Higher Education and Education Policy
In this Q&A, Lynn Gangone reflects on advocacy in higher education
Lynn Gangone has spent her extensive career between college and major professional associations. She recently retired after seven and a half years with the Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACT), and has a long career that includes leadership positions at the American Board of Education, the University of Denver, and a professorship at George Washington University. What she has in common in her work is that she advocates for expanding the reach of higher education, especially for women, and she believes that university education is essential to improving lives and communities.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Jay Halfond: Your career has been balanced on campus and on leading professional associations. You either look out from the academic world or look out from the outside. These two different advantages must be fascinating.
Lynn Gankang: These are never each other’s. Each venue adds to my career development. The common theme throughout the process is the role of higher education in changing lives.
Jay Halfond: You are particularly focused on women in education. Since the 1960s, we have seen women, and seen significant changes in front of the administrators of universities and universities. What is the next stage?
Lynn Gankang: My career began with a grant to support community college technology and trade women, which led me to participate in various women’s progressive projects throughout my life. Even with great progress, we have a way to achieve balance and inclusion. I am concerned about potential opposition to the progress achieved by various groups, including women.
Jay Halfond: We seem to enter a challenging era of political, financial, enrollment and social issues that will test our higher
education leadership and purpose. What are your concerns about the future?
Lynn Gankang: Higher education fuels everything. We sent rockets into space, the medicines we take every day, the care of children, and the leadership of the government.
In particular, the School of Education has always been at the forefront of social movements. They now suspect that they are because many social movements are questioned. We are starting to see lawmakers scrutinize higher education from monitoring and managing what public K-12 schools teach, from larger states and federal reviews.
Being educated means creating opportunities to think critically and ask questions. Even though the Founding Fathers didn’t talk about education often, they wanted to ensure education for the general population, and we saw Western expansion and Northwest laws. With the end of the effort, every child is included in our education system regardless of background, how can we now come up with new ways to ensure everyone has the opportunity to be educated? We are an innovative country. Our common goal should be to build an educated citizen.
For example, we need to maintain a strong education college to create teachers that reflect the diversity of our country. Part of the challenge is that we often label our values as “social justice” and other polarized and alienated terms. Our shared commitment is to the lives of every student. And a lot of things we are doing can be embedded without tagging. There is more to join schools, universities and workplaces that were not originally built for them. We need to focus on how institutions are designed and how these designs should evolve to expand access.
Jay Halfond: Every industry, including higher education, seems to be heading towards mergers, mergers, Bigness, De-Personalization, more nationwide, and even international trends.
Lynn Gankang: The New Jersey Independent College I used to work cannot compete with a state institution like Rutgers, who has more money, more facilities. Many of these universities originate from their communities, which helped them survive so far. But market forces put some small and even historical universities at risk. I have become a supporter of mergers and acquisitions to save part of this small college mission. For example, Wheellock College and Boston University led to a successful merger. We need to study how like-minded institutions work together.
Jay Halfond: BU is launching an executive doctorate in higher education leadership. Which training is important for future leaders?
Lynn Gankang: It is important that anyone taking the Executive PhD program understands what they inherit and where our values come from and blends understanding of the past with our life experiences to create the future. Because of the market power we sit inside, leaders must have business skills to run complex entities.
We also need to understand common governance, especially the role of teachers. Academic freedom gives individuals the ability to begin revolutionary research. We should be careful that today’s EDD will not completely give up on understanding the research foundation. Bu Wheelock is so important to take this big step at this critical moment.
The University Dialogue is a series of interviews that explore our vast academic landscape, highlighting what to celebrate or lament in the unique and often confusing approach to higher education in the United States.
Jay Haband He is currently a authorized professor and former dean of Boston University’s Metropolitan College. He is a new teacher at BU Executive EDD for Higher Education Leadership.
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