengaged to the point of negligence. One, in a literature course, would start each class by turning on a tape of a poet reading their work, then fall asleep until it was over. Another, an adjunct who was in the process of transitioning to a job outside the university, either canceled class or didn’t show up more than half of the time. Most of college felt to him, one student said, like “an inferior version of high school.”

I have been writing about higher education for the last 15 years — after teaching 15 years in colleges myself — and over that time, I have visited more than 60 schools, in all regions and of all institutional types, sometimes for several weeks at a time. I have sat in on classes, talked with professors and deans, met with many, many students, and heard, over email, from scores of parents and alumni. And I have been consistently struck by the incompetence, the sheer intellectual nullity, of so much of college teaching in this country.

A professor at the University of Virginia 60

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told me that she doesn’t “believe in preparing in advance.” A parent reported observing a communications class at Tulane where the students were learning PowerPoint. A new graduate of the University of Washington explained that curiosity had been actively discouraged by her professors, who didn’t ask for much and didn’t understand why a student would have a problem with that. Instructors often seem content, in my experience, to merely fill the time.

WE’VE BEEN HAVING THE SAME PROBLEMS, FOR THE SAME REASONS, WITH THE SAME FAILED SOLUTIONS, SINCE THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN RESEARCH UNIVERSITY AND THE INTRODUCTION OF MASS PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION.

Incapable of engaging their students in rigorous dialogue, they resort to superficial questions that lead nowhere. Students sit in stupefied silence, waiting for the boredom to end. At more than one school, “great” teachers whose classes I was encouraged to observe turned out to be decent at best — a sign of just how low the bar is.

For a long time, I assumed that all this

was a recent phenomenon. Grade inflation, falling standards in K-12, rising expectations for research productivity, the ongoing shift to adjuncts and other contingent faculty: These and other factors, I believed, had been degrading undergraduate instruction over the last few decades. Then I read “The Amateur Hour” (2020), by Jonathan Zimmerman, the first history of college teaching in America. It turns out, according to Zimmerman, a historian of education at the University of Pennsylvania, that we’ve been having the same problems, for the same reasons, with the same failed solutions, since the emergence of the modern research university and the introduction of mass public higher education in the late 19th century. (Things weren’t great before then, either, but for different reasons.) College teaching in America not only stinks, in other words; it’s always stunk.

Generation after generation, as Zimmerman explains, we’ve had professors neglecting instruction; enormous lecture courses (and tedious discussion sections); contingent and underqualified faculty; students feeling disengaged and cheated; proclamations that we must do better; resistance from faculty to supervision, evaluation or change (coupled with disdain for popular teachers as mere performers); innovations, often based on new technology and/or new psychological theories, rolled out with large claims, loud fanfare and lots of foundation

funding; and no improvement ever.

Before there were adjuncts, there were (and still are) graduate teaching assistants, leading not only discussion sections but their own courses. Before we had online instruction (the worth of which was demonstrated during the pandemic), we had instruction by closed-circuit television and Skinnerian “teaching machines.” The lecture came in in the late 19th century, with class sizes steadily rising with successive enrollment booms. By 1930, as the college population more than quintupled between the world wars, some ILLU STR ATION BY A N D R E W CO LI N BE C K

lectures were topping 1,000. Institutions kept up with the surge of students by waiving credentialing requirements. As of 1926, merely one-third of faculty had Ph.D.s and nearly one-quarter had only bachelor’s degrees; in 1948, amid another postwar boom, the numbers were one-eighth and one-third.

Already by the 1920s, students were fed up. In 1922, the National Student Forum, a gathering of undergraduate leaders, issued a blistering declaration. “To put it baldly,” it read, “a great deal of college is just so many

hours of deadly boredom.” The statement signaled the beginning of a decade of student rebellion at schools from coast to coast.

It was then that the teaching evaluation was invented: by students, for students, collected in course guides that were published by students (and only much later co-opted, and taken private, by self-protective institutions). Another wave of protest followed in the 1960s. Both the Port Huron Statement of 1962 and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement of 1964, the twin beginnings of the larger student movement, included outrage at the state of college teaching as part of their larger indictments. When Richard Nixon appointed a commission to investigate the causes of the decade’s campus turmoil, it pointed, above all, not to the war in Vietnam, but to the shoddy state of undergraduate instruction.

And still nothing changed.

The reason nothing changed can be stated in three words: the research model.

Ever since the rise of the modern university, with its apparatus of Ph.D.s, peer review, academic journals and associations, and tenure procedures, faculty have been incentivized to do a single thing and a single thing only: create knowledge. Comb the archives, do the fieldwork, beaver away in the lab. Bring in grants, present at conferences, win awards. Research, write, publish. Period. Anything else is professional suicide.

And teaching, done right, takes time — a lot of time. So does learning how. If you teach too well, in fact, it’s actually a strike against you, because it raises the suspicion that you aren’t focusing single-mindedly enough on your “work” (your “real” work).

“Winning the campus teaching award,” said Ernest Boyer, late president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, “is the kiss of death when it comes to tenure.” He wasn’t kidding. Zimmerman notes a trio of prizewinners at Stanford who were denied tenure in the 1970s, then another trio at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1980s.

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forms no part (or, at best, a perfunctory part) of doctoral programs. Basically, you’re expected to figure it out on your own. This may sound incredible to those with no experience in the academy, who might reasonably note that teaching is part of the job. But it is the point of Zimmerman’s title, “The Amateur Hour.” “Our scholarship is a professional enterprise,” he writes. “But when it comes to teaching, we’re solo operators.

We are flying by the seat of our pants.” Of course, his title has another sense, as well: Most professors are inept at it.

Why does any of this matter? It matters because people are paying a lot, or borrowing a lot, to go to college. It matters because a huge proportion of them are not finishing — 60 percent of undergraduates fail to complete their degree in four years, a stunning statistic — and a major reason is that they are disengaged. Their professors are remote; their classes leave them cold.

It matters because the students who drop out are disproportionately poor and working-class, Black and Latino, and members of the first generation in their family to go to college. The quality of undergraduate instruction, in other words, isn’t just a value-for-your-money issue. It is also an equity issue, a democracy issue.

It matters because it’s such a wasted opportunity. Good teaching changes lives.

College, as it exists uniquely in the United States, is a remarkable institution, one that we should never take for granted. The very fact that we refer to it as “college,” not “university,” as elsewhere, gestures toward its status as a site of transformation, not simply utility. In other countries, students concentrate exclusively in a single subject — when you study physics in France, or sociology in Israel, that’s all you study — with no room to explore, discover, grow. Here, you go in one thing, and you can come out on your way to being almost anything you want: a doctor, a diplomat, a journalist, a geoscientist. Possibility: the American idea.

But you need to be inspired; you need to be kindled. And that is what good teaching does. It is not entertainment, as it is often 62

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portrayed as in the media — a chemistry professor lighting things on fire, a philosopher waving his arms around. Good teachers make you feel smarter. They mobilize your powers. They arouse your curiosity — your desire to investigate the suspicion that there is more going on in the world than you know about. They speak through the material, soul to soul. “Anything real gets taught,” writes the artist Jordan Wolfson in

“TO PUT IT BALDLY, A GREAT DEAL OF COLLEGE IS JUST SO MANY HOURS OF DEADLY BOREDOM.”

“Painting and Consciousness,” “by pointing towards it and guiding (the student) to locate it inwardly, within themselves.”

Can teaching itself be taught? That is the question on which pedagogical reform has often foundered in the academy. You either have it, goes the thinking — personality, charisma — or you don’t. And there is truth to that. Great teaching, certainly — the art of teaching, let us say — cannot be taught (though it can be modeled). But

good teaching, better teaching — the craft of teaching — is a different matter.

That is the premise of the one organization that seems to have finally begun to make a dent in this age-old disaster. The Association of College and University Educators (ACUE), which was launched in 2014, began in conversations between Matthew Goldstein, former chancellor of the City University of New York; Eduardo Padrón, president emeritus of Miami Dade College; Jeffrey Leeds, an education investor; and Jonathan Gyurko, an adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and former official at the New York City Department of Education. Other founders included Elmira Mangum, past president of Florida A&M, and Andy Stern, president emeritus of the Service Employees International Union, which represents a lot of adjuncts.

Goldstein is credited with having brought CUNY back after decades of drift, including introducing a program of intensive advising, now widely emulated, that significantly raised completion rates at the system’s community colleges. Padrón made Miami Dade, one of the largest institutions in the country, a national model for successful completion among first-generation students. Still, said Gyurko, now ACUE’s president, the organization’s founders felt that “despite all the things we were doing to help students succeed, graduation rates were still not where they should be. We came to the conclusion that so much of student success work was happening outside of class.” “Student success,” a term of art, has become a cause in higher ed of late — an effort, as the sector comes under growing pressure to justify its cost, if not its very existence, to redress those abysmal completion rates. But, Gyurko explained, the movement focuses on everything except the classroom. “We’ll do advising, or we’ll buy big-data analytics systems that predict who’s going to succeed or fail. Well, diagnosis is one thing. How do you treat the diagnosis?”

ACUE’s answer is better teaching. If you

want students to succeed, you need to help professors succeed. This might seem obvious, but apparently it needs to be pointed out to presidents and provosts, whose “student success cabinets” typically include a bunch of bureaucrats from student affairs but seldom anyone who’s actually involved in the enterprise of instruction. Yet “students spend more time with professors, more intentionally, more consistently, than with any other college professional,” Gyurko said. Indeed, “for the majority of today’s students” — the ones at community colleges and four-year commuter schools, not public flagships or selective private institutions — the classroom “is their college experience. Think of the students who are driving to a college parking lot, rushing into class, then getting back in their car to go to their job or back to their family. Or the online student, logging on and off. Class is it. It is showtime, our chance to make a difference. And it better be the best it can be.”

Starting with presidents and provosts has been key to ACUE’s approach. It’s not that institutions haven’t been trying to improve the quality of teaching in recent decades (they are always, at least intermittently, trying), but the conventional way to do so has been to establish a teaching center, a place where instructors can go, if they want, for workshops and other resources. The problem is the “want”: most don’t, and those who do, who care enough about their teaching to try to improve it, are probably already pretty good, just because they care. So how do you make people care? Buy-in from leaders is key. So are incentives: raising teaching’s prestige, awarding stipends for pedagogical training, allowing the latter to satisfy requirements for continuing education that are written into employment contracts and collective bargaining agreements.

But the biggest key is providing training that actually works. ACUE’s model focuses on craft, the nuts and bolts of competent instruction. Faculty are introduced to evidence-based best practices in 25 core areas, everything from preparing a syllabus to leading a first day to facilitating discussion

to providing feedback. Crucially, the program runs in parallel with whatever classes participants are teaching at the time.

Week by week, they learn techniques, implement them, refine them, get feedback from facilitators, and reflect with peers on what they’ve done. This last is also crucial: instead of learning one by one, faculty go through the training as a group, which means that the experience not only builds their individual skills, it also develops a culture of teaching within the institution, a community of mindful practitioners.

To date, over 26,000 individuals, across more than 450 campuses, have completed ACUE’s training, receiving a certification, endorsed by the American Council on Education, that is starting to be recognized

IF YOU TEACH TOO WELL, IN FACT, IT’S ACTUALLY A STRIKE AGAINST YOU, BECAUSE IT RAISES THE SUSPICION THAT YOU AREN’T FOCUSING SINGLE-MINDEDLY ENOUGH ON YOUR “WORK” (YOUR “REAL” WORK).

in promotion and tenure. Eighteen independent studies have found that the program leads to significant gains in student learning, retention and completion. It also enables instructors to feel, at last, like they know what they’re doing. “Faculty with many years of experience,” Gyurko said, “have found these evidence-based practices just as relevant and useful as novice instructors. We’ve heard, ‘I’ve had the best class discussions of my career, because finally I know how to plan a conversation, develop a taxonomy of different kinds of questions, and facilitate student-to-student interaction.’” And once you learn the craft of teaching, you have the freedom to explore the art — to be not just good but, if it’s in you, great.

ACUE’s ultimate goal is to create a nationwide movement to elevate instruction to an equal place with research in higher education. The first schools to adopt its training tended to be ones with the most disadvantaged students and therefore the lowest graduation rates: community colleges, open-access public universities, under-resourced privates. State flagships think that they can solve the problem on their own; elite private institutions do not think they have a problem. Both are wrong, and the former, at least, are starting to recognize as much. In the last few years, ACUE has signed up public university systems in California, Texas and New York, among other states, and is now partnering with the National Association of System Heads, whose institutions enroll some 75 percent of four-year public college students. This June, ACUE co-hosted its first-ever national college teaching conference, attracting over 500 leaders, researchers, professors and advocates.

One of the opening panelists was Jonathan Zimmerman. “ACUE represents the most promising development in college teaching of the past half-century,” he told me, “because it’s providing credentials as well as training. The one thing we know — from a century or more of failed reform efforts — is that moral exhortation won’t cut it. There has to be a material incentive. The ACUE model points us towards a day when you’ll have to demonstrate competence in the classroom in order to stay there.”

“It’s an 800-year-old problem,” Gyurko said, but “the headline here is joy. It just feels so much better to be able to awaken minds, connect with students in ways that you’ve never done before, to finally feel you have the skills to do your job. That’s the stuff of one’s professional identity. It gives me hope, combined with all the pressure on higher education, that this is teaching’s moment.”

W I L L I A M D E R E S I E W I C Z I S A N AWA R D -W I N N I N G E S S AYI S T A N D AU T H O R O F “ E X C E L L E N T S H E E P : T H E M I S E D U C AT I O N O F T H E A M E R I C A N E L I T E A N D T H E WAY T O A M E A N I N G F U L L I F E .”

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A DEGREE OF RISK CONGRESS NEEDS TO RAISE THE BAR FOR AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

BY B E TH A K E R S

H

igher education policy has gone from a niche issue studied by wonks and practitioners to a point of mainstream political concern. I used to wait with bated breath for a national political figure to mention the issue I care so much about, celebrating even a banal reference to maintaining a competitive workforce. I longed for the political engagement that could facilitate changes to our higher education system that are necessary and overdue: making college less risky for students, holding colleges and universities to a higher standard and reining in the out-of-control cost to taxpayers.

Be careful what you wish for. Now I cringe daily to see higher education policy on the front pages of newspapers — almost always lacking nuance and being used as a political chip. Instead of bringing about necessary change, the attention to higher education has only brought flashy, faux solutions that sound good on the campaign trail but fail to address the core challenges and often exacerbate them.

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primary was the first time that ambitious higher education policy reform seemed to play a meaningful role in a national race.

Almost all mainstream candidates committed to either making college totally or partially cost-free for students. Prior to this, EDUCATION AFTER HIGH SCHOOL IS A CRITICAL MECHANISM FOR SOCIAL MOBILITY, AND THE GOVERNMENT HAS AN OBLIGATION TO MAKE SURE THAT IT WORKS WELL.

mentions of higher education were bland and both major parties’ platforms were difficult to distinguish at the level of electoral politics. A brief survey of both parties’ 2016 platforms shows us that Democrats and Republicans were united in their concern about rising college costs, but by no means was this an animating issue for either party’s electoral pitches. When it came

to proposed solutions, both platforms fell short. Of course, there was substantive disagreement on nuanced issues between wonks of different political persuasions.

But these discussions rarely reached voters, and swayed few votes.

Nonetheless, a hint of what was to come could be found in the Democrats’ 2016 platform. In it, the party committed to making a university education debt-free, and community college completely free. In 2020, as higher education came into focus as a larger issue for more and more voters, Democrats dug in. What has resulted is truly unfortunate: Democrats continue to make grand promises to voters — vowing to forgive student debt, subsidize every American’s college education, and more — that sound good to voters but lack the nuance to address the real challenges we face. An honest conversation about higher education ought to be about policy, not about politics and buying votes.

Republicans are guilty of this politicization as well, but in smaller doses.

The anti-diversity, equity and inclusion

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movement seems keener on capturing the hearts of Republican voters who are fed up with “woke” culture than it is about solving real problems in higher education. This movement, too, was foreshadowed in the Republicans’ 2016 platform, which cited ideological capture of institutions of higher education as an issue that they vowed to address. Like the Democrats, Republicans were also short on practical solutions.

The problem with all of this is that even though higher education has now become a mainstream issue, we’re farther from real solutions than ever before. It would be helpful for us to reframe the conversation, so that we can translate genuine concern about higher education into workable solutions that benefit students and address the core issues our system faces.

Education after high school is a critical mechanism for social mobility, and the government has an obligation to make sure that it works well. If our government cannot ensure that our higher education system functions well, it’s difficult to rationalize the distinct absence of safety nets in our economy relative to other developed nations. Our politics must deal with the structural issues facing higher education in order to live up to its duties and obligations to everyday Americans.

The problem that needs solving is twofold.

First, going to and paying for college is risky. On average college is a great investment, but sometimes it can leave students worse off financially than when they started. Additionally, the current system of financing is creating a tremendous fiscal burden on taxpayers, and recent and pending reforms are set to make this problem radically worse in the years to come. Second, the common denominator is failing institutions. When colleges and universities fail to deliver students into economic opportunity, they are failing the students and the taxpayers. Yet, they are left seemingly unaccountable for their deficiencies.

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SO, WHERE ARE both parties today on these

issues?

Democrats seemed to broadly adopt the notion of “free college” and student loan cancellation (in some form) in the run-up to the 2020 election cycle.

Interestingly, President Joe Biden was the most moderate among mainstream Democrats, expressing concern about the fairness of student loan cancellation. He ultimately limited his platform to include up to $10,000 in student loan cancellation (compared to $50,000 by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren) and free community college (which sounds dramatic but represents only a small shift from the status

SO FAR, WE’VE GIVEN COLLEGES A PASS, ALLOWING THEM TO RAISE PRICES AT A PACE THAT EXCEEDS INFLATION, WITH LITTLE TO NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FINANCIAL WELL-BEING OF THEIR STUDENTS.

quo, since the average net cost for students attending community colleges — that is, the price after taking into account grants and scholarships — is already free.)

When Biden took office, all were eagerly awaiting his move to cancel student debt. He didn’t move on that immediately, though. Biden announced his plan during the summer of 2022, and rather than seeking legislative approval, he chose to pursue debt cancellation through unilateral executive action. Congressional action would have been possible if Democrats were on board at the outset of his administration when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But they could not forge a united front to pass debt cancellation through the budget reconciliation

process as too many moderate Democrats opposed the plan.

Biden’s plan was carefully crafted to avoid legal challenges, excluding borrowers that would create the obvious harm needed for someone to sue the administration.

Arguing that the secretary of education was granted the power to forgive student loans in the case of a national emergency under the HEROES Act — passed originally to enable 9/11 survivors to receive debt forgiveness — the administration apparently believed that they had found a loophole that enabled them to bypass Congress. Most legal experts nonetheless saw this move for what it was: unconstitutional, and unlikely to survive a legal challenge.

In the end, a lawsuit did succeed in stopping the effort. In late June, the Supreme Court ruled that the president did not have the authority to unilaterally cancel student debt in Biden v. Nebraska. “Our precedent — old and new — requires that Congress speak clearly before a department secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy,” said Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion.

Despite the defeat, Biden has doubled down on his promise to cancel student debt.

This time he is attempting to accomplish it using another legally dubious pathway of executive order under the Higher Education Act. At the same time, the administration will move forward with a separate plan to expand income-driven repayment, or IDR, plans so that most borrowers will only pay back a small share of what they have borrowed, if anything at all. As my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Nat Malkus, has argued, Biden’s IDR reforms would ostensibly transform a loan repayment program into a grant program.

Both of these proposals from Biden would do little to address the core structural problems facing higher education today. In fact, they may well accelerate existing trends.

Meanwhile, Republicans are getting much more serious about higher education

reform. While they could have been accused of sitting on the bench in the past — or simply playing politics — a recent flurry of activity on the Hill shows a serious commitment to sensible reform that focuses both on reining in public expenditure and making higher education work better for students.

Legislation introduced by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., would increase transparency in the process of shopping and paying for college education, constrain borrowing for graduate school to affordable levels, and implement sensible changes to the system of accountability for colleges and universities.

Another bill introduced by Reps. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., Burgess Owens, R-Utah, and Lisa McClain, R-Mich., would make sure that borrowers who need help can get it, and streamlines the nine different repayment programs that provide means-tested relief to borrowers who are truly struggling.

R E G A R D L E SS O F W H O controls Congress

and the White House, reforms need to be made in line with a few commonsense core principles.

First, we must be united in making college less risky by ensuring that there is a safety net for borrowers who find themselves facing truly unaffordable loans. For those who truly cannot pay back their loans in full — those who are struggling under the burden of mountains of growing debt — there ought to be real support. No matter how great we make our higher education system, there will inevitably be those who are left behind. And they deserve our support.

Second, we must ensure that colleges are on the hook for delivering economic opportunity. When graduates can’t find jobs that pay well enough to afford the price tag of enrollment, we should stop allowing students to borrow and use grants to attend that school or program of study. We must hold institutions of higher learning accountable for the quality and outcomes

of their degrees and certifications. Higher education is one of the greatest vehicles for socioeconomic opportunity our nation has, and we cannot afford to allow it to become derelict in its duty.

Taxpayers are continually subsidizing tens of thousands of programs that seem to offer no financial return to their students. A recent study estimates that almost one-third of bachelor’s degree programs yield a negative return on investment, meaning that students are left worse off financially for having paid tuition and earning their degree. That’s untenable.

So far, we’ve given colleges a pass, allowing them to raise prices at a pace that exceeds inflation, have little to no responsibility for the financial well-being of their students, and celebrate college degrees in the public discourse as if they were a golden ticket to the American dream. It’s time for that gravy train to end.

Lastly, people who can afford to pay their student loans need to pay their student loans. Having a self-pay system of higher education finance means that prospective students are consumers, and when people pay with their own money, they are savvy.

They demand that colleges charge a reasonable price. They demand quality. When someone else is paying, they become less interested in the details, and there is less pressure on institutions of higher learning to perform. Discipline from the market can keep value high and prices low, ensuring that public dollars spent on education will go the furthest possible.

What’s important is that legislators on both sides of the aisle channel well-deserved voter focus on our nation’s higher education system toward pragmatic reforms that fix the core issues we face, rather than on politically popular but misguided quixotic schemes.

LEGISLATORS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE MUST CHANNEL VOTER FOCUS ON OUR NATION’S HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM TOWARD PRAGMATIC REFORMS THAT FIX THE CORE ISSUES.

B E T H A K E R S I S A S E N I O R F E L L OW AT T H E A M E R I C A N E N T E R P R I S E I N S T I T U T E A N D C O N T R I B U T O R T O SU T H E R L A N D I N S T I T U T E ’ S “ D E F E N D I N G I D E A S ” P O D C A S T.

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VALUE PROPOSITION HOW HIGHER EDUCATION CAN PROVIDE MORE BANG FOR THE BUCK

BY M I C HA EL M. C R OW A N D DE R R I C K M . A N DE R S O N

I

t is anything but hyperbole to say that American higher education is home to some of the most important and impactful institutions ever created. And yet, public opinion about higher education tells a different story. Current polling indicates that American confidence in higher education is at its lowest in recent memory. Rather than dismissing the findings or picking them apart with highly sophisticated methodological critiques, we choose to accept the reality that public confidence in our industry is suffering despite the impressive accomplishments of its institutions and their promise for even greater impact.

A mismatch between how a public-serving industry is appreciated and how it actually performs is characteristic of “public value failure.” While its roots are academic, the concept of “public value failure” is far from esoteric scholarly jargon. Described by our colleague, Barry Bozeman, as instances where neither the market nor the public sector provide the goods and services society agrees should be available, public value failures are the tragic everyday experiences of nearly everyone. We believe that accepting the reality of this moment as a public value failure may accelerate our ability to identify solutions and chart paths for improvement. We’ve seen this happen in our own work, especially at Arizona State University, where one of us, Crow, is president, and both of us are professors.

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with democracy is compelled to acknowledge the significance of American higher education. Not only did its early graduates and faculty contribute to the design and establishment of this great system, but its institutions have been deeply involved in the system’s continued refinement, improvement and implementation. From the Declaration of Independence to the development of Covid-19 vaccines, American colleges and universities have played outsized roles in fostering social and economic progress in this country and beyond. Data on the benefits of higher education show that completion of a college degree is a reliable CURRENT POLLING INDICATES THAT AMERICAN CONFIDENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION IS AT ITS LOWEST IN RECENT MEMORY. RATHER THAN DISMISSING THE FINDINGS, WE CHOOSE TO ACCEPT THE REALITY.

and consistent predictor of upward socioeconomic mobility. Completion of a college degree is associated with improvements in mental and physical health. Cities with colleges tend to be more economically competitive. Nearly every member of Congress and almost all CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have college degrees. And it’s not just degrees from elite private institutions

that predict success. CEOs at 14 of the top 20 companies have degrees from public universities.

Despite compelling arguments and an abundance of evidence in support of colleges and universities, public confidence in the sector is weak and seems to be weakening. A June 2023 Gallup poll found that only 36 percent of Americans had either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. Less than a year earlier, in July 2022, progressive think tank New America found that the number of Americans who believed that higher education was having a positive effect on the country had dropped to 55 percent, down from 69 percent in 2020. Experts rightfully observe that public confidence is also declining in many other institutions, including small business, big business, the military, police, banks, courts and health care. And we should appreciate all these findings in the context of historically unprecedented efforts by a small but influential number of elected officials who have worked openly and effectively to erode public trust in these institutions.

Despite these caveats, the data is consistent — American confidence in higher education does not match its impact. This means that despite the obvious general and individual benefits, many people feel that higher education hasn’t worked for them, or it will not work for them. This conclusion is not altogether unreasonable. Consider that less than half of Americans have attended college or are on track, through the

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current way of doing things, to do so (the 2021 enrollment rate of 18- to 24-year-olds is less than 40 percent). And of those who attend, many will not graduate (the most recent overall six-year graduation rate at bachelor’s degree granting institutions in the U.S. was 64 percent). If we assume that the portion of Americans who are optimistic about the sector is concentrated only in the subset of the population who participated in college and completed a degree, we might prepare for disappointment. The challenges then become to engage more learners, help those who start to finish, and help everyone believe in the general benefit of the sector.

How do we improve a public-serving sector that seems to be neglecting so much of the public? When economists examine large-scale private sector industries and observe inefficiency in the delivery of value to consumers, they often describe the situation as a market failure. Due to years of accumulated insights, we understand a lot about market failures and how to fix them.

This concept can be applied to public-serving industries such as higher education, where free market reckoning doesn’t fully apply but failures still occur. In the case of American higher education, we can see several interrelated public value failures at play, such as benefit hoarding, provider scarcities and poor timing.

Benefit hoarding in higher education is seen in systematically unequal outcomes.

Access to and success in higher education remains highly correlated with factors such as race, where a person lives and how much money their family has. Benefit hoarding is not the fault of learners but the fault of institutions that prioritize the engagement with only the most prepared students, as well as the culture of higher education that has longstanding and deep tendencies toward exclusivity. Many institutions and individual leaders are committed to addressing these issues, but resistance is strong.

Provider scarcity in higher education is not so much about a shortage of colleges and universities as much as it is about a shortage of necessary experiences and 70

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services offered at colleges and universities.

Our country is home to about 4,000 regionally accredited degree-granting institutions.

With innovations in online learning, access to these institutions is becoming more and more universal. But access is only part of the public value proposition. Public value is also tied to the affordability and relevance of learning experiences. We’ve understood for a long time that not every learner needs a bachelor’s degree in the liberal arts, but much of higher education still struggles with creating new offerings that not only allow learners the opportunity to keep up with changes in the world, but to thrive by getting ahead of those changes.

Poor timing is not just about when colleges show up (or want to show up) in learners’ lives; it’s also about the role that matters ANYONE WHO BELIEVES IN THE UNIQUENESS AND POWER OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT WITH DEMOCRACY IS COMPELLED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION.

of time play throughout learners’ journeys.

The organization of credentials into how long it takes the ideal learner to complete them (two-year degrees or four-year degrees) is just an example. Many who need higher education cannot reasonably finish a two-year credential in two years, resulting in a feeling that immediately upon starting a degree, learners are already behind and therefore failing. Also troubling is the idea that colleges and universities organize their activities into semesters and their courses into credit hours, as if knowledge exists in well-defined units that can only be transferred from professors to students at certain moments in the calendar year.

Every university serves a community that constitutes its “public.” For state and community colleges, publics are geographically defined. For private and religious colleges and universities, publics can be globally

distributed communities of people with shared identities or beliefs. In any case, a university’s public has shared goals and aspirations that can be used as inspiration for the creation of designs and strategies.

This is more than merely being responsive to consumer demands; this involves sincere efforts to understand the aggregate hopes that individuals have for themselves, their families and their peers for today and for generations to come.

The creation of public value then comes as universities work to magnify those shared goals and aspirations. The ASU Charter includes the discovery of public value as a priority: “ASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves.”

Through its charter and culture, the university is working to minimize the disastrous consequences of public value failure.

To address failures of benefit hoarding, ASU accepts all qualified applicants and works to have a student body that is representative of the demographics of the state. To address failures of provider scarcity, the university offers a range of educational opportunities including primary, secondary and nondegree credentials. To address failures of poor timing, it offers six start dates throughout the year in addition to many courses that are self-paced, meaning a learner can start anytime and take as long as they need to complete.

ASU is not alone in its focus on creating public value. There are many universities working to address the failures of benefit hoarding, provider scarcity and poor timing. There are many universities whose unique missions compel them to think carefully about the specific needs of their universities.

M I C H A E L M . C ROW I S P R E S I D E N T O F A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A N D F O R M E R E X E C U T I V E V I C E P ROV O S T O F C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y. D E R R I C K M . A N D E R S O N I S A S E N I O R V I C E P R E S I D E N T AT T H E A M E R I C A N C O U N C I L O N E D U C AT I O N A N D A N A S S O C I AT E P RO F E S S O R AT A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y.

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Stand Up To Cancer is a division of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.

CULTURE

SELF-PRESERVATION IS TRENDING IN TROUBLED TIMES, HOME CANNING MAKES A COMEBACK

BY N ATA L I A G A L I C Z A

T

he twist of a wrist and the snap of an unsealed Mason jar seemed like a magic trick to young Chelsea O’Leary, watching her grandmother make her favorite homemade chili. She poured out a quart of bright red tomatoes that looked fresh, as if she’d just plucked them from her garden in the Ohio countryside. How did they defy the ravages of time? Even now, decades later, O’Leary can still hear that snap of the Mason jar lid.

Her grandmother had taken to canning out of need. Food storage felt requisite for the generation raised during the Great Depression. But each summer and fall, she put up her produce with pride, making it clear she did so for reasons beyond financial necessity. Canning gave her a way to tailor her pantry and feed her loved ones, but it also furnished some sense of control over an uncertain future. Only as an adult did O’Leary, 32, realize she wanted those things, too.

That was in 2020, in the early weeks and months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid nationwide quarantines and food shortages, she launched Wiley Canning Company in Nashville, Tennessee, to take up her own 72

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canning practice and teach others to put up food like her grandmother. She quickly realized she was not alone. She wrote a cookbook that has sold thousands of copies, and every public workshop she’s offered in the last three years has been completely booked.

THEY DEVELOPED A CULTURE OF SELFRELIANCE THAT PERSISTS TODAY, WITH THE RATIONALE THAT “SHOULD ADVERSITY COME, WE MAY CARE FOR OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS.”

O’Leary’s success is one example of a surprising boom in food preservation. Google searches for “canning” hit an all-time peak in the United States in 2020. The metal lids and rubber bands needed to create airtight seals sold too fast that year for supermarkets to keep them in stock. Ball, the preeminent manufacturer, warned on its website

that its products were “selling out as soon as the retailers put them on the shelves.”

But the rush has outlasted that moment of crisis. The #canning hashtag on TikTok has drawn more than 800 million views and counting, along with a slew of videos that provide basic instructions and show off more creative concoctions.

For traditional canners who never let the practice be forgotten, this might feel like vindication. But there seems to be something behind this surge of interest that runs deeper than saving a few bucks or savoring sweet boiled peaches long past their season.

Like any such fervor, it offers a glimpse into our collective consciousness and how Americans choose to view the future. And right now, that vision seems to be rather uncertain.

FOOD PRESERVATION IS an ancient practice.

Early methods persist in plain sight. Drying meat gave us beef jerky. Salting gave us ham. Fermenting milk gave us yogurt and cheese. We still enjoy brined lox, smoked salmon and pickled vegetables like cucumbers. But these techniques weren’t reliable enough to feed Napoleon Bonaparte’s

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troops, so in 1795, the French army offered 12,000 francs to whomever could find a better way. Some attempts were as crude as wax caps or champagne bottles corked with a rancid, curdle-prone combination of cheese and lime. But 14 years later, Nicolas Appert won the prize with heat-based canning in glass jars wrapped with wire. It was American tinsmith John Landis Mason who improved on that method, inventing the eponymous jar in 1858.

Mason’s rubber rings and metal lids were easy to manufacture and easier to use. Soon, canning was adopted across the American frontier, including among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Many already relied on ancestral knowledge to pickle vegetables, cure meats and craft preserves as they navigated the West’s great arid distances. They developed a culture of self-reliance that persists today, with the rationale that “should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors.”

The federal government adopted a similar ethos as policy for much of the 20th century. The Department of Agriculture promoted “mother-daughter home canning clubs” to build up morale and food reserves during the First World War. Amid the Great Depression, the department created community canning centers for rural families to access costly equipment and put up food alongside their neighbors. Later, the government pushed canning as an act of patriotism that helped win the Second World War; of all the fruits and vegetables eaten across the country in 1944, the majority — three and a half billion quarts worth — were hand-canned by American housewives.

After the war, the world felt safe again — maybe safer than ever. America experienced an unprecedented boom, fueled by an uptick in industry and defense jobs and a privileged position in the global economy. Returning veterans went to college and became office workers or landed union jobs in blue-collar fields. They bought homes in sprawling new developments and drove American-made cars pitched in 74

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advertisements on television. Families that could comfortably buy fresh produce from local grocers or frozen dinners from shiny new supermarkets didn’t feel the need to prepare for shortages. That sensation endured, with a few peaks and valleys, for decades. Home canning fell out of favor.

That started to change during the Great Recession, when the collapse of the banking system gutted the global economy and left innumerable families on the brink. In 2008, The New York Times pointed out a familiar surge in sales of Ball jars, lids and rings. In 2010, Slate called canning “ri-

WHEN THE WORLD FEELS ADRIFT, PEOPLE FIND WAYS TO EXERCISE CONTROL OVER THEIR OWN LIVES. FEW TRIGGERS IN RECENT HISTORY HAVE BEEN MORE SOBERING OR MOTIVATIONAL THAN THE PANDEMIC.

diculously trendy,” as hipsters found new ways to imbue preserved foods with odd or surprising flavors. But the practice of canning historically waxes and wanes with the health of the economy, and the trend faded as quickly as the country recovered.

Until disaster struck.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS SEEM eerie now. Fluo-

rescent lights in grocery stores spotlight long aisles of empty shelves. Desperate and frightened shoppers push carts bloated with frozen food and piles of steel cans. It’s 2020 and nobody knows how long the pandemic will last. Or when the supply chain will provide again. Or if it ever will. Yeast?

Gone. Toilet paper? Forget it. It’s a familiar scene at Costcos, Walmarts and Targets across the country. Wheels squeak beneath the carts’ unfamiliar weight as shoppers pause to examine whatever shelf-stable food they can find.

A study published this year by the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one-third of Americans experienced some level of food insecurity in 2020. That was up from 10.5 percent in 2019, according to the Department of Agriculture. For some, it got worse than that. The pandemic cost tens of millions of people their jobs, almost overnight. The American Rescue Plan Act provided most citizens with stimulus payments, but that relief only went so far. Even toward the end of 2021, the Census Bureau still found that some 10 million households were behind on rent, while 20 million had too little to eat in the previous week. To stretch their resources, many turned to time-honored solutions, like canning.

Today, the labor market has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, but people from rural Idaho to North Carolina continue to pack food preservation courses more now than ever. “There was a shortage of food, grocery stores were empty, people couldn’t get necessities to feed their family. People did turn to gardening and preserving their own food which a lot of them have stuck with,” says Amanda Henning, agriculture and food systems team leader for Cornell University’s Extension Program in upstate New York. “We could have the class probably every night of the week and it would be full.”

One reason they cite is rather obvious: inflation. Inflation rates started climbing as the country started reopening, peaking at 9.1 percent in June 2022 — the highest annual rate increase since prices rose 8.9 percent over 12 months in November 1981. That doesn’t even account for food and energy prices, which are too volatile to include in the government’s core inflation calculus. Overall, inflation has since cooled off, slowed in part by higher interest rates, which have their own impact on family finances. The cost of living hasn’t come down and hourly earnings have been slow to catch up, so most Americans have smaller cushions today between their income and their needs. No wonder they’re looking

for ways to make a difference, though that drive may involve more than basic financial arithmetic.

The cost of home canning has evolved, too. In 2023, it is no longer reliable as a cheaper way to feed families who don’t grow their own food. People who preserve produce purchased from grocery stores or farmers markets must include the cost of tempered glass jars, lids, bands and a water bath or pressure canner — apparatuses that tend to cost no less than $100 — on top of the cost of the food itself. This raises more questions than answers.

“I think the market has changed to where it’s just not cheaper to can anymore,” says Brock Cheney, author of “Plain but Wholesome: Foodways of the Mormon Pioneers.”

He’s now passing his own stock of Mason jars on to his daughters, helping them to start home canning practices of their own because he sees more to it. “Food is something we all do every day. Food is an opportunity to engage in a creative process and make some art, to do something just for the joy. I think all of that has nothing to do with economics.”

ON THE SCREEN, a middle-aged mom stands

in a modest home kitchen, behind a massive metal bowl full of green beans on a wooden counter. Susan Snider tells us she bought them for $4 a bag off the back of a pickup in a Walmart parking lot. Steam rises behind her from pots on a gas stove, under sloped ceilings, and her husband’s hands can be seen trimming the beans. Across a three-minute clip, she walks her daughter’s 850,000 TikTok followers through the process of packing, seasoning and sealing the whole batch into 11 quart-sized Mason jars, using a pressure canner. A wardrobe change — to a T-shirt that declares “YES, I CAN” above illustrated cans of produce — suggests the process takes longer in real life.

Most Americans today seem to have enough distance from utter necessity to practice canning for no other reason than

the joy it gives them. While she lucked out on the cost, what stands out from the video is Susan’s ebullience at every stage, while her daughter, Sarah, chimes in from behind the camera. Sarah’s account — FunnyFarmDaughter — offers a near-endless selection of videos, many on food preservation: Canning CARROTS! Canning butter! Canning Banana Bread In the Oven! Posted in January 2022, the video has more than 1,450 comments, most from motivated newbies.

“My grandparents raised me and (canned) everything, but I didn’t have time to learn it before they passed,” writes one viewer.

“Your videos mean the world!” Another

MOST AMERICANS TODAY SEEM TO HAVE ENOUGH DISTANCE FROM UTTER NECESSITY TO PRACTICE CANNING FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN THE JOY IT GIVES THEM.

adds: “I will never can anything in my life but I just can’t get enough.”

Some are elevating the practice in culinary ways. Vintage canning cookbooks have popped up for sale on Etsy. There are podcasts like “Perfectly Preserved” that double as canning tutorials. Popular recipes like raspberry lavender jam, prime rib stroganoff and mango chutney are making the rounds. Some folks bottle vividly colored produce for aesthetic reasons. And canning still leads to blue ribbons from county fairs, inventive recipes and even friendships, explains Danille Christensen, assistant professor of religion and culture at Virginia Tech, in a 2015 article for the Southern Cultures journal. “A person might develop an important relationship with someone he knows only via a blog — or a jar of blueberry marmalade sent through the mail,” she writes.

Even so, beauty and pleasure also fall short as reasons so many would endure

hours of repetitive labor, peeling and chopping food they won’t eat for months in a kitchen that feels like a sauna. According to Megan Elias, a food historian and director of Boston University’s gastronomy program, it could be a coping mechanism, or a political act. “Most people don’t eat seasonally.

They’re not going to sit through the winter, only eating what they’ve canned, because they don’t have to,” she says. “But you can say: Do I have autonomy? Do I have some kind of different relationship with food and with food chains? Can I have independence from big agriculture?”

Or perhaps, when the world feels adrift, people find little ways to exercise control over their own lives. Those early days of the pandemic are a haunting memory, but few triggers in recent history have been more sobering or motivational. “At any given moment, we could be confined to our own properties because of something like a worldwide pandemic,” says O’Leary, from her home in Nashville. “It feels like that could happen again.”

Plus, crises have now compounded. A majority of youth struggle with “climate anxiety” when considering the future of a warming world. The last president threatened to disrupt a peaceful transition of power. A Gallup poll last year showed that only 17 percent of respondents were satisfied with the direction of the country.

There’s widespread panic about artificial intelligence. Some philosophers argue that the 21st century is the most important and challenging of all, with more changes to endure than ever.

In times like these, people often return to the fundamentals. A tradition like canning can feel like an anchor. That might be as simple as the tomatoes O’Leary learned to can with her grandmother. “The pandemic reinforced the value of autonomy and self-sufficiency,” she says. “My grandmother taught me how wonderful canned goods could be. Knowing that I can teach my son this skill, it feels a bit more meaningful.”

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ILLUST RAT ION BY DAVI D HABBEN

CULTURE

AN ODE TO THE TRAMPOLINE PRAISING OUR FAVORITE VEHICLE FOR NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

BY M A R C N I E L S E N

T

he trampoline is a death contraption. Just look at it: spindly steel legs hold up a set of old-timey springs that tug at a thin, stretchy patch of fabric, forming an intentionally unstable surface for children to jump on, bouncing their little bodies to unnatural heights. Its elasticity promises safe landings if you come down just right, but that’s not always the case. So I get nervous watching my cousin fail a butt-to-front-flip, competing to stick the most audacious trick. At barbecues like this I stick with the adults, focusing on the smell of grilled burgers and fresh-mown grass, but when my 13-year-old brother climbs up there, I feel my chest tighten.

About 100,000 trampoline users land in the emergency room each year, and the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages trampolines at home. Even manufacturers like Skywalker Trampolines warn us: “DO NOT let more than one person inside the trampoline enclosure at the same time” and “DO NOT attempt or allow somersaults (flips).” Still, Americans buy half a million trampolines annually. They’re so prevalent in the Intermountain West, Barstool Sports once highlighted satellite images of neighborhoods along the Wasatch Front dotted with the distinctive black circles, like swimming pools in Hollywood. I can’t help wondering why.

My brother hops, warming up, but he doesn’t remember a scene from our past the way I do. I was eight years old, keeping an eye on him. He was three. The neighbors’ trampoline seemed safe until an older kid landed hard, launching my brother into the air

like a ragdoll. Helpless, I watched his body arc above the fence-line and drop onto the grass, where his leg crumpled beneath him. I carried him home. Later, X-rays showed a break below his knee, close enough that we feared permanent damage. He got a cast, which I signed, and made a full recovery. That’s not the part that’s stuck in my mind.

Ready to go, he jumps defiantly higher and higher into the air, leaving me rooted to the ground. He’s always been fearless, putting out candles with his fingers and riding down stairwells in cardboard boxes, and I’ve always felt responsible for tapping his brakes.

He doesn’t think about rules or statistics as he whips himself into a crazy series of front- and back-flips, but I can’t help catching my breath. When he lands upright to a huge cheer from all the other kids, a relieved smile returns to my face. It can’t be helped. I keep my worries to myself.

Eventually, I take my turn. With each bounce, the world shrinks below me and a pit sinks into my stomach, but a giddy, weightless feeling rises in my chest and I can’t stop grinning. Each jump catapults me further into the unknown but makes me feel more alive.

Maybe safety isn’t the answer. Life is precious because we die. The beauty of falling in love is that we do it knowing the heartbreak we’ll likely suffer, sooner or later. Because it’s worth doing. I know the risks. I jump anyway. High in the air, I tuck my knees to my chest, lean into the flip, and let go.

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ILLUST RAT IO N BY DANI EL TOR R ENT

CULTURE

DON’T ASK ME HOW TIME IS SPENT

BY R U TH A R C E

After José Emilio Pacheco, ‘No me preguntes cómo pasa el tiempo.’

I can’t feel Time pulling the earth; the plates from last night’s dinner seem intact — on the table, the sugar still dissolving in a cup of tea.

I don’t feel Time walking with the rush-hour crowd, stepping on my feet, waiting for an opening to get past me.

Time doesn’t hit like a drum, or twelve soft-belled sounds, it’s not short nor long Morse code, Time’s a junkyard gypsy trying to puzzle our fates together.

Perhaps in an ill-gotten epiphany the Future is Time’s taciturn muse, whispering chance into his ear, a voice that turns into a steady heartbeat.

I don’t believe I’ll ever quite feel it passing by me, like night cars on the side of the road, moving among my past lives, a light that has already been spent, a house of spirits behind the fog.

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THE LAST WORD

GAL E NA K . RH OADE S

ON BUILDING FAMILIES WHY SLIDING INTO MARRIAGE DOESN’T WORK

BY LO I S M. CO L L I N S

C

ohabiting as a test of a relationship is a test most couples fail.

Galena K. Rhoades has spent more than 20 years studying romantic relationships and their implications, including for kids.

She says that her work, and other research, indicates that living together increases the chance that a partnership will fall apart, absent a predetermination that you’re heading toward marriage and a lifetime commitment. As a scholar and clinical psychologist, she believes it helps individuals to make decisions backed by real information, so she says half-jokingly that her inner liberal sometimes takes a backseat to a message that sounds more conservative.

Rhoades is a research professor and director of the Family Research Center at the University of Denver. She also operates a private practice that provides therapy for couples and families, and directs Thriving Families Colorado, a nonprofit she co-founded with an obstetrician nearly a decade ago. The program provides workshops and coaching to help women who 80

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are pregnant or recently gave birth and teen moms with communication, parenting and life transitions. One focus of her work is research into what she and colleague Scott Stanley call “sliding vs. deciding” into family formation.

OVER THE LAST 40 YEARS, MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE LIVING TOGETHER — AND BREAKING UP.

A mother of two, Rhoades describes her own romantic life as “kind of a wild family situation.” She’s in a relationship with her high school prom date — they reconnected 25 years after the big dance. He has two children the same ages as hers. But they also happen to live 1,000 miles apart.

Deseret talked to her about commitment,

cohabitation and the pitfalls of drifting into important decisions.

HAS RELATIONSHIP FORMATION CHANGED?

There have been big changes over the last several decades. I was close to my grandmother. She and my grandfather went to high school together, went to prom together. He served in the military during World War II. Theirs was a traditional story. My mother’s experience was wildly different from theirs, and my own has been different from both. It’s incredible to see such social change in a relatively short period of time that we can’t relate across generations in regard to our relationships, while we can in other ways.

WHY EMPHASIZE ‘SLIDING VS. DECIDING’?

That’s one of the biggest shifts we’ve seen as our country has become less religious.

Religion once provided the prevailing guidelines for what to do in relationships,

THERE HAS BEEN SUCH SOCIAL CHANGE IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME THAT WE CAN’T RELATE ACROSS GENERATIONS IN REGARD TO OUR RELATIONSHIPS

around sex and marriage or living together. And we just don’t have those standards as much anymore. So people need to make their own decisions about what’s right for them. That may be based on religion or other values, but we just don’t have the guideposts we once had.

IS THERE COST OR BENEFIT TO THAT?

There’s both. I’m a fairly liberal person, so I like the idea of people being able to make their own choices. But they don’t necessarily have the information, the data, the tools or the skills that they need to make decisions that are right for them. So they may repeat things they’ve seen in their own family histories, in our culture or in the media without thinking more deeply. We see this dichotomy where people still see marriage as a big deal and this elevated experience.

Yet they slide into living together all the time, even though it brings so many of the same costs or constraints. Yet they don’t think about that as a big decision.

HOW DOES LIVING TOGETHER IMPACT MARRIAGE?

People think, well, I want to try living with my partner first because marriage is so important to me. I want to make sure it’s the right choice. Over probably the last 40 years, more and more people are living together — and breaking up. More who are getting married today have had multiple cohabitation partners than, say, 10 or 20 years ago. And among people married as recently as 2010 to 2019, those who live together before making a commitment to get married have higher risk for divorce.

ILLU STR ATION BY KY LE H I LTO N

SO HAVING DEFINITE PLANS TO MARRY IMPROVES THE ODDS?

More than if you live together without having those plans first. The thinking behind it is, once you move in together, you’ve made it more likely that you will stay together and essentially put yourself on a path toward a longer-term relationship, which may then include marriage. But you haven’t made the psychological commitment to that relationship, which may also put you at risk. If you don’t commit, you’re less likely to follow through.

LIKE SAYING YOU’LL LOSE 20 POUNDS BUT NOT DOING THE WORK?

Exactly right. If you say it more loudly, and tell more people, if you have a commitment to a weight-loss program, you’re more likely to stick with it.

DO COHABITING COUPLES PUT OFF HAVING CHILDREN?

This is the other place where sliding vs. deciding is so important. Most of the people that we work with in my MotherWise program are not married. Many are having a pregnancy that they didn’t intend to have or at least not at this time, or with this person. There’s so much that we can do to just provide education and information for people about the options that they have for themselves around relationships, sex and marriage.

YOU WERE RIGHT. THIS COULD BE VIEWED AS A CONSERVATIVE MESSAGE.

I think of this conversation I had with an acquaintance when I was working on my master’s degree more than 20 years ago. He said, “I’m thinking about moving in with my girlfriend who just graduated from college. I was raised Catholic. So I can’t ask

anybody in my family what to do, because they’re just going to tell me it’s wrong. But I don’t understand why. What’s true about it?” If we just follow the guidelines, you’re not going to live together if you’re religious or conservative, and if you’re liberal, you’re going to say, “those rules don’t apply to me.”

But what I believe is important is that people take in information and make decisions for themselves.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACING MOMS IN YOUR PROGRAM?

We’re working with women who have the fewest resources in our community. They want what’s best for their baby, and for their older children if they have them – such a strong desire to give them better experiences than they’ve had themselves. I like working with people at this stage because it can translate into so many better things to come for them. They may not see that it’s important to get out of an unsafe, scary, threatening, abusive relationship for themselves. But when they see how that relationship is impacting their parenting and their children, that’s a motivator.

ANY LAST WORD?

Lives are complicated. A lot of people have unstable housing. One problem with resources or finances can cascade into so many other issues. If you can’t pay the rent on time, you can quickly become homeless, and lose many other resources as well. It can just snowball into so many other problems. But on the other hand, there’s such opportunity working with kids, working with parents during pregnancy, to alter the trajectory of their lives for the better.

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PARTING SHOT

GE TT Y IM AGE S

A popular stunt on college campuses in the 1950s was cramming as many students as possible into a phone booth, like these men of that era tried to do at BirminghamSouthern College.

Students at Saint Mary’s College set an official record squeezing 22 people into a booth in 1959. The feat was commemorated and matched 50 years later at Saint Mary’s, with nervous medical personnel standing by. The biggest obstacle to setting a new record today would be finding a phone booth.

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On the way to Arlington National Cemetery, nursing students from Brigham Young University assist military veterans participating in the Honor Flight Program. As they care for those who sacrificed for freedom, they see firsthand how people need more than medicine to fully heal.

Learning by study, by faith, and by experience, we strive to be among the exceptional universities in the world and an essential university for the world.

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