Macalester president: University leaders shouldn‘t be expected to speak out on world events

CATHY WURZER: When a global event shakes our world, who has the responsibility to speak up or respond? Since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, companies, organizations, and schools have spoken out or have been pressured by the public to do so. With the war in Gaza, there is a renewed pressure and scrutiny specifically in higher education.

The presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania resigned after what they said about free speech on campus and the war. In a recent article in Inside Higher Ed, Macalester College president Suzanne Rivera said it is time for expectations for university leaders to change. President Rivera is on the line right now. Thanks for taking the time.

SUZANNE RIVERA: Thank you for having me, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: You write, and I'm quoting now, "We are viewed as cowards if we stay silent, and criticized for supporting the wrong side or being too neutral if we speak up." Now, I know you have some theories including the pandemic, how the pandemic changed the way university presidents communicated with constituencies, which was mostly online. Explain this a little bit more. What's the problem here?

SUZANNE RIVERA: Sure. Well, I think that prior to the crisis phase of the COVID pandemic, college and university presidents occasionally would speak about issues of national or world significance, but mostly they were able to focus on communicating within their campus community about things that affected their campus.

But when COVID struck and we had to move all of our instruction online, via Zoom or whatever way we did that, it also meant that when something significant happened in the community or in the wider world, presidents were really limited in how they could communicate to their constituents, by which I mean students, faculty, staff, but in many cases, also alumni.

So I started as president of Macalester in June of 2020, just a few days after George Floyd's murder, and because everything had moved online by then, the only way I had to communicate with all of our college constituents was through written communication, either via social media or email or by putting up web pages. And I think a lot of college and university presidents did that that summer because there was a lot to talk about.

There was plans about whether instruction would continue online in the fall or would be in person, communication about vaccination requirements, masking requirements, and of course, a lot of communication around how institutions were going to respond to the civil rights crisis that erupted following Floyd's murder here in the Twin Cities.

But because of that, we sort of trained students and their parents to expect that college and university presidents would speak in writing through some sort of proclamation or announcement any time anything happened in the world. And even though courses are back mostly in person, and it's possible to gather as a community when something significant happens, there still is this lingering expectation that college and university presidents will make public written declarations anytime something happens in the world, whether or not it directly bears on the community they're leading.

CATHY WURZER: And that I'm feeling must be a very uncomfortable position to be in.

SUZANNE RIVERA: Well, it creates a tremendous amount of pressure. And I think for many of us who believe strongly in free speech and the importance of free expression on a college campus, that means the tent has to be really big and there has to be room for different points of view. So what makes it tricky for the leader of a community like that to speak is anything that strays beyond amplifying the values of the institution runs the risk of upsetting significant portions of your community.

So it's very hard to do anything more than affirm your own community's values about a particular incident. In the case of Macalester, we have 30,000 alumni all around the world. So if I were to take a position on something that is a controversial issue or an issue around which there are different points of view, I run the risk of alienating people who feel very entitled as a member of this community to have a different view.

And so what happens is as you mentioned in your opening remarks, we saw this with the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. No matter how clear they are about trying to make space for all members of their community to express themselves, the public has very strong opinions about what kinds of statements are considered acceptable or desirable when an issue comes about and it can be hard to navigate.

CATHY WURZER: What world events do you believe university presidents might speak out about, if any?

SUZANNE RIVERA: Well, for sure, any event that directly bears on your campus community. So for example, in the case of George Floyd's murder by police here in the Twin Cities, it was very clear to me that we needed to speak not only about the specific safety issues that were presented on the ground here in the Twin Cities, because we had a duty to look after our students and other members of our community, but also that we needed to affirm our community values with regard to equity and justice.

That made sense for us to speak out about. It happened really right in our backyard, and we had something to say about it. But that's not to say that every time there's an issue that takes place somewhere else on the globe that it necessarily will directly bear on our campus community.

What made the Hamas attack in Israel and the Israeli retaliation in Gaza especially tricky is that in a community like Macalester's which intentionally brings together students from all around the world, who have different faith, traditions, and different lived experiences, is that we legitimately wanted to express care both for our Israeli and Jewish students who were concerned about the Hamas attack, and we wanted to express care for the Palestinian students who have families living in Gaza right now.

And it became very difficult to-- I think it became difficult in some ways to say we can be heartbroken for more than one group of people at the same time. Let's remind ourselves about our community values, the importance of compassion, and let's attend to supporting the students on our campus. Have the focus be on our campus without feeling necessarily like we had to get drawn into social media proclamations.

CATHY WURZER: Did you run into backlash from some alumni who were upset, and did they threaten to, say, pull donations?

SUZANNE RIVERA: Well, I think it always is the case that alumni feel very passionately about their alma mater and want to express their perspectives about anything the college does or doesn't do. And that happened in this case. For sure, we heard about people's opinions from a variety of different perspectives on the conflict.

What I will say is when people passionately love their alma mater, that means that they are connected to it. And so I'm always really grateful to hear from our alumni, even when they passionately disagree with me because it tells me that they still feel deeply connected with the college and want to see it be the very best version of itself it can be. So we welcome that kind of dialogue from alumni and from parents, students, faculty, and staff.

I think what I was trying to express in this essay is that I would hope that they would see our efforts to prioritize focusing on the well-being of our students who are on campus today as the number one issue and sort of not fault or condemn presidents who don't respond with a written proclamation within an hour of a world event happening. The top priority has to be the well-being of our students on the ground on campus, and it would only be a secondary consideration to think about whether we have something public to say about an issue.

CATHY WURZER: But boy, as you know, you mentioned social media, that has ripped away any patina of privacy. Everyone's got an opinion on virtually anything. And I don't know-- the horse seems out of the barn on this one, can you truly change expectations, can you untrain the expectations of students and parents and alums?

SUZANNE RIVERA: Well, I think what we can do by example is show all the steps we're taking to express care and compassion to our student population when there is a world event that's very upsetting. So what I mean by that Cathy is that I think it means much more for me to attend a prayer vigil or a ceremony in which people can express their grief about something, and to be present with our students attending to their needs than it is for me to be firing off tweets or Instagram posts.

Which is not to say that we won't ever use social media, but I just don't think that we need to treat social media as the go-to, first line of communicating the way that we had to during the crisis phase of COVID when we didn't have the option of showing up in person to a ceremony or a vigil on campus.

CATHY WURZER: Before you go, what's been the reaction to what you wrote?

SUZANNE RIVERA: Well, I think many of my peer presidents at other institutions have been feeling a similar kind of pressure. So I heard from many of them that they appreciated me putting into words something that has been troubling them for some time.

And I think that our campus community is understanding that when they see me and the provost and other senior leaders showing up to events, that that's a more meaningful display of our concern for well-being than written statements are. But I'm sure like anything else, that there's a diversity of opinions, and that I also will hear from folks who expect me to keep writing every time there's a world event.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Well, you laid out some interesting arguments, madam president. Thank you so much.

SUZANNE RIVERA: Thank you for having me, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Macalester College president, Suzanne Rivera. She wrote an article recently in Inside Higher Education.