From Sky news this is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made on graduation day.

High school graduation day.

For decades, the number of American students choosing to go from high school to higher education institutions has been slowly clipping upwards.

Earning a college degree meant a higher likelihood of earning more money in your life.

Going to college was something that was viewed as a strong move for students.

And you certainly never heard politicians bashing higher education.

That is, until recently, President Trump and many of his fellow travelers in the administration argued that colleges not just in many cases, a waste of time, but it's a place where students go to be indoctrinated by the cultural left.

And so what kind of job future does the president see?

He says his tariffs are going to bring back manufacturing in big numbers.

The United States is going to get back to producing in a big way.

And while you won't hear many Democrats endorse tariffs, more are talking about the need to bring back manufacturing, especially in rural America.

Alfred University, president Mark Zupan has a different idea.

Writing for U.S.

News and World Report recently.

He argues, quote, what does it take to make America great?

As university president and economist, I believe it means looking forward rather than backward to ensure our country's success and preeminence in a globalized economy.

A century ago, it would have been folly to invest in an outdated agricultural economy at the expense of the then roaring manufacturing sector.

It is just as foolhardy today to attempt to resuscitate a manufacturing sector that's been in decline for half a century, when knowledge based services power today's global economy and the labor market is undergoing dramatic changes brought on by advanced technology, artificial intelligence and automation.

End quote.

And so let's think back to that high school graduation stage.

Things would have been different a generation ago, but now the number of students who are applying to college and going on to study at higher education institutions is starting to decline.

We've talked about a possible enrollment cliff that faces higher education, and the reputational damage has been significant.

This hour, we welcome the president of Ashford University to talk about not only his piece for U.S.

News and World Report.

We're going to talk about the state of the economy.

Higher Ed's placing it, the future of higher ed and more and market is a great to have you.

Welcome.

Thanks.

Thanks for taking time for the program today.

Evan, thanks for inviting me.

Pleasure to be back with you.

So you're the president of a university and you're an economist.

And so I think the president would say you are just an elitist by trade.

Is that right?

I grew up in the middle class family in the Midwest, originally from upstate New York.

So.

But I have had, thanks to the dint of my parents hard work, the opportunity to go to college, so have benefited from higher ed.

My parents came to this country with just suitcases.

Well, look, we're going to go in a lot of different directions here, but let me just start with asking how things are going.

And Alfred and what I mean by that is we recently talked to some of your colleagues at places like Cook College, where they're kind of holding strong.

They're a small school, 12 1300 enrollment.

And, a lot of different institutions, bigger institutions are seeing fewer applications.

They're concerned about enrollment, cliffs in the future.

What's the story at Alfred?

We're seeing a great uptick in applications, completed apps.

Except for the fall.

Covid did put a dent in enrollment.

We've largely rebounded from that.

And, with with our board and our campus community just shortened our mission statement to five words, helping students realize their purpose.

Psychologist who studied this, say people that can identify and live their purpose live longer, healthier, happier lives.

And people have wide ranging purposes, need to benefit from mentors along the way.

Guides, having just a myriad of curricular co-curricular pathways, you can mix and match intersections.

We call them, one of our trustees calls us the biggest small university around because we have a, top 50 material science engineering program on our campus.

The world's leader in ceramic engineering, glass engineering science, a top ten art school, a college of business.

That's right in the top hundred.

Enough.

Liberal arts and sciences college with the Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

So you got a lot of opportunities to mix and match and our our core values, inclusivity or fostering a sense of belonging and and that's an asset because it brings together people with different backgrounds, different outlooks.

And you grow as a person when you're exposed to those differences.

How many students do you have on campus?

Roughly 1700 and another 600 and master's programs in the New York City area.

And then we have another 300 graduate students of the sixth.

The first statistic was the undergrad students on campus.

We're talking to Mark Zupan, president of Alfred University.

And, Mr.

President, I do wonder if you think schools that have 17,000, not 1700 on campus or like college 12 or 1300, do you think those midsize or bigger schools are going to be facing a different situation than you are?

Do you think you have an advantage being smaller?

We do.

Not that the others don't have important advantages.

So when it comes time to attracting students who are into Division one athletics or big time athletic events overall, schools like Clemson, Mississippi, Alabama have seen some nice growth patterns so that flagship public universities.

But we think they're important advantages to smaller, more intimate settings like Alfred University.

And just point to an example with, one of our top graduates back in 2022 on level, I came to us from Nigeria and, he just completed his PhD a year ago in aeronautical engineering at UT Austin, now pursuing MBA studies there.

He wants to be aeronautical engineering entrepreneur.

And when I visited him a couple of years ago in Austin, he said it's striking how many of my doctoral classmates at UT Austin came from our one school.

So big research institutions like the Ohio State or or University of Illinois, but there were largely taught by graduate students, and they didn't get to touch the equipment that I did as an undergraduate student at Alfred University.

And our dean, Gabby Gaustad, who's a 2004 alumna.

Same thing after she graduated from here, went to MIT and had the same striking impression.

Classmates largely from our one had graduate students, primarily at the undergrad level, not faculty as mentors, and didn't have the chance to, to touch the research equipment she did at Alfred.

And I. Are we, we just recently received an important Carnegie classification, one of only two universities our size with that classification in the country last three years, our faculty and staff have secured 39 million in research grants.

And that works out to $9,200 per undergrad student per year.

So the primary focus in our place, like ours, is the undergraduate student experience.

And research is meant to inform the experience where a lot of our once it goes to graduate study or research for its own sake.

So we think we can successfully differentiate, given our size and our mission and leaning into our three core strengths, I want to return coming up here to the question of foreign students and the value that you see students from all backgrounds bringing in, and whether that is more challenging with the current administration.

But before we do that, I want to touch on this idea of manufacturing and where the future job bases.

As I mentioned, you're not just the president of a university, you're an economist.

And you wrote in your piece for U.S.

News and World Report that you think it is foolhardy to attempt to resuscitate the manufacturing sector that has been in decline for half a century in this country.

I want to listen to two pieces of sound here.

The first is just from last week.

This is President Trump talking about what he sees as the future of, in his words, making things in America.

We want to make military equipment.

We want to make big things.

We want to make do the eye thing with the computers and the, many, many, many, many elements.

But the textile, you know, I'm not looking to make T-shirts, to be honest.

I'm not looking to make socks.

We can do that very well in other locations.

We are looking to do chips and computers and lots of other things and tanks and chips, meaning chips.

Okay, if chips four times there.

So let chips I think in the future.

But he's not the only one.

I want to listen to another piece of sound.

And this is from one of the possible presidential contenders for 2028.

This is from last year.

During the presidential campaign, the former labor secretary, our transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, talking about comparing records and saying that he believes Democrats are going to be even bigger on manufacturing than the Trump administration.

I grew up in Indiana and live in Michigan.

I have seen how the Industria midwest went into a manufacturing recession under Donald Trump, and has experienced a manufacturing renaissance under the Biden-Harris administration.

Why is that?

Because Biden-Harris administration has lead on policies that have factories rising out of the ground of places, including places like near where I grew up, that haven't seen this kind of investment in a generation, that's Pete Buttigieg.

So Mark Zupan, he's saying that there was a manufacturing renaissance going on over the last four years, that there are factories rising out of the ground in rural America.

And your essay indicates you think that that's probably overblown or not all that plausible for the future.

How do you square this?

It plays better politically, and there certainly have been successes that we should tout and be proud of.

But when you look, since the 1950s, manufacturing has been on a declining path.

And the best way, would argue, to keep it as an important force is through the services sector, through a knowledge based economy, through I touring these factories, the extent of which technology is driving successful U.S.

manufacturing enterprises that a few manufacturing for its own sake.

We will miss the boat if we go down that road, so we should not.

But knowledge based and services in general account for four out of five jobs nowadays in the United States.

And that's been a growing sector over the last seven decades.

I am curious to know if you think NAFTA was a mistake.

No, I don't I don't believe so that it led to a very effective division of labor in a sense, tying in different countries strengths on the North American continent.

And I think it would be a mistake to undo those strengths that have been built up because it allowed us collectively to compete better on the global stage.

When you look at the automobile industry, when I was growing up in Ohio, that was in a serious state of decline.

It's it's made a nice rebound, seen some great innovations.

Immigrants have come to the United States, people like Elon Musk and what they did with Tesla.

When you look at the overall power of immigrants and what they can do for the U.S.

economy, the more open we can be to talent, thoughts, and trade.

That's the recipe for national success.

And when you look at countries that have become less open, whether it's Venice in the 1200s, China or the Ottoman Empire in the 1400s, they've put themselves on the road to decline, as opposed to a secret sauce to the Roman Republic was its openness to people and to trade and to ideas.

And when it became leaning into the Roman Empire and more authoritarian, where fewer people had agency in their society, they put themselves on the road to decline.

Let me also ask you about some of the data that you cite in your piece for U.S.

News and World Report.

You write, of the 100 U.S.

counties with the highest productivity, nearly half are home to at least one research university, according to analysis by Mark Muro and Shriya Polly of the Brookings Institution.

These 44 communities represent less than 1.5% of the counties in America, yet they generate 35% of our nation's economic output.

I wouldn't challenge that data.

I think what I, I think what I would hear probably most often from rural listeners is that not every rural community has an Alfred as an anchor, that the majority, the vast majority, do not, and that in the future they may feel like the political promises of bringing back manufacturing sound, you know, rosier than a knowledge economy that they can't really see and touch and feel and already don't feel like they're part of.

So what's the message for them?

It's it's a fair point.

Monroe County is one of those 44 counties in the Brookings study that just came out this year.

So institutions like the U. Of our in right.

And we have we're blessed with 18 universities in the greater colleges in the greater Rochester area, in Allegheny County, where Alfred's located.

We're blessed with three higher ed institutions, Houghton as well, and Alfred State and, in terms of job growth and also accounting for the total number of jobs, it's an important economic element.

And the more we can foster a brain gain to rural areas through higher ed institutions and throughout the United States, we are blessed with higher ed institutions in the rural area.

Those can become potent.

Many Ellis Islands for more rural counties like Allegheny County and then finding a from with the students we attract.

We've just recently launched an entrepreneurial institute through our college of business that gets more hands on learning experiences for our students across our different academic units, with the entrepreneurial life and bringing ideas to life that that's that can be an important recipe for a county like Allegheny County to be more successful and so when you talk about, you know, the things that Alfred is doing.

No, no doubt, we've talked to some of the people on your staff, some of the students who've come through your school to talk about the future of materials, glass, ceramics, all kinds of really interesting development happening there.

And that's just, you know, sort of a slice of what's going on there.

I will I will tell you, Mr.

President, it's blown me away.

What what's happening there?

But I also think about the future of the working class that doesn't attend.

And some of the jobs that you're talking about, there are not necessarily just for people who are attending the schools or graduating with degrees.

But is there a typical set of jobs when you think about the future of the working class, maybe the rural working class, that their grandparents were either agricultural in the agricultural sector, but also maybe, maybe did have some kind of manufacturing base?

What does a knowledge economy look like in the working class for rural America?

I think there's still wonderful opportunities, anything Covid and what we've seen in the labor dynamics.

So we're the only place in the United States that has more higher ed institutions than stoplights.

There's only one stoplight in town, two higher ed institutions, Alfred State's Right next door, and my counterpart there reports growing enrollments as well.

They are mainly driven by producing people for the trades and some fabulous opportunities for Hvac technicians, electricians, what you can learn nowadays in those fields, and they're an important part of America's success, too.

And so just assuming everybody's purpose should be one path.

We need people with all sorts of talents powering our economy forward.

Why do you think that there is a, a lower percentage of American high school students who are telling the surveyors that they're thinking about going to college, they want to go to college, or they think it would be a good idea or affordable to go to college.

We've seen not just not just Covid related.

I mean, some of this impact I probably comes from some of the culture wars or some politics of the last decade, but it's not from what I can tell in the data, it's not just Covid related that there is a real change in the trust of the institutions of higher education and higher learning.

What do you think is driving that shift?

And maybe some of the negative reputation?

One is just the underlying demographics.

People have had fewer kids.

And so over the next ten years, the college going population was expected, declined in the northeast by close to 25%, less so in the southeast, but that the demography is a headwind, that the higher ed sector that's had their political questions, I think, largely driven by ideological debates over whether we're being indoctrinated and what the we're indoctrinating students or not.

So it's on us to be able to articulate the value that a college education brings.

We're developing our next strategic plan and a key component of the next plan is making knowledge work.

So how do we lean into our hands on learning opportunities to be able to connect the dots for our students curated experiences that will make them then both professionally and personally successful?

So it's on us to have to make that case and to be able to convince students and their families that their investments worthwhile.

When you look at the stats, it's still one of the most important, if not the most important, personal investment.

You can make up your run compared to just a high school degree 2 to 1 by going to college, 3 to 1 if you go to for a graduate degree.

But we year in and year out, we've got to get better.

Making that case, especially with the headwinds of demography.

A listener named Rick says, Evan, at the risk of sounding cynical, I will simply state that I will believe that going to college is not important or valuable when the wealthiest families in our nation stop sending their children to college.

Otherwise, it seems to me that this downplaying of college is an effort to curb competition by lower income students with the children of the privilege.

Yes, I agree, we need to also have people who are trained in traditional trades like plumbing, electrical work, etc.

but that should not be considered the only option for those who are from less affluent families.

I wonder if your guest agrees with my assessment.

That's from Rick.

What do you think, Mark?

I don't know if it's an organized, but people can always be wary of competition.

And we counter to that.

We started a program where we were looking to identify, not based on S.A.T.

scores or A.C.T.

scores, but based on character.

So individuals that a high school counselor beliefs really blossomed at Alfred because they have the naissance of our three core strengths.

They foster a sense of belonging.

They're already involved in their high school community, the multitude of interests, so that they can capitalize on the myriad of pathways here at Alfred University and that they've overcome significant obstacles.

So individuals that come from more challenging economic, social circumstances, they've lost a parent.

They've had to help bring up a sibling in the family.

They've had to work at the family business to make sure of the family.

So we're looking for those character elements, and we found great success with how these individuals, with five years into the Q scholars program, how they blossom, their success rates at Alfred University and how they're helping to build community.

So but identifying those not on the basis of privileged privilege tends to be tied to more, higher SAT scores.

You can take it more often if you've got more money, apply to more schools.

We want to find those diamonds in the rough that will make those headlines.

For those folks that aren't identified will be the lost Einsteins to our society.

I think Rick's email, the underlying point that it's instructive to look at what the wealthiest people in society are doing to see what they think has value and what will insulate their children in the future.

I think that's fair.

I think that that's I think that that's a pretty good observation, because part of what Rick is saying there, Mr.

Zupan, is that people are going to be thinking about their best interest and that they've got a pretty good insight into what the future will hold.

But doesn't that also hold true for these moments in history where you kind of you look at what people are doing to hold on to past industries?

Your essay drew on the outdated agricultural economy at the, as you write, at the expense of the then roaring manufacturing sector decades ago, and that it would have been folly to keep investing in an outdated agricultural economy.

And people had a pretty good sense that the manufacturing sector was the way to go.

I'm just wondering what do you think is driving this mentality that political leaders in both major parties in our country have the policymakers, when they are telling people we can bring back manufacture, we don't have to tell you that it's a sector in decline, that we can reverse those declines.

Instead of saying, no, we need to have some tough love here that's not coming back, not in the way that you want.

But there are ways to envision the future of jobs.

Why aren't people saying the latter?

Why are they saying the former?

But it's worth the votes come from and, toss up states, especially at the national level, particularly focused on the heartland traditional industrial base.

So creating a swing of a few percentage points can help you carry an election.

But it's, it's still incumbent on the to the to the listener's point.

There is the settlement of a nursing home.

And maybe this argument that you're clinging to the past by sending your kids to higher ed.

If you come from a more well-to-do circumstance.

But even when you look at the investing, the philanthropy, by far and away the largest gifts still go to higher ed.

It's that old George Eastman quote that there are a lot of ills that ail the world.

If there's one antidote, it's his.

It was his belief in education.

And that's why he gave so extensively to higher ed.

Whether it's the U of R historically black colleges and MIT, and we see it here, white people are willing to invest.

So to kindle, why do people put money in the stock market?

Because they're also betting on returns.

And that that should be a a comforting indicator, even if we believe there's some inertia.

And what motivates people decisions, where to send their kids to.

You told us this hour that, that your own enrollment that you feel pretty strongly about, you're getting a lot of applications, that there's a good bounce back post-Covid.

But your colleagues have talked about and we've looked at the data of a kind of a possible enrollment cliff that is not far away, based on the fact that the financial collapse and the crisis of 2007, 2008, 2009, we did see birth rates decline in this country.

People literally were struggling enough that they were reconsidering the size of their families or having kids at all.

So there are fewer kids who are ready to graduate high school this year, next year, and then and the following year based on that dip in birth rates.

Is that overplayed or do you think that is a very important thing?

It's an incredibly imagine that you're operating in the industry where half the, sorry, a quarter of the domestic market is predicted to disappear over the next ten years.

So our strategies what motivates our strategic planning is our strategies have to be good enough to overcome those significant headwinds.

And there are opportunities.

So intergenerational wealth transfer when it comes to fundraising, we've had incredibly generous trustees, alums, supporters.

There are parts of the globe that are growing.

We've seen tremendous growth in applications.

We have 14 new students this year from Tanzania.

We graduated our first one.

He was one of our two outstanding models.

Miller outstanding senior reward winners in 2020 for words gotten out in Tanzania.

It's a pretty big country.

I've never been.

But, he had a great experience that led to three more students that joined our campus after that and 14 new students.

And, it just to tap into that, we've had a tremendous run this year in men's rugby.

Great new Saxon Hill athletic sports complex being built.

A coach, the Athletic director Deb Stewart, hired that.

It won the Division two championship nationally for a school in Maine.

And with, last couple weeks, it's, just to watch this team in action.

It's a it's a dynamo in the the composition of the team.

But there is a player on the team from Kazakhstan.

One from Bhutan, one from Bangladesh.

Two from Yemen.

One from Zimbabwe.

A one from South Africa, and the rest from a variety of different states.

So there are there are growing parts of the, of the world that we have students from 29 different countries in the incoming class.

We were incredibly nervous in May when Secretary of State Rubio put a hold on visa interviews.

Thankfully, that eventually got lifted.

With the social media screening.

Most of the applicants that have been accepted were able to join us this fall.

A few were going to be joining us in January, so it's not overplayed.

It's a huge headwind, but the tire is going to we're going to have to have strategies good enough and be able to explain the ROI to prospective students and their families.

I'm going to ask you to make sure that we kind of press that point again there.

So earlier this year, there was a lot of concern about foreign students coming in 29 different countries represented in your current or incoming class.

What is the state of that?

I mean, how how concerned are you that for the next year and for the next three years, you're going to have a hard time having those students get to Alfred, get to universities in this country.

Andy Grove, escaped communism in Hungary, led Intel in its heyday to great success.

And he wrote a book once called Only the Paranoid survive.

It had been a university press, but those are good words of wisdom to be steered by and in this day and age.

So we had very we're pleased with the students who joined us from all those different countries, but we cannot take anything for granted.

The latest H-1b visas will be allowed to stay in the United States.

If you're already here or not.

How that gets clarified and people see more noise in the system.

We lost a student this past year who we'd accepted he was going to join us, but then with some of the noise, decided to go to school in Canada, and that losing that talent that the United States otherwise would attract, that's been such an integral part of our secret sauce.

40% of fortune 500 companies nowadays have a founder with immigrant roots, and that's not even counting second generation.

So Steve Jobs, his father, escaped repression in Syria to pursue higher ed in the United States.

If he hadn't had that opportunity, would we have our people?

And nowadays, that's you worried both institutionally as well as for the United States?

We have we run the risk of losing our mojo if we become less open to to talent.

And what about research grants?

You talked about that.

I know that comes from a number of different sources, but is there a concern that federal support could dry up or change their real concern?

We did lose the Department of Education grant dealing with rural mental health and wellness.

The previous administration wanted us to put in a Dei component.

That's what got it axed under this administration.

We were two years into the five year grant.

We're going to be looking to figure out a way to restructure it, to work with our representative, Nick Langworthy, because rural health and wellness in a place like Allegheny County is vital.

At the same time, we're seeing some great opportunities.

We're one of the leading research shops in the country right now on hypersonic flight.

It's it's very important for national defense.

So our strength in materials science and engineering, we're seeing a growth in grants in those areas.

We just had a major celebration in the context of our board meeting last week on what we're doing on the electric power grid.

So with all the AI based data centers supplying reliable power, we have great expertise with no electrical engineering degree in faculty, staff and students doing research.

We launched in November a space materials institute that's focused on building structures on places like the Moon and Mars.

We have since Space-X sent representatives to the launch.

We got featured on USA today.

We account for 40% of the employees of space in Florida through our alumni.

So some marvelous opportunities for both grants and the research experience our undergrad students are going to benefit from through that institute going forward.

But at the same time, there can be shifts.

There's a lot of noise.

Earlier in the year, is the overhead rate going to be changed?

What will get cut to we're not as exposed as the U of R, for example, on an H grants, given the prestigious medical center at the U of R and they've had to worry about, I think it's easy to just assume that tomorrow is going to be like today, and that today is like yesterday, just because of inertia, that it's hard to imagine change.

But I do want to ask you, before I get to some more listener feedback, what you think, how close you think we could be to a real shift, either culturally, and how young people and families think about higher ed, or just in terms of the raw numbers needed for widespread higher ed survival.

I'm not suggesting colleges and universities could go away, but I've heard some of your colleagues talk about consolidation.

So you've got the concern that there could be fewer foreign students coming in the coming years.

You have fewer students in high schools today saying that they consider higher ed an option or a good one, and you've got fewer people being born with declining birth rates.

How close are we to a future that really does look different when it comes to higher ed?

I think it has to continually reinvent itself and prove its value.

That said, were some of the most enduring institutions in the world.

The first higher ed institution got started over 1200 years ago by a woman in North Africa.

So our ability to store or build upon knowledge, that organization has been the recipe to our success and keep an eye on building on it.

As these dynamics occur.

But we need to continue to make making the case why this is a value, and how the world's and how individuals that join our communities are going to be better off because of it.

When we come back from this only break of the hour, I've got some email to read from listeners.

Listeners, if you want to join the conversation.

As we talked to Mark Zupan, the president of Alfred University, we're talking about the future of employment, the role of higher ed, the value that President Zupan sees higher ed bringing to not only their immediate communities, but the future of this country.

And, obviously, that's been up for debate.

It's been pretty heated in the culture wars this year, but for a number of years now, and I'm curious to know listeners of your own views of higher ed have changed.

If you would talk differently to your children about that possibility, or if you still feel very strongly, but one way or another about it, you can email the program connections at Cyborg.

If you're watching on YouTube on the Sky news YouTube channel, please subscribe there and you can join the chat if you like.

Or you can call the program toll free.

844295 talk.

It's 844295825526369.

If you call from Rochester 2639994, we're coming right back with President Mark Zupan of Alfred University.

Coming up in our second hour, investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston joins us.

He's a professor in a number of subjects at RIT, including journalism and the law.

We're going to talk about the attempt by the Trump administration to prosecute the president's enemies, like James Comey, former FBI director.

We'll talk about attacking boats with extrajudicial means.

And we're also going to talk about redistricting in the House and a lot more with David Cay Johnston next hour.

Supporting your favorite programs on Sky TV and radio is just a click away.

When you go public at Zorg, it's a convenient and secure way of supporting an important community resource us.I talk, go public and pledge your support today.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Angela writes in to ask if the president of the university on the program today is worried about getting targeted by the Trump administration.

If you are speaking to bluntly about the president or his administration, what do you say, Mark?

We have a program.

The cut instituted eight years ago called Common Ground for all of our first year students.

So colleges should be the place where learning to listen to different viewpoints be able to express your viewpoints working together.

And we scramble all of our incoming students on every single dimension we can think of.

And their small group facilitated sessions.

I've had the opportunity to facilitate them several years, and, the goals are twofold.

Number one, how do we learn to respect the different backgrounds, viewpoints, aspirations that we bring to the Salford University community?

And number two, what common values are we going to live by?

So you get stronger by listening to different viewpoints?

Sometimes, the current administration has it right.

Sometimes it doesn't.

But it's that, listening the dialog that are key to finding the best ideas, whether it's for a campus community, an individual or nation.

So, we draw Republicans, Democrats, independents, and, and college should be that pivotal place where those dialogs happen.

There is a debate in pirate circles.

There's something called the Chicago principles.

To what extent free speech should have primacy.

It's an important component of the Bill of rights.

We completely agree regarding its importance.

But we think if you just focus on freedom of expression at Alfred University, you're playing too small a game that a lot of life is also listening respectfully, working with others that come from different backgrounds.

Part of the problem with social media is it creates too much of a dopamine loop of just getting clustered.

Agree with that.

Think like you.

And so how do we foster a place, at a college like Alfred, where you can benefit, you can grow by by facing some of the different viewpoints that come on our campus.

Do you agree with the.

Well, I'm not even going to ask if it's this is a Trump administration view.

I'm just going to ask, in general, do you think higher education in this country in the last decade overreached and cultural and I guess what this administration would call wokeism, did it move too far, in in certain ways to the political left or to the cultural left?

I think in terms of, political diversity, being more open, respectful.

Again, I believe higher ed overall did ourselves some damage by not being as open to different viewpoints.

And it's something that our common ground program has at its heart, be mindful of.

So there universities, like individuals, like nations, make mistakes.

The importance is to have those self-correcting mechanisms and learn from the mistakes and get better.

Is there any mistake that you want to point to specifically?

I think the conservative, liberal mix and the openness to different viewpoints that we should have been more mindful as an overall industry of fostering, those different viewpoints.

And let me also ask you briefly before I get to some phone calls, if you think the Trump administration going after the Harvards of the world has been a mistake, I think the manner in which they've gone after them, and the rationale that there could have been much better techniques without doing as much harm as they've ended up doing to those institutions.

And again, that would come back to the Brookings study and how powerful the sanctions are for promoting progress.

A lot of talk these days about the damage to our soybean farmers, higher ed, those over twice the magnitude in terms of annual exports, let alone the violence that we are to attract talent from around the world, many of whom end up staying in this country, start ventures, or contribute to ventures and make America stronger.

All right, let's get Carolyn Bill on the phone.

Carol, first from Bridgeport.

Hey, Carol.

Go ahead.

Hi.

I just have a couple, comments.

I mean, I'm 65 years old now.

I'm originally from southern Pennsylvania.

Very well.

Farm family, but my dad was a teacher, so I went to State University, got my degree in psychology, moved up here to Rochester, and even ended up directing a mental health program.

I could barely make ends meet with my degree.

At the age of 28, I went back to school at SL, CC or Ornamental Horticulture.

35 years later, know I'm still doing designs and I ended up also helping with the Rochester Landscape Technicians program, actually making sure people or they would have made, with my education and I was so devoted to social work.

But, you know, it wasn't a way to make a living.

So I'm thankful I was able to go to college because that was really pushed.

Growing up in the rural area.

In fact, they wanted to deter you from agriculture and farming and probably being as poor as my grandparents.

So, you know, that's my lived experience.

Now, Carol, thank you for the phone call.

Listening on was Finger Lakes Public Radio.

Anything that stands out to you?

Mark Zupan, president of Alfred University, from that phone call and glad, Carol, that you found a meaningful and rewarding purpose.

And sometimes it takes prototyping.

And sometimes what we explore isn't viable.

I have the pleasure this semester of co-teaching Design Your Life class that's patterned after the most popular course at Stanford.

And we've been working with our students on their work views.

What?

Why they work their worldviews, what what makes them happy.

And it's all along the lines of realizing your purpose.

And purpose has to be meaningful to you.

Sustaining to you at the same time that I do also makes the the world a better place.

And it sounds like if you found a meaningful purpose, and one of the exercises we're going through right now with our students is three different prototypes.

Just to test out what you'd like to do the next five years and then to test out, how happy they could make you, what resources they need, is it going to be viable?

And so finding that out, it's early days.

We can if we can find it out at 22 as opposed to 35 or 40, we're going to be better off.

And, each of us on this journey where it's important to identify and realize our purpose.

So thank you for sharing your story and glad to hear about your successes in the horticultural field.

Carol, good luck to you.

Thank you for calling the program Bill in Rochester.

Next on the phone.

Hey, Bill, go ahead.

Hi.

I was going to ask about illiberal, communities on campuses, but that seems to have been addressed, and I appreciate that.

But I did want to also ask about grants.

I've, I've, read that, grants are more directed towards, professors who embrace that progressive orthodoxy, even towards, even in areas, like science.

And, and I was wondering if, President Zupan can comment on that bill.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Mark.

Yeah.

The emphasis and different presidential administrations, has differed to what extent they would like to see components mentioned.

The rural health and wellness grant, where we ended up adding, so and because college campuses disproportionately still have not achieved the ideological diversity that I think would behoove us to be mindful of there's some merit to that argument, Bill, but our our grants largely are in fields, dealing with energy and the sciences.

And that's a grant with our John Stoll Observatory.

The work we're doing in Hypersonics, the electric power grid.

So there, you don't see that particular alignment, but the the important thing is the grants go.

Our provost in silo personally interviews every single faculty candidate, which is a huge commitment on the part that the end of this part and what she wants to identify is, if undergrad teaching is not and mentorship is not what motivates you?

There are other places that are more focused on graduate, that are more focused on research for its own sake.

Here, it's our undergrad students that come first and foremost, and we want to make sure that fits okay from the get go.

All right Bill, anything to add there?

No, but but I do appreciate the, the feedback.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Thanks for the phone call, Bill.

Another bit of feedback here.

Rick wrote back in to say, I just want to say I'm impressed by what President Zupan said about having a first year program intended to foster common ground among the students.

There's no more important effort to be made at this moment.

If we truly hope to preserve our democracy and promote positive civic engagement, I will be looking up information about the Common Ground effort to learn more about it.

That's from Rick.

Anything you want to add there, Mark?

Rick, if you shoot me an email as you pan out.

Alfred.

Dot.

Edu we'll get to more details.

And we've been pleased.

We haven't seen the issues that have surfaced on other campuses.

And we think some of the, some of it is due to this common ground program.

We've renovated our Hillel.

It's full up this year through the generosity of alumni and trustees.

At the same time, we have a very vibrant Muslim student association on campus.

So learning to respect each other, work with each other, you grow through, being exposed to those differences.

One of the brief note on this before I get back to other emails here, President Zupan, you mentioned the dopamine hit that social media can, can foster.

And, and kind of this loop that people get in online, they, they seek like, views like, like, like, and that breeds more extremism.

I mean, I think there's been actual studies of if you get an elevator going 12 floors and everyone on the elevator thinks like you, by the time you get off, you're gonna be more extreme and mean, like, it's amazing how that can happen.

And I just feel like social media and the online communities that we kind of live in now more than in the real world, have made us more extreme.

And my observation I have not been on your campus.

I've not been on a ton of college campuses in the last decade.

But, you know, there's a lot of passionate young people who care about the world.

That's a good thing.

But but when they're kind of getting inculcated by these communities with this notion that any disagreement is kind of apostasy, and I, I think it at least my observation is it might lead to some of the illiberal concerns that Bill has about campus behavior.

Is that fair?

Are you worried about the way students interact with each other?

And do you think that there's a way to, to to change some of that loop and some of that stuff that we get stuck in with social media?

Yeah.

The more in-person dialog and the more hands on, the more you're glued to.

Jonathan Haidt has this wonderful new book, The Anxious Generation.

And to what extent mental health and wellness being on the decline is due to just these dopamine feedback loops that we've put ourselves on, and the tech companies have figured out how to benefit from it.

We have an athletic director, Deb Stewart, been doing a marvelous job, and she likes to say there's no growth in the comfort zone and there's no comfort in the growth zone.

So exposing yourself to different viewpoints, even when you not were growing up, we were largely in TV markets that there were 2 or 3 television stations, three networks nationally.

And so when you have limited opportunities, limited spaces to get your news from, there was you had to appeal to the middle and get viewpoints to ensure viewership to get the ads.

Nowadays, because of the splintering that technology has fostered and that social media has capitalized on, it's easier to go down huge rabbit holes where you're not growing.

And if anything, it's teaching your content to listen to.

A marvelous podcast this Morning by Arthur Brooks, who's on the Kennedy School Harvard Business School faculty as well.

He started life in this case.

And Carol point is a French horn player, in the Barcelona Symphony and then realized she really liked ideas.

And so we ended up getting a undergrad degree, then a master's, then a PhD.

The first two at night, in on the client because he didn't want to let on that.

He didn't want to be a French horn player anymore, but he just he'd like to counter that inclination to go for contempt, the importance of being respectful and conveying love, even when you end up disagreeing with the other people, but that there's wonderful growth.

If you can share with that one.

All right, back to your email.

Patrick writes a fellow traveler with Carol.

He says, I've got degrees in psychology and sociology, which I've never used.

I'm also involved in ornamental horticulture.

I'd love to get in touch with Carol.

All right, Carol, let us know if you want Patrick to take give you a phone call.

But look, that's I think that that experience that Carol is describing, in in many ways resonates with a lot of people like Patrick.

So, Patrick, thank you for that email.

And let me get Peter, who wrote in to say, let me just oh yeah.

Go ahead.

Mike.

Yep.

Real quick, one of my big regrets in college is I'd never took a psychology class, and on my day job, I've had to learn on the fly because it's so important to understanding what makes people tick.

We just had two of our prominent clinical psychology alums back to talk to students, faculty, staff.

It was a marvelous learning opportunity for me.

So I think we should all take a little bit of that.

I think we should all take classes on, different forms of reasoning and argument, but that's just that's my opinion.

Peter writes in to say, why doesn't the president of Alfred highlight the push for growing enrollment of Alfred University State School of Engineering, one of 2 or 3 schools with ceramic engineering in the country?

A long, storied history of materials engineering.

I'm an alumni, and it feels as if he's growing, for growing in any enrollment, but not pushing the degrees that will truly help the United States.

And goes on to say that, the people he's encountered from Alfred with engineering degrees do great.

And, anyway, he's what do you do you think that that's an accurate characterization of what you're doing?

Mark?

No.

Peter, send me an email.

We'll get to the materials on how we're marketing the New York State College of Ceramics.

We're celebrating 125 years of that college's success.

And the alumnus have gone on to some wonderful accomplishments.

When you use a smartphone, the Gorilla Glass was invented by an alum of ours when we took the Covid vaccine.

The files were invented by another New York State College of Ceramics alums.

Glass is a subset of ceramic engineering.

We're the only school of the country that has bachelors, masters and PhD programs in glass science, engineering, fiber optics, how to transmit voice and data.

Another alum.

So just the and the work right now in Hypersonics for that.

We're so incredibly proud of our New York psychologist ceramics.

It also encompasses and what makes us great as a top ten art school, with the being a world leader in glass art and ceramic art and we're building up.

Peter, you might know a state of the art foundry that will create crossover programs, especially in our school of Art and design and our engineering school.

I get ready to close with this last couple minutes, and this is really its own conversation, but I just want to get your, you know, sort of your toe in the water.

On the future of AI here.

Do you think, Mark, that in the future in this country.

And I'm not talking about a thousand years in the future, I'm talking about the next generation, maybe two, that I will account for more jobs or fewer jobs.

And I hear people say, well, the horse and buggy industry was worried that the automobile industry was going to take their jobs away, and they just went and did different jobs.

But I feels different to me.

I wonder if you think, differently about that.

It's got that same.

But we've gone through this before.

We're actually bullish on AI.

We're introducing a minor in that field, and we like to just half jokingly say we're leaning into Alfred intelligence.

And we think people that know how to use it will be quite successful out there.

When you look at the salaries that matter.

Was recently hiring to scale up its AI program.

Some type of salary has been commanded with folks, and that expertise is one testament to it.

There have been similar apprehensions when the computer came along, to what extent would destroy jobs?

It's the different hypotheses, but I think we'll end up with a better life and actually more widespread opportunities as a result of being able to harness this, this power, this technical, latest technological innovation.

If it doesn't kill us.

All right.

Yeah.

That's true.

I mean, assuming that.

Yeah, sure.

I want to thank the president of Alfred University for spending the hour with us.

Mark, Japan is generous with his time, and he's got a great team that reaches out to make sure we are in touch and seeing what you're doing.

He wrote a number of recent pieces.

We've been talking about the U.S.

News and World Report piece, but we can link if we can't in our show notes to some of what Mark has been writing, if listeners want to check that out as well.

And I just want to make this an open invitation, mark, for, for you and your team to to stay in touch with us, to keep us in touch with what you're doing.

These are important conversations about higher ed, but it's also about the economy.

It's about rural communities, and it's about where we go in the future.

And so thank you for making the time, and I look forward to the next one.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Look forward as well and take care.

Mark Zupan, President of Alfred University A lot of great feedback from listeners this hour.

I'm sure we'll have a lot more to talk about next.

Iowa an investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, David Cay Johnston, joins us.

More connections coming up in just a moment.

And.

How.

This program is a production of Sky Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station, its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium, without express written consent of Sky is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link.

At WXXI news.org.