What effects might the presidential transition have on institutions of higher education?

Dr. Charlita Shelton
Interim Special Consultant to the President
Gonzaga University (Spokane, Washington)

I have spent 35 years in higher education, serving as president of two universities and an executive director of a professional nursing school. Also, my experience and academic degrees involve diversity, equity, and inclusion work and research. This experience prepared me to become Gonzaga University’s Interim Associate Chief Diversity Officer in September 2019 through The Registry. After nine months of this work, Gonzaga’s President asked if I would serve as Special Consultant to the President and as the COVID-19 Compliance Officer.

As we experience a new presidential administration, I believe we will see changes in terms of how the administration will respond to institutions of higher education. In the following, I will present some of the changes that I believe will impact higher education over the next four years.

A focus on and efficacy of international student recruitment.

In the late summer, we learned that the U.S. Department of State wanted to move to not issuing visas to students enrolled in schools and programs that were fully online for the 2020 fall semester. This was due to COVID-19 concerns. Furthermore, students attending schools operating entirely online would not be allowed to take a complete online course load and remain in the United States. Colleges and universities pushed against this mandate.

It was also the last administration that attempted to push forward efforts to limit the entry of international students from certain countries. Many international students seek to obtain work permits while in school. The notion would be to temporarily bar specific nonimmigrant categories from entering the United States and alter work authorization policies for students and H1-B visa holders.

The Biden administration is beginning to lift these bans making it more hopeful for colleges and universities to recruit and support their international students.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work has and will continue to include many institutions hiring Inaugural Chief Diversity Officers.

As mentioned earlier, my practice and scholarly background are inclusive of structural inequality and diversity. If not one, I probably receive two announcements a week of institutions looking to hire diversity, equity, and inclusion officers. I have never witnessed this type of countrywide initiative with many colleges and universities hiring their FIRST Chief Diversity Officer throughout my career.

We all are aware of the terrible murders of African Americans last summer, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among others. Racial injustice came to a critical juncture, and college campus needs for diversity officers to a great degree. It is my belief that this movement will be on the radar of the current administration, i.e., the Department of Education, to support efforts for colleges and universities to focus on diversity recruitment, retention, and DEI development.

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) student recruitment and retention.

During 2020, the phrase BIPOC became widespread as people began to pay more attention to this term through social media. Many institutions, especially predominantly white institutions, are developing strategies to recruit BIPOC students to their campuses. With a new Vice President of the United States who happens to be of both Black and Asian descent and a new President, whose administration and Cabinet is among the most diverse in American history, we may assume that underrepresented communities will have greater representation under this administration. So, it will not come as a surprise that higher education institutions may follow suit in both their student recruiting and hiring practices.

In conclusion, please know that these are only my thoughts and predictions about how the presidential transition might impact colleges and universities as we know them today. I think you might agree that all want the absolute best for our institutions and the students we serve; over the course of time, presidential administrations have and will continue to influence the higher education landscape.