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A Note from the SUNYCON Team:
Central to the conference is the role of the media in shaping the public’s perception of higher education and how their coverage illuminates the sector’s struggles to tell our story. To that end, the panel titles are borrowed from headlines, which are just a sampling of the reporting that drove us to choose this year’s SUNYCON theme. We hope you will let these references inspire your thinking as you prepare to join us.
Location: The Stage
* This session will be webcast
Welcome: H. Carl McCall - Chairman, SUNY Board of Trustees
Introductory Remarks: Nancy Zimpher - Chancellor, The State University of New York
Keynote Speaker: Judy Smith – Founder and CEO of Smith & Co., Crisis Management Expert, and inspiration for the hit TV show Scandal
* This session will be webcast
Location: The Stage
Shut Up About Harvard
Ben Casselman for FiveThirtyEight, March 30, 2016
Media depictions of “college” too often focus on elite institutions, overshadowing the experiences of the vast majority of American college students and alumni. How does the persistent media focus on elite institutions distract from the challenges that are most relevant to the future of public higher education?
Moderator: Christine Romans, Chief Business Correspondent, CNN
Panelists:
* This session will be webcast
Location: The Hall
Marc H. Morial – President & CEO, National Urban League
Moderator: Rehema Ellis, Education Correspondent, NBC News
* This session will be webcast
There's No More Denying Campus Rape Is A Problem
Tyler Kingkade for The Huffington Post, January 20, 2016
Location: The Stage
Public safety issues including sexual assault put a magnifying glass on college campuses, which are in turn held largely responsible for issues that are subsets of larger societal ills. How are institutions improving climate and preparing for when prevention efforts come up short, particularly as related to educating the media?
Moderator: Tyler Kingkade, National News Reporter, BuzzFeed
Panelists:
The Debt Dialogue Must be Turned on its Head
Michelle Singletary for The Washington Post, August 8, 2015
Location: NY Times Conference Center 15th floor
There is such a thing as good debt, but the media’s coverage would indicate that higher ed is in danger of losing that very argument. How can we better represent return on educational investment to students, as well as to society?
Moderator: Keshia Clukey, Education Reporter, POLITICO NY
Panelists:
Remedial Courses in College Stir Questions Over Cost, Effectiveness
Josh Mitchell for The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2014
Location: NY Times Conference Center 15th floor
This hidden cost of college will require unprecedented collaboration between P-12 and higher education leaders in order to protect students from paying the price – in dollars and time – for their lack of readiness.
Moderator: Josh Mitchell, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Panelists:
Location: The Hall
MEDIA CRISIS: HOW TO COMMUNICATE
SKD Knickerbocker, one of the leading communications firms in the country, will walk participants through handling a media crisis and coming out unscathed.
IMPLICIT BIAS: HOW TO NAVIGATE
Drs. Samuel Sommers & Keith Maddox from Tufts University will deliver an interactive presentation exploring cognitive and behavioral science research on the nature of implicit bias, identify the circumstances under which bias is most likely to emerge, and evaluate potential strategies for trying to curtail such tendencies.
LIMITED WORKSHOP: ALDA CENTER for COMMUNICATING SCIENCE
Presented by Laura Lindenfeld & Valeri Lantz-Gefro, this innovative workshop pioneered by Alan Alda uses improvisational theater games to help scientists speak more spontaneously, responsively and directly with their audience. Campus leaders will benefit from learning about this approach first-hand an discovering opportunities to bring this approach to their institution. This extended workshop will take place from 1:45-4:15pm and is open to a limited number of attendees. Registrants should click here to express interest.
* This session will be webcast
Location: The Stage
The Travesty of Starving Our Best Public Universities
Jeanne Theoharis for The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2016
Higher education’s fight for relevance cannot be untangled from its fight for state and federal funding, which for decades was a given. Higher education leaders will share lessons learned from the challenges and opportunities presented by the current budget climate.
Moderator: Peter McPherson, President, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities
Panelists:
Location: The Stage
Conversation with NPR’s Terry Gross - Host of Fresh Air
Moderator: Gerald Benjamin, Director, The Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz
Location: The Stage
Public Higher Education Should Be Universal and Free
Sara Goldrick-Rab for The New York Times, January 20, 2016
With student debt on the rise, promise programs and other innovative approaches to tuition are being debated in legislatures across the nation. Who should pay for college and what does broadening access mean for institutions’ ability to support students through completion?
Moderator: Melissa Korn, Higher Education Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Panelists:
* This session will be webcast
Location: The Stage
The Morbid Fascination with the Death of the Humanities
Benjamin Winterhalter for The Atlantic, June 6, 2014
The value of higher education is too often based on graduates’ employability, putting STEM and liberal arts education unnecessarily at odds. Are reports of the death of the humanities grossly exaggerated?
Moderator: Benjamin Winterhalter, Reporter, The Atlantic
Panelists:
* This session will be webcast
Location: The Stage
Misplaced Priorities in College Sports
The Editorial Board of The Washington Post, December 26, 2015
The media has held higher ed institutions and athletics organizations to the fire for putting the “student” in student athlete second. How do we reconcile the college student with the superstar athlete and incentivize institutions to support them equally?
Moderator: Doug Lederman, Editor and Co-Founder, Inside Higher Ed
Panelists:
* This session will be webcast
Location: The Stage
Dear 45
We will reflect on President Obama’s leadership on access, affordability, and completion and his legacy of support for the higher education sector. We will also distill what lessons our discussions from throughout the conference hold for the next President of the United States.
Moderator: Susan Arbetter, Reporter, Capitol Pressroom
Panelists:
