SPEAKER_01
Hello, and welcome to .edu, the higher education podcast from the American Council on Education. I'm John Fansmith, an A.
C.E.'s government relations office, and I'm joined by my usual co-host, Lorelle Spinoza, A.C.'s vice president for research. Hi.
SPEAKER_00
Hi, how are you doing today? Good, thanks.
SPEAKER_01
I would like to say I'm doing well too, but we are having an interesting time here in Washington, D.C. Not really related to Halloween or any of the usual things that people who might be listening have been experiencing. We're dealing a little bit more with all of the regular chaos.
And I'm talking about chaos outside of impeachment, which is its whole other brand of chaos.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, hard to imagine. But yes, it's our own brand. It is.
SPEAKER_01
That's a good way to put it. Right, our own little slice of the pie of chaos here in D.C. and really just the focus on federal funding right now. We have a deadline approaching on November 21st.
Congress has yet to identify a way forward. They're meeting next week to actually talk about how they start beginning the process of doing that. And then hopefully we'll have an extension and now they're talking about December.
So maybe we'll see something there. But all the usual things that keep us busy.
SPEAKER_00
And what do you think is going to happen? Do you try to read the tea leaves?
SPEAKER_01
I try to read the tea leaves. And as you know, I tend to lean on the side of everything.
SPEAKER_00
You're on the yes, you're more pessimist.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so anyway, it seems like December, we'll have an extension to December and then my guess would be they'll miss that deadline and then we'll go into the new year and then finally things will be resolved. Unfortunately, the House had a bill that was really, really good for higher education. You're right.
SPEAKER_00
The Senate had a bill that was not so good.
SPEAKER_01
Not so much. Yeah, exactly, not so much. And so probably we'll be happier with what we see in the end than we were with the Senate bill and not quite as happy as we were with the House bill.
So we'll split the difference.
SPEAKER_00
That's all we would.
SPEAKER_01
We would. And I don't want to talk too long about appropriations because we are going to be joined later by a very special guest. Yes. Yes, very special guest, Mr. A.C.E. himself.
SPEAKER_01
That's right. So this basically means I have to take my usual level of terrible podcasting up to at
SPEAKER_00
least mediocre podcasting. You're going to have to try extra hard today.
SPEAKER_01
Step up my game. Yeah, that's as if there's not enough pressure and not to screw up doing this.
SPEAKER_00
And maybe we can come back to appropriations later because it is a riveting topic. I think we should do that later.
SPEAKER_01
It's so funny when you said that I just assumed that was sarcasm because that's most people's response when I try to talk to them about federal funding. But I appreciate that. That seems sincere.
So that was very nice.
SPEAKER_01
Okay, good. It did. Good. And did we even mention that Mr. A.C.E. as I refer to him is Ted Mitchell, the president of A.C.E.?
SPEAKER_00
Yes, he is. He is. And that is the person. The big boss, as I said.
SPEAKER_01
The big boss. That's right. And although I guess if you're listening to A.
C.E.'s podcast, hopefully.
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully you know who our leader is.
SPEAKER_01
That's right. Yeah. Well, anyway, we're going to get back to Ted in just a second. Awesome.
And we're going to take a quick break before that. Great.
SPEAKER_00
And we're back. We're back sitting here with Ted Mitchell, our president.
SPEAKER_00
Happy to have you.
SPEAKER_01
I'm happy to be here. You're not going to say hi to me. Hello, John.
Thank you, Ted. I'm sitting right here too.
SPEAKER_02
How's the podcast going, John?
SPEAKER_01
Well, it was going well. And now I called out my boss on the podcast. And now I may not go quite as well as I thought.
SPEAKER_02
We'll talk about that later, John. Going worse and worse by the second. It is performance review season here at A.
C.E.
SPEAKER_01
You know. So, if any of our listeners have any open eggs.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, any job openings.
SPEAKER_01
Well, thank you, first of all, for joining us today, Ted. I think, you know, we were preparing for this podcast and one of the things that's sort of daunting about having you on as a guest, aside from obviously the performance review issues you've already identified, is that there's really a million different directions we could take this conversation. And I think as we were sort of thinking about what to talk to you about, one of the things that sort of rose to prominence in my head at least was you had recently been at an A.
C.E. regional summit in Kansas City. You had had a session at that summit.
And I think, you know, it ties in a lot of the things that we do across A.C.E. as an organization. A lot of things are on our members' minds right now.
And so I thought, you know, first I just sort of ask you, tell us a little bit about what that session was and then maybe we can get into some of the broader themes that it ties together.
SPEAKER_02
Great. Happy to do that, John. I'm really happy to be on with you guys.
This is a great opportunity for me. You know, the regional summit, it was a great gathering. There were about 80 higher education leaders from institutions in the Midwest and a couple who flew in from the West Coast for the event.
And the theme is one that we have been working on at A.C.E. for a while now, which is to understand and address the negative narrative that too many of our institutions are encountering locally and certainly nationally that we're reading about in the press. So roughly, and we were talking about reclaiming the high ground, which I think is important both as a messaging element, but it's also important for us to understand the ways in which we're not serving our students well.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Yeah, there's some truth behind some of the narrative.
SPEAKER_02
Exactly. Right. Exactly. Yeah, for those who are parents who have kids living in their basement, you know that that at least is partly true that college graduates will live in their parents' basement.
I'm refurbishing the basement in anticipation.
SPEAKER_01
As you speak. Yeah. Really expanding out and making more, you're trying to lure your children to come back and
SPEAKER_02
live in your basement.
SPEAKER_01
To come back. Right, so sort of the opposite of the normal approach. Exactly.
Well, and that's an interesting point because obviously, you know, this idea of children coming back to their parents' basement is kind of the, you know, maybe the antithesis of success in terms of how people view the outcome of a college education. And your session was actually on student success as the institutional epicenter. Can you go a little bit deeper into sort of the framing of that and what that meant in particular, maybe some of the insights you gleaned from talking with higher education leaders at that session?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it was, you know, in conversations that we've had with members around the country, one of the recurring themes is this theme of student success. How can we really focus on making sure that our students, once they're a part of our community, are successful while they're there? That has a lot to do with inclusion and engagement. And how can they be successful crossing that stage, getting the diploma, shaking hands and moving on to the next phase, next phase of their life? And I think there are lots of things that higher education does.
And so our focus is often diverted from that core function, hence the epicenter, that core function of ensuring that students are successful. So that was the, that was the theme. That was the engagement.
And man, did people dig in hard on it. I bet. Two days, nobody left the room, working hard in small groups, coming up with values, statements, coming up with concrete proposals that they were going to take back to their institutions. It was, it was a great, great couple of days.
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things I really kind of like about that idea of the different things colleges and universities do, I focus a lot on federal policy, obviously. In federal policy, there tends to be a really narrow focus on success as completion and workforce placement. That's the idea that you get through school and you get into a job.
And I think, you know, talking about reclaiming the higher ground, that encompasses a lot of different aspects that go beyond simply, you know, which are core and important aspects of a college education, but there's so much more to it than that. And I think that's part of telling the story. And I'm curious your thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it's true. And I think that there is a temptation to be reductionist when thinking about jobs and thinking about graduation. It's relatively easy to prepare people for a trade.
And a lot of institutions do that and they do that well. And that's terrific. I think when we talk about success in higher education more broadly, we're also talking about creative thinking, problem solving skills, the ability to communicate, particularly in an increasingly diverse workforce and population.
And all of those things are a part of what success means. And it was very encouraging to hear leaders articulate those in meaningful ways.
SPEAKER_00
That's great. That those are also the things, of course, that the business community, the private sector
SPEAKER_00
Workforce says that they need more of the skills you just mentioned, which are perhaps harder to measure.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you talk to business leaders and they say, I don't know what my business is going to be in 10 to 15 years. And so I need to hire people who are agile, intellectually, who know how to learn, who can tackle new problems with facility.
SPEAKER_01
It's not just the technical skills you bring to the workforce. It's your ability to think broadly, to adapt to change, to implement. We see a lot of times when we look at, again, the sort of federal policy spectrum, you know, there's some occasional maligning of the liberal arts.
But then when you look at workforce outcomes for people who have studied in those fields, they tend to maybe start slower in terms of earning and employment. But then they sure catch up, don't they? They catch up quickly and usually have longer sustained periods of higher earnings, higher employment. That's right.
SPEAKER_00
Which is something as a researcher, speaks to me about how we measure measure these outcomes and measure success timeframe within which we do so. Because we do get pretty reductionist with some of the data that's used for accountability, for example.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And you take something that is an incredible measure, salary three years after graduating.
SPEAKER_02
And, John, to your point, at that point, you're going to undervalue history major and you'll likely overvalue an engineer. But over time, those even out.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Well, speaking of evolving to a changing landscape, institutions themselves are also evolving the way that they do work given their student population. So, you know, this is something we talk about a lot at ACE in terms of not just our members and who they serve, but some of the research we do, some of our own programs and services that are really directed towards adult learners.
We call them post-traditional students often, students that are balancing work, family and school. And I know you had a whole conversation about that on a previous podcast with John Turk, who studies those students partly, but then the race and ethnicity quotient here in terms of our research in that area showing just dramatic growth of the Hispanic population, dramatic growth of Hispanic serving institutions, but still despite growth. And we've seen lots of really positive indicators in terms of access and completion.
We're still seeing a great deal of gaps in terms of the equity gaps that we get back to among students and just wanted to hear thoughts on that change in higher education and then the responsiveness that we need to have to that change.
SPEAKER_02
And I think that the summit was very educational for me. And so first, Larell, congratulations on the race and ethnicity report. I think it's really changed the discussion in really important ways, including at the summit.
I think that there was a very clear recognition that today's and tomorrow's students aren't yesterday's students and that if institutions really want to focus on student success, they need to change their really the way that they think about it and they need to not think about fitting students into the institution, but thinking about fitting an institution to students needs. And that was the major, I think the major breakthrough at the conference. I think that that's been a major breakthrough among our members and certainly how our professional development work is hoping to reorient leaders because students have many more claims on their lives.
And that's even true of the minority of students who are four year residential students. And so we need to recognize that.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, changing landscape in a number of ways.
SPEAKER_01
That's right. And I think in terms of reflecting that, and you mentioned there's this realization at the regional summit, you know, I think intuitively people understand this idea about changing the focus of the institution to focus on the student success rather than asking students to succeed within their frameworks. That's right.
What are some of the ways they're identified at the summit or your conversations with their presidents that institutions can actually put that into practice? What does that look like on the campus? Or what are ideas that are generated to do that to achieve that?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think, you know, so one of the things that is making that work more possible is the ability for students to engage with institutions through the lens of of their own experience. And so students can track their work. Institutions can help track students through challenging programs.
And the use of data has become a really important way for institutions to customize, if you will. The education of their students. It's certainly no news to any listeners of the podcast that, for example, student mental health is a tremendous issue.
And so being more conscious of students' mental health, as well as the other aspects of their lives is a is a critical critical element. A couple of quick examples. Arizona State has created its eAdvisor program that really does try to use data in in these in these new ways.
I think that there are institutions all around the country that, whether they're working in partnership or alone, are trying to move the needle.
SPEAKER_01
And we actually had an episode with Lindsey Wait from the Kubo of prior episodes of the podcast and she, you know, identified some other examples, which I personally found very fascinating, you know, across the idea of, you know, something as simple and I shouldn't be blanking on the institution. I think it was Rutgers as a New Jersey institution, where one of the things they looked at is how much time students spent traveling to and between campus. And that's not something you traditionally think about as an institution's area of focus.
But by looking at that, they're able to reframe how do we structure our classes? What classes do we offer? Where do we offer them? When do we offer them? And they found that students who might have had challenges in terms of getting to class simply, you know, a very basic function of education. We're able to, you know, enter, persist, had an easier time of pursuing their courses. And so it's a really fascinating way that, you know, another example of where these are being put into place.
SPEAKER_02
You know, I'll give you another example, Dallas Community Colleges, which is a multi-campus setting. They, by tracking students who were taking courses in multiple, on multiple campuses and seeing the time lost moving from campus to campus to go through an academic pathway, then why don't we just line those up on a single campus so that students who are so demonstrably interested in this pathway can literally walk that pathway on a single campus rather than having to get in their car and commute.
SPEAKER_01
And having sat in Dallas traffic on board. Well, there is. In the case of Burnington and Peer to Dive, that's not a minimal production of
SPEAKER_02
bird area. There is that. You know, the other thing is that I think as we look at the reheat data, and really take the issue of race seriously, as we must, I think that many institutions are acknowledging that diversity and inclusion aren't just buzzwords.
They're not just nice things to think about, but they really require investment and that student success is, student success moves forward with those investments. Northwestern University is an interesting case study. They've worked since about 2010 to diversify their curriculum, to really think about what inclusion means on a campus activity level, to put in place support staff who can help students of color navigate what is a very different experience for many of them.
And I think that we just can't, we can't let it be true that equity is the same thing as equality. Absolutely. We need to understand that people come with different experiences and we need to build our institutions around those different experiences.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I like that, that theme that we're, that we're touching on here, which is the institution is changing around the student and not the other way around. And that's, that's not easy to do, right? I mean, this is transformational change as we talk about it here. You know, when we look at some of the work we've been doing recently, we put out a paper with Adrienne Kezar, who authored this piece and we co-branded it with her and I wrote the forward.
It's creating a diverse student success infrastructure. And really she talks about all of the parts of the campus that have to change to meet the needs of this, this student of today and of tomorrow. And it's not anymore like, maybe it never was sort of tinkering on the margins, you know, creating support services here and there.
It's really changing the way the campus operates, which, which is no small feat for higher education.
SPEAKER_02
No, it's no small feat. And I think important, Lorelle, in what you're saying is that it also requires those segments of the institution to work together in ways that they don't typically, you know, typically you have departments and they don't talk to each other and you have academic departments and student services and they don't talk to each other and then you add the registrar and then. And so in the conceptualization of this panel at the, at the summit, at the regional summit was precisely that if we really put the student at the center and have these different units all factoring into the students life and the student as the unit of analysis, not the department, not the function, you might be able to make some of those changes and more rapid fashion.
SPEAKER_01
And that's an exciting thing from the AC perspective, obviously, because we work with institutional leaders. That's right. And these are the people who, you know, not just have the ability, but the responsibility to pull together all those elements to direct the organization, to move them in these directions.
Yep.
SPEAKER_02
I think that's, I think that's right. And I think what we need to make sure we're helping our institutions do is to ask the question, what it, where are we falling short? What populations of students need our help more? What majors, what programs are more challenging and have a lower rate of completion? And so doing a student success audit, I think, is the number one starting point for these institutions. We talk a lot about campus climate surveys and many other ways in which we try to reach into the student experience, but understanding which groups of our students are succeeding, which need more help, how they need that help, and then how to provide it is really the roadmap for institutional change.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. And that goes back to the measurement, how you measure that the data component, the data enabling decision making, which also, I mean, just to say, of course, doing that work, doing the data work has its own inherent biases. And, you know, if you go into it thinking, again, that the student is the problem to fix, right? Or you go into it thinking, or perhaps coming out of some of the analyses that some students are doing worse than others and you sort of paint a certain type of picture.
SPEAKER_02
A negative picture around them. We feel like the deficit frame.
SPEAKER_00
We have to be really careful about that. I mean, the institutions that are doing a good job with data and closing equity gaps are not falling into that trap. No, that's right.
It requires a certain level of awareness.
SPEAKER_01
Well, and taking that aside, further understanding that student success is institutional success. So it's not about, right? Differentiating which students aren't succeeding. It's how do we get all of our students to succeed?
SPEAKER_00
That's like a great slogan. Student success is institutional success. We can be free of charge.
SPEAKER_01
We just put that out there. Bumper stickers, please. Hopefully our marketing department's listening to this and then maybe I can get a commission or something.
SPEAKER_00
I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_01
I think that's good. You know, always hustling here. You know, are there resources, things that in this area, A.
C.E. is, you know, you mentioned the idea of a student success audit. Obviously some of this is coming together as we're talking about it.
Are there things we have coming up that might help our members in looking at these?
SPEAKER_02
Well, certainly our annual meeting will focus on student success. And so that will be in San Diego this coming March. Hawaiian shirts will be the entire Hawaiian shirts and flip flops will be the.
I can wear a tie, though, with my watch shirt. You can wear it. And in fact, if you could match it with the same pattern, and that would be.
Well, you give me a head start on my shopping.
SPEAKER_01
That'd be quite slick. Okay.
SPEAKER_02
Quite, quite, quite slick. I don't know what you're going to do with the flip flops, though, John. Yeah, I don't know many.
We'll work on it. Oh, you don't?
SPEAKER_01
You don't own flip flops? I find this surprising that you're both surprised by this.
SPEAKER_02
How many years did you live in LA, Laurel?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, enough to have like 10 pairs.
SPEAKER_01
Exactly. I'm a Northeast guy.
SPEAKER_02
So, all right. You're not functional footwear. We know what is coming in your holiday package.
SPEAKER_00
Now we know. Secret Santa.
SPEAKER_01
That's it. Won't be a secret, guys.
SPEAKER_02
That's it. You know, so certainly, certainly the annual meeting and look forward to seeing you all on the beach. We will continue to do regional summits.
Our engage platform is loading up on student success work, both micro courses and the library of resources that institutions can use. And, you know, a number of things that Laurel and her team are working on.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I might mention the learner success lab that is underway with the generous support of Strata Education Network. So we're in a planning year. I think we put a press release out about that a little while ago.
This is based on a really successful model that we have going with our internationalization lab, which is a cohort based model where institutions come together, teams of people from those institutions and learn alongside one another, strategize. We have advisors that work with these institutions to help them put together the right strategic plan around internationalization and global engagement in that case. And so in this next case, it'll be around student success.
And so that means like internationalization, different things to different institutions, but they'll be on this on this journey for 18 months.
SPEAKER_02
And what's great about that is that it is it's not a one shot thing.
SPEAKER_00
It really is customized.
SPEAKER_02
It's customized. It is institution driven. And then we were able to provide the supports and the expertise along along the way.
We had a lot of interest at the regional summit in the student success lab as well as the internationalization lab.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it's a great model. It's working really well.
SPEAKER_01
Well, and people listening to this and our members as well should keep eye out for all of those things. That's right. Ted, I want to recognize your time.
He's a busy man. He's a very busy man. It's a frighteningly busy man.
You know, I appreciate you being here. Obviously, before we go, are there other last thoughts you want to offer or things you want people listening to be aware of?
SPEAKER_02
So first of all, I want to thank John. Thank you and thank Larell for having me today. This is the highlight of my day.
That's so sad.
SPEAKER_01
No, it's deeply depressing to me.
SPEAKER_02
It's very encouraging to me. I'll leave here with a bounce in my step that'll take me all the way to my first email. So thanks again for having me.
I do want to I do want to suggest that I think that this transition that we're making as a field from being institution having institutional success metrics that are somehow independent of our students. It's a really great it's a shift that's long needed to put students really at the center of all of our work. And then the last thing the shameless plug is for those who are listening who have not joined the ACE engage platform.
Please please do that. It is it's very exciting. We three of us had a little bit of a snapshot of it earlier.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it's really really coming together. Very exciting. Yeah, you can go to our website, ace net dot edu and just look around there.
You'll see it. It's prominent. If you don't see it, Google it, ACE engage.
SPEAKER_02
And if not, just call John fansmith or just call on directly.
SPEAKER_01
I just learned I'm going to be on a webinar on any engage platform next month. So for those of you who love listening to my voice, you get to you get the full package.
SPEAKER_02
Excellent. Excellent. Well, that performance review is going to be just fine, John.
Thank you all. Thank you, Ted.
SPEAKER_01
And thank you in advance for those flip flops I'm expecting. So on the way. Lorel and I will be back after a break for a discussion of all the interesting things happening here in DC.
Many of which are more scandalous than interesting, but still interesting nonetheless. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER_00
So that was fun.
SPEAKER_01
It was fun discussion with Ted. He seems to like you a lot better than he likes me.
SPEAKER_00
I just want to put that on the record.
SPEAKER_01
I am likable, though, you know, I mean, I know you so that can split both ways.
SPEAKER_00
Well, anyway, it's it's exciting. The conversation we had because we've got a lot of stuff rolling out on that on that set of issues. I mean, the summits engage.
We talked a lot about these transformation labs. We have some great publications too that are coming down the pike. A couple that were just released one on preparing the workforce in today's community colleges takes a look at apprenticeships and the applied science articulation, credit for prior learning.
I mean, that's a huge sector that that honestly a lot of campuses should be looking at in terms of learning. You know, that's a sector that's been serving diverse students for a very long time. But we also have a great paper out on the intersection between campus climate and STEM disciplinary climate.
So that gets interesting. Yeah. Yeah. The student experience piece. And, you know, again, changing norms in spaces where they need change.
SPEAKER_01
And especially students of color often underrepresented in STEM programs.
SPEAKER_00
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, especially certain STEM programs. So yeah, so good resources.
If you go to our web page again, go to our website, you can look at the publications link and find all that good stuff.
SPEAKER_01
That's right. And our public affairs folks will probably be pushing them out to you as well, too.
SPEAKER_00
So check your inbox. Check your inbox. So anyway, back to this to the scandalous and interesting things happening in this town.
SPEAKER_01
There's no shortage. I didn't want to oversell it as a teaser.
SPEAKER_00
But yeah. Yeah. So so tell us a little bit more about you let off talking about HGA, the Higher Education Act and some activity in the house and some disappointment in the in the Senate and on the Senate side.
SPEAKER_01
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And talked a little bit about appropriations earlier, the funding of the government. I think the other the really big thing, the thing, frankly, I've spent an enormous amount of time on and mostly focus on was the Bobby Scott chairman of the House Education Labor Committee introduced and then passed through committee last week, a comprehensive HGA Higher Education Act Reauthorization Bill called the College Affordability Act.
I think we've had some discussion on the podcast before. It's a massive bill. 1200 pages over 1200 pages before the amendments get added to it.
It's a big deal. ASE has a very short and concise summary at around 81 pages posted up on our website.
SPEAKER_00
There's also a five pager, which I read.
SPEAKER_01
There is a five-meter.
SPEAKER_00
I didn't read all of the 81, but I did read it.
SPEAKER_01
You should read the 81. As somebody who feels very passionately about the production of that document, you know, it's golden pros.
SPEAKER_00
I give you guys a lot of credit. That is, and you did that fast. You turned that around quickly.
SPEAKER_01
We did turn that around quickly. Not as quickly as some people would have liked us to, but certainly more quickly than we thought possible.
SPEAKER_00
Well, congratulations. And just to say the five pager was also really well done. Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_01
Covered the bases. Yeah. You know, and I think that's hugely important. And as we mentioned, there's resources up on our webpage and encourage people listening.
If they're interested to go and check those out, as well as, you know, community letters we've sent on the bill and things like that. The other thing kind of, I think maybe a little bit below the radar that has been interesting to me recently is some things involving the Department of Education, particularly around the issue of borrowers, student borrowers who are now in repayment.
SPEAKER_00
And we've also talked about them on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01
We have, right? And the missteps. Yep. And there's been a lot of, I think, missteps, some of which I think you can lay at the feet of the department, some of which they inherited. But it's been a particularly bad couple of weeks for the department.
How's that? Well, I think the most prominent one, the one that people have heard the most about is the fact that the department in Betsy DeVos individually was found in contempt of court by a court. There are a number of people who essentially have said, I was defrauded by my institution, in this case, Corinthian colleges, when it collapsed. And they filed a process, which is called a borrower defense to repayment, where essentially say I was defrauded.
The government should wipe my loan debts away. For various reasons, there have been different interpretations of how that should be handled. The department, though, was ordered by the court to stop collecting payments from the people who are in that process.
They did not. And the servicers working on behalf of the department continue to do that, in some cases, garnishing social security payments or other forms of payments made to borrowers. The judge essentially found in favor of the borrowers and said, department has violated this.
You've been told you continue to do it. They find Betsy DeVos $100,000 in her role at the department. The other thing that's kind of popped up that's related to this, which is an interesting sort of side story in the education world, is that there is a man named Stephen Menashi, who has been appointed for a federal appeals court.
Judge, judgeship? Yeah, judgeship, is that right? I don't know that much about the judiciary.
SPEAKER_00
I don't know the term, but we know what you mean.
SPEAKER_01
Right. And as part of his confirmation hearing in the Senate, one of the things that came up, he had actually been the acting general counsel at the Department of Education prior to his appointment. And one of the things came up is that he had authored a memo saying that the department had the legal right to use these people who come forward and said, I'd been defrauded and wanted a bar defense to repayment claim to use data that had been submitted on the game for employment program.
A little long to go into here, but essentially use their social security data as an argument that they had suffered no economic harm. That is contrary to law and another judge had ruled that was contrary to law. It came up in his confirmation hearing.
He passed out of the committee by party lines this morning as we record this and we'll go to the full Senate for a formal vote. But a lot of people are making the point this is calls into question his ability to accurately render legal opinions when he gave the department authority to something that clearly contravened law.
SPEAKER_01
So again, bad week for the department, both in terms of directly for themselves and then also for former employees of the department. It continues this pattern we've seen of really, you know, problematic interactions with borrowers.
SPEAKER_01
And what borrowers protections are under law. So moving forward, obviously something to keep track of.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. And I know you will be.
SPEAKER_01
We will be paying close attention. So I think that about wraps it up for us for today. You can find more about this episode, some of the resources we mentioned links to other things on our website at www.
acenet.edu. As always, you can subscribe to this podcast on Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, you can email us directly at podcast at ace net.
edu to give us feedback, suggestions, ideas for future episodes, flip-flop styles, flip-flop styles. I guess we have to solicit those, you know, Hawaiian shirt designs for the annual meeting and ties.
SPEAKER_01
And tasteful tasteful conservative flip-flop and Hawaiian shirt designs.
SPEAKER_00
And we really do just to put a fine point on it. Welcome feedback on topics. We do the podcast and anything else on your mind.
So please write us.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we want to hear from you. Thanks everyone for listening.