Colleges taking an active part in the lives and education of their students was a key topic a speaker in the area of higher education law discussed in a lecture Monday afternoon.
Peter Lake spoke to the audience of around 100 about how much higher education has changed from a university directional point of view since his book was first published 15 years ago.
The Center for Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University College of Law said currently, universities are spending a large amount of time complying with regulation, leading to Lake’s term “compliance university.”
“So much of our college safety energy is directed towards compliance with legal mandates, which seem to be coming out more quickly than Rihanna albums,” Lake said. “The compliance is almost impossible for administrators to come up with.”
Lake provided background on higher education law, detailing it barely existed until the 1960s, and universities had almost complete power over their student’s lives and could impose restrictions and deny rights. It was not until the 60s, he said, that students were granted freedom from discrimination, civil liberties and privacy rights.
Then he described the “Bystander” era, up until the 2000s, where universities turned a blind eye toward negative influences surrounding college with the idea that students were fully formed adults who must deal with the consequences for their actions alone.
“The campus police were responsible for protecting buildings and stuff, they weren’t there to do physical security for students,” he said. “It was a revolutionary idea that students might be entitled to even basic safety in their living conditions.”
Lake spoke of universities growing as facilitators, helping students make good decisions and enterprise risk management on campus. Facilitating is an approach for universities to approach risks in college like alcohol, mental health and suicide in a holistic way.
“Modern college students [do not] need to be babysat, nor do we need to be bystanders,” Lake said. “We can facilitate good decisions just as easily as we can facilitate bad ones. A facilitator, instead of trying to find the most blameworthy person to hang by the neck, [asks everyone], what can we all do collectively to make this better.”
He shared a message of hope for universities and the future of higher education.
“Don’t believe the boogeyman,” Lake said. “Because the boogeyman wants to tell you that we’re running out of money, that there are no jobs and higher education is in decline. A facilitator flicks it off. Sure there are challenges, but every challenge is a hidden opportunity.”
Merrill C. “Jack” Beyerl, who the lecture series is named after, served as vice president for student affairs and dean of students from 1964 to 1988. Each year, a distinguished speaker in the field of higher education addresses administrators and those involved in student affairs.
Graduate student in student affairs administration Michelle Kailey had the opportunity, along with other graduate students, to meet with Lake at a dinner on Tuesday night.
She described him as “wicked smart,” and said that his insight was valuable, especially with education policy issues.
“We’ve been talking a lot in our classes about this being a rough time for education,” Kailey said. “He was very optimistic and saying this is the time to be in the profession because there are changes but [we are going to be] uniquely situated to deal with it and grow the profession.”
