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So let the Democrats push back.

Let the courts get involved, let lawsuits happen.

Let the party in charge in this case, the Trump administration and the Republicans defend their actions in positions.

Not to overly simplify it.

But this is how democracy works.

It's lumpy.

It's uneven.

It's uncomfortable.

It's awkward.

It's painful even.

But the process has gotten us through so many critical moments in our history and probably will again.

Welcome back to the most widely watched and the longest running program in North and South Carolina around Carolina.

Business policy and public affairs.

We will try to bring the best of the dialog and issues at hand during this graduation season as we almost head into summer, and we'll start in a moment.

Stay with us.

Because joining this dialog later is the new president of Davidson College, Doctor Douglas Hicks.

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On this edition of Carolina Business Review John Hood, from the John William Pope Foundation Dr. Joseph C. Von Nesson, of the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina And special guest Douglas A. Hicks, Davidson College President.

Hello.

Welcome to our program.

Happy graduation.

It's, it tis the season.

You know, John will start there.

So we've got graduates that are turning into job seekers.

Now, what's what's the subtle nuance of that is they enter the workforce.

Well, I don't I'm not aware that there's a lot of comprehensive data that looks at college placement rates for new graduates.

Typically, you do want to find that first job in the first few months after graduation.

And a lot of kids do.

I'm hearing anecdotally that some schools that have placement agencies and that they're just a little bit harder to find the kinds of jobs that graduates want.

But here's a really telling statistic.

I think, about our labor market.

Law school admissions are way up, and you might think, well, that's good if you like lawyers.

But actually, sometimes those kinds of admissions, those kinds of data suggest students are uncertain about their job prospects or this is the time to go back to school, because I'm not going to get the job I want.

I'm going to go ahead and upskill and get my next credential, or in this case, get a graduate degree.

And so I'm a little troubled by that, just because I wonder if that is a potentially telling indicator about the labor market.

What do you think.

Is it Kelly water.

Yeah, it is for the technical colleges as well for the same the same reason.

If you're having trouble finding employment, that's often a time when people think, well, I need to upskill or retrain.

And so you see higher enrollment.

So that's actually a pretty good metric looking at the unemployment rate to to predict some of those enrollment trends.

Well, we we saw a recent unemployment number and it wasn't bad actually.

Employment was good.

So Joey, back to this idea that the data around the economy and what we're feeling is, is a different thing, right?

Yes.

And completely different.

All of the all of the labor market data are backwards looking, of course.

And and the labor market does hold up very well and has looked good through the at least the early part of April.

But if we're looking for leading metrics, looking ahead, the single best metric I would argue, for the labor market is initial unemployment insurance claims.

So when when someone loses their job, they have the opportunity to file for unemployment insurance benefits.

And when they do that, they're considered an initial claimant.

And so we can tally those up.

Those are available on a on a weekly basis.

And so they give us more of a real time feel for layoffs.

When we look at those data.

In the last 2 to 3 weeks, we have actually seen an increase both at the national level and in the Carolinas.

So I would call that a yellow flag.

We'll see if that.

How big of an increase?

It's it's up in South Carolina about about 20, 20%, which is but it isn't as big as it sounds because it's been at such a low level overall.

So that's a little misleading.

But I would just say in general, it's a yellow flag.

If it stays elevated, then that's something we need to keep an eye on.

You know, the immigration debate around immigration, and not just Ice and deportation and closing the border, but the fact that that was a lot of, those were those workers were solid workers.

And there was a lot of wringing hands and consternation of how that was going to show up in the labor market.

Is that showing up in a negative way, or is it a low?

Okay.

So it's not so bad.

I think it's a wait and see again.

There's certain there's certain suggestions.

There's certain industries like hospitality and retail, like construction, like AG, certain kinds of harvesting jobs that immigrants have been a significant portion of.

And the theory was that if you had this really strict enforcement at the border and you significantly reduced the influx, it isn't so much.

Deportations, as far as I know, are not significantly different than they were a year ago.

But the the crossing over the border is way, way, way down.

Now, some of that, though, are people who cross, cross, cross, cross.

It wasn't necessarily people who come one time and stay and they work in the construction industry for five years.

So it's a stock and flow problem.

You can't assume just because you've got a very significant reduction in illegal border crossings in the first few months of this year, which is undeniable, that that necessarily suggests we're going to struggle to find construction workers in six, nine, 12 months.

But it is possible, and we need to be looking out for that as another area where policy decisions made at the federal level might very well affect the economy in the Carolinas, obviously for good or for ill, because policy could go in lots of different directions.

But in the case of the labor market, particularly for skilled trades and trades and construction, we all know that in the Carolinas, we have we've had rapid population growth continuing.

We have this demand for housing at every level, not just affordable housing, but housing and all sorts of price points.

And one of the constraints has been, do you have enough labor to do the main work to do the subcontracting work to put in new units?

To put more inventory in the Carolinas have been pretty good, actually, at adding inventory, some of the highest rates in the country and adding housing inventory.

And that's why even though we struggle in the Carolinas, we're not nearly as bad off as in other places.

But let's be watching for that, because, again, one of the constraints to be able to keep up with that market demand and try to catch up with the missing units that we should have added ten years ago, is going to be the labor force.

So I want to I want to come back to that in just a second.

But I want to take this labor.

We had, the heads of tourism on the program recently, together with Tuttle from visit North Carolina, and it's Duane Parris from South Carolina.

And they both said that hiring that that immigration was going to affect those workers that come in seasonally for that.

Would you do you do you agree with that?

Yes.

And we do see that anecdotally, among businesses that.

Was it have a chilling effect, Joey.

It it makes it more uncertain about what they can do going forward, because they're already facing a labor shortage and have been for the last several years.

If we look at agriculture and construction and, and leisure and hospitality as well.

So all three are struggling to find workers, this creates a concern of exacerbating that challenge.

And how are they going to meet meet the demand.

So we again, we don't have good data on specific numbers, but anecdotally we do hear that that is that is a concern, especially as we move into the summer months.

Okay.

I want to hit to two more things.

Come back to you John, on housing, just for a second.

Is there anyone that has in your, in your mind, a really good idea to fix the housing crunch?

Are there any really?

Wow.

We should be doing that.

There's no one single bullet, I'm afraid.

I wish there was.

And we could fire it.

I don't think that's the case, but I do think the Carolinas have already, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the municipalities in the Carolinas have, in fact, made it easier to do middle missing what's called middle missing.

Missing middle housing, the accessory dwelling units speeding up, just straight up, speeding up permitting has been helpful.

But the other thing I want to mention is technology.

You know, we were talking just now about how the, the, construction industry and the hospitality industry, but potentially affected by labor shortages.

Businesses aren't just sitting still and looking at that.

There are housing companies now that are using artificial intelligence and robotics to start doing additional pieces, even framing work, wall panels, things like that, through automation and using AI to plan out.

And that could actually speed up construction of housing quite a bit or reduce its cost.

So let's not assume whether it's hospitality in the use of AI there that affects the use of labor and even construction even we think construction is the one thing we're going to need warm bodies to do, which is true.

But there's lots of prep work, and there are lots of pieces that you could put together with technology.

And that's coming up.

It's 30s data point.

Barbara Melvin, head of the Ports Authority in South Carolina, said that they see about a 30%.

They see and her quote was something like 30% blanks, meaning 30% of the of the ships either coming in or at the terminal are not for what is a blank and is that is that is that alarming to you?

It it is, it is it is very concerning, because the port is so integrated to South Carolina's economy, on in all sectors or in most sectors, we see that in manufacturing on the export side.

And that suggests that manufacturing, activity is down, which it is.

We see that showing up in the data and on the import side, because it means that consumers are buying less and that can affect the logistics sector.

Think about truck drivers and the entire distribution channel.

So especially if that sticks it's not a one time number.

And we see that continue into the summer.

That could be a problem.

Thank you I wish we had more time to unpack that.

But thank you.

Coming up on this program, Lee Lilly is the secretary of commerce for North Carolina.

He will be sitting down with us to chat about how the old North State can even be more economic, develop me strong.

And also Scott Scout Motors.

Scott Keough, CEO.

Well, also join us on this program.

There are slightly less than 6000 colleges and universities in the entire country from 2008.

Now, follow me on this.

From 2008 to 2023, nearly 300 colleges and universities closed in the U.S in the first nine months of last year.

28 degree granting institutions closed.

What is this data telling us?

Is this standard business cycle of consolidation, or does it point to something else?

And especially given some of the debate around policy around higher education, in addition, both Limestone and Saint Andrews schools have closed in the Carolinas as well within the last few weeks.

A lot to think about.

Joining us now is Davidson College's 19 president, Doctor Douglas Hicks.

And I can say, Reverend Hicks, welcome to the program.

Thank you very much, Chris.

Good to be here.

Yes, sir.

An honor to have you.

Doctor Hicks, when you see, when you hear, when you feel, when you experience this, what do you think is behind these numbers in higher ed?

Well, first of all, the thousands of higher ed institutions are a sign of strength and importance in the American economy and society.

So it is a vibrant, dynamic, part of our economy.

We're the 10th largest, export industry in America, and it's a pride of, US industry that we have the best higher education system in the world.

So there is some movement, the demographic trends show what is sometimes called the demographic cliff that is coming.

And that's particularly among, white U.S domestic students more swaying towards the northeast.

But overall, there's, there will be fewer, college age kids coming in in the, in coming years.

So I also believe that the international market of students is very strong and a wonderful, way for, American values to be expressed and, infused into leaders, around the world.

So there is a market out there.

But, that's one of the interesting discussions is how international students are welcome in the country.

And do they want to come or not?

What's that demand?

But small public, sorry, small private colleges are struggling at the current moment because, their model has, is not as strong economically.

They don't have the state behind them.

They don't have, as many public resources.

And what I would call there's a flight to quality.

So schools like, the top, research universities and the top national liberal arts colleges are actually way up in applications.

And so the demand for Carolina Duke Wake Davidson is very high and increasing.

Question.

So one of the issues that have come up in higher education in recent years, of course, is freedom of expression, free speech questions on campus and then the flip side of that is students feeling harassed, students feeling disregarded, or even, attacked for their backgrounds.

Is there a difficult balance to strike, particularly in a private college, which is not subject to the first directly to the First Amendment, regulation, between free speech, giving students the right to express themselves and others getting right to express themselves, and making sure that we don't have students harassed.

We obviously saw that after the October 7th events.

There's absolutely a tension there between, free expression and mutual respect owed mutual respect owed to every person on a college campus and beyond.

And so, free expression is a fundamental value, like, like Davidson College pulled a group of students, faculty and alumni together to write Davidson's commitment to free of expression.

And two years ago, we affirmed that on the faculty side and the trustee side, and I just had it posted on the wall in the center of Chambers Building, across from our honor code signatures.

So we want as much free expression as possible, but we actually, as a moral community, as an educational community, Davidson only has 2000 students and just under a thousand employees in a community.

We actually have higher expectations of each other than just what the First Amendment would allow and speech.

So that line of what is, harassing or discriminatory is a is a hard one.

And we always want to remember that we're an educational institution and our students are 18 to 22 years old.

They're learning.

And so we think, first of education, before we start thinking about rules or discipline.

And so to even be able to talk with mutual respect about what is acceptable and what's not acceptable requires imagining yourself in another shoes.

And that, of course, is part of the educational exercise.

And presumably something that faculty you, everyone else on campus is to model for the students to learn.

Absolutely.

And so we what we value in professors is their ability to teach people to think critically, not to think like they do.

And that is, you know, we have 230 fantastic world class faculty, and each one is a unique individual.

And so they have different pedagogy or teaching strategies.

But we do expect that every person will show that respect to their students and teach them to think, not to impose their particular perspective.

That's always a challenge.

As I like to say, if you have people at your institution, you have imperfect, situation, and we've got to work through that joy.

Well, speaking of teaching styles, obviously I ChatGPT and other, other, technology coming into the classroom.

How is that changing teaching philosophy?

And I'm going beyond just the plagiarism issue using ChatGPT to write in an essay.

But how are teachers incorporating that and teaching students to use it effectively?

Given that it's it's coming into the classroom or has the potential to so quickly.

Yes.

Generative AI is probably the most challenging and the most incredibly exciting development in higher education.

Today, we have 140 of those faculty with a few staff mixed in who joined the innovation initiative to look at how I can impact their courses and how it should impact their courses.

So we plan by next year to ask every faculty member to state on their syllabus what and how I can be used in their classes, what's legitimate and part of the, the learning exercise and what would not be, inbounds or appropriate for them?

Our faculty are finding an amazing ways for to use artificial intelligence.

I heard from one faculty member who is mentoring a senior thesis.

She, had some complicated data analyzes, and she.

She said to check her students data work.

She had an ongoing conversation with ChatGPT 4.0 and said, let's talk about the data and let's try this method.

And she did confirm the student's work, which, you know, it's powerful if you're, trying to trying to educate folks, to not be afraid of technology, but to use it for humanity.

I think to boost their productivity, too.

They can do so much more now in a semester than they could before.

So we try to focus on it in a national liberal arts college.

What are the things that, at least till today, what makes us human?

And what are the things that only humans can do?

And focus on that and let the, technology do the things.

It could be more automated.

You're in an interesting position where you're an econ minor and you are an ordained minister, and you are a college president, and we are obviously a whole bunch of competing ideas in your head.

But I want to ask you the idea about college finance reform.

When when you when when someone approaches going to a school and they see the tuition room for tuition and some of Davidson's plus 60,000.

I'm not asking you to defend that.

But when someone goes to school and they can go to a state school or go to a private school and they take their choice, it seems like it's a complicated soup of endowments and grants and funds you can get, but you're not going to pay retail.

But you will should that be flat and should that be simplified?

Have colleges and universities made it harder on themselves by doing raising billions of dollars for, oh, I don't know, endowments?

It's a fantastic and important question.

And it has to be dynamic.

We can't just do what we did a decade ago or a few decades ago.

The the sticker price of the top institutions in the country, whether you're an out of state student going to a public or you're going to a private is incredibly high.

And we still see the value in that experience.

But you said you mentioned, the figure of, a tuition around $60,000 plus room, board and fees.

It's it's a high number.

I'm.

My wife and I are paying that for, one college student, and we'll pay it for two different parts of the country next year, because neither one to go to the school where their dad is president.

But for a student with high need in North Carolina, they can come to Davidson College more affordable than they could go to Chapel Hill or to U and C Charlotte.

And that is because we're one of, two dozen schools in America that are in need blind.

We made 100% of need, and we do it without loans in the package.

So we have a messaging problem for sure, because that sticker price is daunting to low income students.

But higher education is itself a public good.

It's also a private good.

But we want not just the wealthy to come to our school.

So over 60% of our students are receiving need based aid.

At Davidson College, the average package is over $60,000 higher than the tuition price.

Is that annually.

Or less annually.

So we we pay we put out about $75 million a year for financial aid.

70 million plus of that comes from our endowment and from operating moneys.

And another 4 to 5 million comes from the federal government and from the state government for in-state students with need.

So we're we have a complex economy, but what it does is it allows us to have world class faculty at a very high, very low student faculty ratio.

And we're able to have students from across the socioeconomic distribution a quarter of our, our U.S. students are Pell eligible.

So low income students.

Yeah.

John.

Question.

So I think I'm right that the word leader is in the motto of Davidson College.

And has been for generations.

Davidson has produced leaders for the Carolinas, the South and beyond, public sector, private sector, nonprofit sector.

A lot of campuses now and in the Carolinas and elsewhere are pursuing a more explicit strategy of training future leaders, having programs about leadership or integrated.

I mean, naturally, we assume that a a grounding in the liberal arts, in a specialty, in a, in a valuable discipline is important for a leader, but they're going beyond that to actually try to teach or cultivate or inculcate leadership as a value for the future.

Is that something Davidson is working on?

It is, you know, our the key sentence in our statement of purpose is we help students, cultivate humane instincts, discipline and creative minds for leadership and service.

And so, we do believe that the entire experience a highly mentored, a highly curated experience on a residential campus is itself training for leadership.

And we are about to embark upon what we're calling an institute, the Institute for Public Good, which will house our deliberative citizenship initiative, which which is itself a way where people come in conversations like this, sitting around a table showing mutual respect and trying to listen rather than to win arguments.

Some of my faculty and students have said no.

We also like to win arguments, but deliberation is about showing respect and learning, and we need more of that clearly in our civic and public political life.

And then we have, leadership programs such as our leadership fellows, such as, as it's written into our Belk Scholars program and our, Duke for the Duke Scholars program.

And so I see doing more of that, our athletics program has leadership baked into it, and we recruit, based on our ability to teach people to lead on the court or in the pool or on the track and into life.

And when I meet alums here in Charlotte and around the country and world, there's a disproportionate number of our alums who have leadership roles, who played, on the basketball team, men's or women's basketball, or on one of our other sports teams.

So we have we are being intentional about it.

And I like to say to my faculty, if we didn't believe that leadership could be taught, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing.

Joey, about a minute.

Will you address some of this already?

But getting back to the idea that in education it seems to it seems as though we're hearing more and more of a connection between education being defined as vocational training, and you're positioning kind of against that of the broader, the broader benefits of a liberal arts education.

So can you talk a little bit more about that explicit criticism and how you try to address that?

Sure.

It's a minute.

Yes.

It needs to be both.

And we are training people to be, good citizens and to have meaningful careers to contribute to productivity in their own lives and in their firms and into the economy.

And so, you know, we just hired a chief career officer who will be the executive director of our Matthews Center for Career Development.

And he has, experience from a peer institution and, also is in the corporate sector.

And so we realize that parents and students want to know, will I get a job?

And our employment numbers are strong.

Our place for numbers, either for graduate professional school or the, going straight into that first job, they're very strong.

And we also have a high knowledge rate.

We, we don't just look at the 30% who are the strongest, we try to get 100% and to know where they're going, but we're training them for a lifetime, so help them get that first job.

We know they'll then use those liberal arts skills to advance.

Doctor Hicks, comeback because, we haven't unpacked a lot, and we'd like to have you back.

And I know you've been here for a couple of years now, but welcome.

Thank you so much.

And it's, it's great to get a chance to talk with you all and to for Davidson to be part of the, Carolina's economy.

Thank you.

Joey.

John, good to see you.

Good night.

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