Changing Higher Ed

Empathy is easy to talk about and harder to practice when the pressure is high. In higher education, leaders are often navigating conflict, fatigue, and urgency, which is exactly when empathy gets misread as weakness instead of treated as a leadership competency. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Laura Parson, Associate Professor at North Dak...

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Dan Predoehl , assistant dean of Extended Learning and director of the Emeritus Institute at Saddleback College, one of the nation's highest-performing community colleges. The conversation focuses on why enrollment challenges persist even at strong institutions and how treating enrollment as a shared responsib...

Institutional transformation in higher education is often described in broad terms. At Stevens Institute of Technology, Dr. Nariman Farvardin describes transformation in operational terms: disciplined strategic planning, academic realignment, and year-after-year execution systems that produced what Dr. Drumm McNaughton calls the Stevens Miracle. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed podcast, D...

Higher education enters 2026 under conditions that are no longer hypothetical. In this 8th annual end-of-year episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton is joined by Tom Netting of TEN Government Strategies to review how the predictions made at the end of 2024 played out during the 2025 operating year and what those outcomes mean for institutional planning in 2026. Rather tha...

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Ashley Finley, Vice President of Research and Senior Advisor to the President at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), about the findings of the 2025 AAC&U Employer Survey and what they reveal about employer expectations for higher education. Based on nearly 20 years of longitudinal re...

Higher education communication is no longer a marketing function. It is a strategic discipline shaped by political pressure, governance risk, and real-time public scrutiny. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with David Maffei , Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Americas at Staffbase , about how university presidents and boards must rethi...

Higher education is facing a growing disconnect between public perception and the realities of campus life. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Peter Murphy Lewis , CNN political analyst, filmmaker, and director of People Worth Caring About , about how institutions can reclaim their narrative and rebuild trust through authentic human stories. This...

Higher education leaders are being asked to innovate faster than their institutions are built to move. This episode of Changing Higher Ed explores how presidents and boards can change that. Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Erika Liodice, Executive Director of the Alliance for Innovation and Transformation (AFIT), about how institutions can strengthen their innovation capacity through futures think...

Accreditation trends and expectations are shifting under rising accountability pressures, financial constraints, and increased scrutiny of student outcomes. This episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast features Maria Toyoda , President and CEO of the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), in a strategic conversation with Dr. Drumm McNaughton about how institutions can strengthen...

Improving how teaching happens in the classroom is one of the most effective ways to increase student retention, stabilize tuition revenue, and strengthen institutional reputation—yet most universities don't manage it strategically. In this episode of Changing Higher Ed , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with David Gooblar , Associate Professor at the University of Iowa and author of The Missing Course...

Free speech on college campuses has become one of higher education's most volatile and defining challenges. In this episode, Dr. Drumm McNaughton talks with Dr. Sean Stevens , Chief Research Advisor at FIRE—the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression—about findings from FIRE's newly released College Free Speech Rankings and the state of academic freedom, the growing political pressures on...

Host Dr. Drumm McNaughton welcomes Dr. Harrison Keller , president of the University of North Texas and former Texas commissioner of higher education. This episode of the Changing Higher Ed podcast helps higher education presidents, boards, and senior leaders rethink how to connect institutional mission with workforce readiness. It explores how institutions can better align employer partnerships,...

At one of the smallest graduate schools in the nation, a system built to serve just over a hundred students is redefining how higher education can grow. CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism has proven that scale isn't the key to enrollment stability—structure is. By integrating admissions, student affairs, career services, and alumni engagement into one cohesive unit, the school has...

When every board discussion centers on deficits, deferred maintenance, or another "strategic realignment," higher education leaders start asking what it would take to fix the system instead of just managing decline. In this episode of the  Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Beth Martin, President of Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU), who led her institution through a...

Higher education institutions are increasingly at risk from cyberattacks that threaten enrollment, accreditation, financial aid compliance, and reputation. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Brian Kelly, Chief Information Security Officer at Community Health Networks of Connecticut and former higher education CISO, about why cybersecurity must be...

Higher education institutions face strained budgets, declining enrollments, and shifting donor behavior—making fundraising a strategic priority, not just an operational function. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Bill Crouch , CEO of BrightDot and former university president, about how presidents and boards can strengthen higher education fun...

AI dashboards offer higher education boards the opportunity to boost performance to improve their institutions. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed Podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Marc Huffman, CEO of OnBoard and eSCRIBE , about how AI dashboards provide trustees with better insight into board work and support more effective board governance. This conversation is especially releva...

Families are writing universities directly to ask if it's safe to send their children to the United States. Institutions are also facing longer visa backlogs and growing competition from abroad. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with  Dr. Roger Douglas , Dean for International Programs and Development at St. Martin's University, about how leaders can...

This episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast focuses on enrollment management solutions presidents and boards can use to navigate the enrollment cliff. Bill Conley and Bob Massa of Enrollment Intelligence Now join Dr. Drumm McNaughton to share practical guidance on setting realistic enrollment goals, aligning enrollment with finance, and managing institutional risk . (Part one examined the chal...

Institutions face converging pressures that are reshaping enrollment management. Declining participation rates, tuition discounting that erodes net revenue, international enrollment volatility, and political mandates are forcing colleges to rethink how they attract and retain students. Enrollment management is no longer just admissions and aid — it has become a strategic system linking recruitment...

Caltech's board once had nearly 80 members; too many for focused discussion or quick decisions. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton talks with Cathy Light, Caltech's Secretary of the Board , about how the institution streamlined governance , strengthened committees, and made trustee reorientation mandatory. Light, who has held senior roles at Carnegie Mellon Un...

40% of California's licensed doctoral psychologists come from one university that nearly failed a decade ago. Their turnaround didn't come from diversifying programs or chasing enrollment—it came from making the hardest decision in higher ed: cutting what wasn't excellent. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Andy Vaughn , President and CEO of Allia...

With first-generation and low SES students facing steep barriers to completion and career entry, Great Jobs KC has built a replicable model that starts in high school, continues through college, and delivers real workforce outcomes. In this episode of the  Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Great Jobs KC CEO Earl Martin Phalen about how regional collaboration, wraparoun...

Higher education leaders are facing the most sweeping set of federal regulatory and funding changes in over a decade. In this Washington Update episode of the  Changing Higher Ed® podcast , Dr. Drumm McNaughton welcomes back frequent guest Tom Netting, president of TEN Government Strategies, to discuss the July 2025 budget reconciliation bill—federal legislation that significantly alters student l...

Most colleges rely on more than 20 disconnected systems to support students, creating confusion, reducing engagement, and lowering graduation rates. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with  Elliot Felix is the founder of brightspot Strategy (acquired by Buro Happold in 2020) and the author of The Connected College: Leadership Strategies for Student Succ...