The Honesty Threshold That Breaks Trust in Universities

A Republican legislator in Nevada told me this.

When legislators have to read about problems in the newspaper instead of hearing about them directly, that erodes trust.

Just be upfront with us.

A Democratic legislator in Georgia, in a different capital from a different party, told me this.

When something goes wrong, acknowledge it.

Do not spin it.

Do not minimize it.

Do not blame someone else.

People can forgive mistakes.

What they don't forgive are cover-ups or deflection.

Neither of them had heard of the other, as far as I know.

They were interviewed weeks apart, in different states, and they gave me the same rule and almost the exact same words.

That small coincidence is the center of my dissertation research.

Over the past decade, public confidence in American higher education has fallen from 57% to 36%, according to Gallup.

70% of Americans now tell Pew that colleges are going in the wrong direction.

And the standard explanation is that trust in universities has become a partisan fight, and that the two sides want different things from the same institutions.

After 25 interviews with the people who write the budgets, I think that explanation is incomplete in a meaningful way.

The two sides disagree loudly about what universities should do, but when they describe how an institution earns or loses their trust, they use the same structure.

Today's episode is built from my doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, titled Trust at the Threshold.

It's about what state legislators in seven battleground states told me about public land-grant universities they fund and oversee.

It examines the behavior legislators say breaks trust the most.

And it is about what the people running these institutions can do about it on a Monday morning.

What follows applies well beyond a campus.

Any organization that depends on an outside party's judgment, whether that is a regulator, a funder, a board, or a community, faces the same dynamics.

The legislators in this study just happen to say them out loud, and they happen to be sitting on the budgets.

A Republican legislator in Nevada told me this.

When legislators have to read about problems in the newspaper instead of hearing about them directly, that erodes trust.

Just be upfront with us.

A Democratic legislator in Georgia, in a different capital from a different party, told me this.

When something goes wrong, acknowledge it.

Do not spin it.

Do not minimize it.

Do not blame someone else.

People can forgive mistakes.

What they don't forgive are cover-ups or deflection.

Neither of them had heard of the other, as far as I know.

They were interviewed weeks apart, in different states, and they gave me the same rule and almost the exact same words.

That small coincidence is the center of my dissertation research.

Over the past decade, public confidence in American higher education has fallen from 57% to 36%, according to Gallup.

70% of Americans now tell Pew that colleges are going in the wrong direction.

And the standard explanation is that trust in universities has become a partisan fight, and that the two sides want different things from the same institutions.

After 25 interviews with the people who write the budgets, I think that explanation is incomplete in a meaningful way.

The two sides disagree loudly about what universities should do, but when they describe how an institution earns or loses their trust, they use the same structure.

Today's episode is built from my doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, titled Trust at the Threshold.

It's about what state legislators in seven battleground states told me about public land-grant universities they fund and oversee.

It examines the behavior legislators say breaks trust the most.

And it is about what the people running these institutions can do about it on a Monday morning.

What follows applies well beyond a campus.

Any organization that depends on an outside party's judgment, whether that is a regulator, a funder, a board, or a community, faces the same dynamics.

The legislators in this study just happen to say them out loud, and they happen to be sitting on the budgets.