Hansen Attends Higher Education Roundtable Conference

President Hansen recently visited New York City to attend the 22nd annual conference on higher education, which was hosted by Arizona State University President Michael Crow. The discussion, which took place on Nov. 4th at the Harvard Club, included nine college and university presidents from across the country and roughly 24 members of the national news media. Accompanying the presidents were communications officers from each institution. 

Director of the Communications and Media Relations team Bryan McNulty attended the conference alongside Hansen and observed the talk firsthand. He emphasized that while the forum was designed to kindle dialogue among the various presidents and media attending, it also provided a venue for communications officers to interact with media outlets.

“[It] was an opportunity for President Hansen to engage on major issues in higher education with national media and a small group of her counterparts from other private and public colleges and universities” he explained. “It was also a great opportunity for college communications officers to meet national reporters that we have worked with, and others that we might like to work with, to learn more about their story interests.”

The group was situated in an “L” shaped room, with the college and university executives seated at a large table alongside some members of the media in the main wing. In the other wing sat remaining reporters and each institution’s communications officials.

During the discussion, McNulty noted, any individual present in the room was authorized to ask or answer questions, leading to a quickly paced back-and-forth discussion that addressed a broad range of topics. He recalled that the panel considered questions regarding how economic pressures are influencing higher education, the virtues of a liberal arts education versus the strict study of business in today’s world, the correlation between the popularity of TV shows like CSI and the amount of students studying forensic science, the issues tied to the 3 year undergraduate degree system, the challenges faced by foreign students studying in America since 9/11, and numerous others.

“The conversation focused a lot on costs and cuts and changes in the way we are going to have to ‘deliver’ higher education more efficiently, I found myself not surprisingly speaking up for the value of teaching students how to learn, and how to love learning” Hansen retrospectively told The Student. “As opposed to over-stressing vocational training, making the case that we had to be cautious about preparing students for jobs that might not exist in 10 or 20 years”.

Hansen noted that at one point during the discussion, a reporter from one of the major magazines present at the talk passed her a note that articulated her sentiments: “There are 18 million students in college today, and they ALL deserve a liberal arts education”.

1 comments

Debra J. White

Thu Nov 19 2009 09:40

Why do you care about Michael Crow? He is a bully disguised as a college president. Look at what he did at Columbia. He tried to crush prominent Latina Prof. Graciela Chichilnisky in a long standing discrimination case. She won by the way. He tries to ruin careers at ASU of professors who he either doesn't like or who dare to challenge him. He spends tens of thousands of taxpayers dollars to do so.

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