The Headlines
An element of bravery
An increasingly hostile narrative seems to target universities from parts of the political spectrum and the media. How is the sector working to turn the tide?
By Claudia Civinini
"How do we do the right thing and make our values clear without being sanctimonious?"
"No other multi-billion-pound sector is treated with such disdain."
"We can't just assume that people still think we're institutions that are forces for good."
"University denies responsibility for natural disaster" would make the perfect punchy, absurd headline for a satirical article, one openly sympathetic to the higher education sector and its fight against attacks from media, politicians and commentators.
The satirical potential of such a statement was recently lost on a British newspaper.
After the floods in Dubai resulted in questions about whether cloud seeding could be to blame, the University of Reading in the UK published a press release with comments from its scientists explaining that no technology capable of causing such floods exists.
This type of information sharing is what universities should be doing more, you may think. However, in a bizarre twist of events, a Telegraph headline subsequently presented the release as the university denying responsibility for the floods.
Reading debunked this claim with a message on X explaining the situation. The message was signed off with: ‘jog on’.
This wasn’t the first time the University of Reading used the British colloquialism on social media. In 2018, the university received criticism for offering scholarships to a small group of refugees in the local area. Some of the comments were becoming unpleasant, Vicky Pearson, Head of Corporate Communications at the University of Reading, tells QS Insights Magazine, so the social media manager at that time proposed an idea to the team. A conversation followed – the gist of it, Pearson says, was: “How do we do the right thing and make our values clear without being sanctimonious?”
The tweet read: “We've had feedback over the last week that some people are unhappy with our plan to offer up to 14 scholarships to refugees living in the local area. To these people, we would like to say: Tough. Jog on.”
The tweet went viral and made headlines, praised for its bold response by many in the sector and beyond. Not everyone liked it, with some making the point it could alienate people. However, Pearson points out that it’s important to see the tweet in the context of the wider output.
“For the most part, we are not very reactive to criticism or comment. We are supportive of people who want to engage with us and share their views, even if they're contrary. And we will engage where we think it's helpful and useful to share information,” she says. “Sometimes, though, there are issues that align with our values, and there will be times when taking a clear, bold stance is important.”
Internal communities of people, such as staff, students, alumni and the local community, showed a “huge amount of goodwill” after the tweet. “They were glad to see us standing up for something that was important,” she says. The team also answered questions from the wider public about the scheme and about other scholarships the university offers, managing to change the views of some who had initially been very negative.
“If we had either refused to engage at all, or just been sanctimonious, we wouldn't have influenced people's thinking in any way,” she says.
Under fire
Universities didn’t get press attention for hundreds of years, Steven Jones, Professor of Higher Education at the University of Manchester, explains. “Now, pretty much every day, universities are under attack somewhere in the press for something they have allegedly done,” he says.
Jones wrote a book titled Universities Under Fire: Hostile discourses and integrity deficits in higher education. In the book, focusing on universities in England, he defines media attention as “relentless” and observes that the sector, in the political discourse, is simultaneously a jewel in the crown of the UK economy and also dysfunctional, untrustworthy and in dire need of reform. He describes the higher education sector as "unloved".
Universities can and should be scrutinised by a free press, and by the public, just like any other institution. There are issues to probe and engage with in the higher education sector – and this is beyond the scope of the article - however, as Jones explains, some of the stories that target universities are “very trivial”.
Another time, the University of Reading received criticism was when it introduced warnings on some content being taught.
Pearson says: “Our approach was just to play it with a straight bat. We weren't censoring content; we were explaining what was there and how that may affect some people, and then we taught the content. So again, we were just standing by our principles: we're not here to upset or hurt anybody; we're here to present challenging ideas in a way that promotes the wellbeing of our community.”
Talking about the accusations universities receive, Jones says: “Some of the things that universities are attacked for are incredibly trivial and a lot of the accusations are manufactured."
“I do think there are some kind of think tanks or commentators who will actively look, for example, for universities doing things which can be considered woke or politically correct, so it fits into that narrative."
The phenomenon is global. Negative media narratives around universities seem to have intensified in other countries, while stereotypes such as the ones seeing universities as left-leaning ivory towers are still enduring.
Beyond correcting inaccuracies when they happen – “We see that happen a lot,” comments Judy Wing, PR and External Communications Lead at Loughborough University – responding to negative coverage is only part of the strategy. More energy is invested in proactive ways of shaping the narrative. For example, Universities UK recently launched a campaign celebrating the achievements of first-generation students, while the recently relaunched #WeAreInternational campaign highlights the contribution that international students make to universities and communities.
Recently, the University of Loughborough in the UK also launched a new brand campaign highlighting the specific impact its work and research have on communities - local and global. Part of the campaign launch was an article by Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Nick Jennings calling on universities to better share their stories.
“Increasingly of late, universities have been under fire. Changes to government policies, real-terms cuts to funding and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis have seen the media and politicians questioning almost everything we do, from the value of our degrees to the significance of our research.
“No other multi-billion-pound sector is treated with such disdain,” Professor Jennings says in the article. The onus is on universities to change the narrative, he says.
Professor Jennings explains that the sector needs to be more proactive, not just responsive. “We have perhaps not been as front-footed as a sector as we need to be. When I started my career, many people had a positive view of universities. That has eroded over time and we haven't always been active enough to tell the stories about how we make life better for individuals, society and the planet,” he tells QS Insights Magazine.
“We can't just assume that people still think we're institutions that are forces for good, and that's why we wanted to have an active campaign.”
A degree of coordination in the sector is important, he explains, and Universities UK has played an important role in bringing the sector’s voices together. “We are much more powerful when we act together, as a collective, because it’s not just one institution with one point of view, it’s 150 institutions coming together behind the message.”
"There’s no point telling people the value we bring, we need to demonstrate it."
An element of bravery
Sarah Bostock, Head of Strategic Marketing at Loughborough University, says that institutions across the sector are experiencing the same negative impacts from the current situation. She adds that, sometimes, there’s an element of bravery involved in how institutions respond. “When we made the decision to write an open letter, accompanied by an article that was fairly outspoken in terms of saying ‘we simply cannot let somebody else’s agenda affect how people view universities’, we took a bit of a risk,” she says. “It may not have landed well. Luckily, it did.”
The sector responded well to the campaign, she explains, and to Professor Jennings’s call for universities to speak up collectively and change the narrative. “We all need to feel a collective responsibility to talk about the strengths of our sector,” Bostock says.
The aim of the new brand campaign and ongoing press and public relations activities, Bostock explains, is to highlight the work carried out by the university on specific challenges, such as climate change, and its impact on communities and individuals. “We are making sure that our brand activity is very targeted around tangible things that are actually being impacted by the work that’s taking place in Loughborough.
“Historically, universities have been very good at talking broadly about all the things they do, rather than take an individual on the street and make it relevant to them, their lived experiences and their background.”
This type of storytelling is becoming more common among universities, she adds. “We are not trying to manipulate anyone,” Wing jokes. “These are great stories that we can evidence and demonstrate to really show the value of what universities are doing.”
Being out there
The ivory tower is one of the most infamous and enduring stereotypes about academia. However, the role of universities in society and their local community is a central topic in the sector and beyond, and the focus of several initiatives.
One of them was the work undertaken by the Civic University Commission in the UK, which published a report setting out recommendations to strengthen the civic role of institutions and encourage universities to develop Civic University Agreements in partnership with local governments and communities to focus their civic activities on their local needs. A strong connection with the local community is also a key element to leverage for universities to shape the narrative.
Pearson explains that a lot of the research shows that people who have direct interactions with universities tend to feel positively about them. “Most often, that's graduates,” she explains. “Non-graduates don't tend to have interactions with universities.”
She adds that it behoves universities to be engaged with the rest of the world and find ways to engage with the community directly; [cc1] for example, through community volunteering, festivals and participatory research. “Those direct interactions with us as a university community will give them their own experience to judge us on, rather than that solely being mediated through the media,” she says. “If people are primarily getting their information from the media about universities, then depending on what outlet they're reading, they're going to get a mediated view of who we are and what we do.”
And if people who live in a town with a university don’t understand the value that institution brings to their community, she says, “then some of the responsibility for addressing that is ours.”
For Pearson, a lot of it comes down to an idea to show, don’t tell. “There’s no point telling people the value we bring, we need to demonstrate it. And in order to do that, we need to engage. We need to engage beyond the university campuses.
“We need to accept our role as civic institutions with a long-term connection to communities, locally, nationally, globally.”
Being out in the community is particularly important when the echo chamber effect, especially on social media, makes some people harder to reach with media and PR campaigns. “It’s an ongoing challenge to break through the echo chamber,” Wing explains.
"It’s really unfortunate that international students are talked about in terms of that kind of anti-immigration rhetoric."
Town & gown
Lesli Franco, Vice President at O’Connell & Goldberg Public Relations, recounts that when she went to university in a small rural town in the US, there was a sense that college students and local residents didn’t mix. “Universities need to do a better job of having relationships with people outside of their walls,” she comments.
She explains that the universities doing a good job in this regard usually have events bringing the public to the campus, but there are other institutions that have stepped outside of their campus, opening an office in the city centre, for example, or organising festivals for the community.
“There is sometimes a sense from some communities that universities don’t value or respect them, that students are there for a short period of time. So having these institutions come out and say ‘No, we do respect you and we are part of your history’ is really valuable,” she comments. “Some of that is communication down to the students. While they may be there for a short amount of time, that town is someone’s home.”
Tackling the ‘town and gown’ issue could also help build a better narrative around international students, highlighting their role in the community. “In some respects,” says Pearson, “although obviously, the immigration issue is a separate one, that idea of students being problematic members of the community is also a narrative that has traction in some areas. I think it's part of our wider work to demonstrate how our students go on to better our local community.”
She recounts that during the university’s recent Celebration of Volunteering, many of those nominated for and winning the volunteering awards were international members of the university community. Telling those stories is a way to highlight the social and cultural value international students bring to their community.
While she says that there is not much an individual institution can do to change the national narrative, hopefully it can change the way people in its local community feel about international students.
International student recruitment has been the target of much press attention in the UK, especially recently, with some comments reminiscent of the much-derided ‘foreigners are stealing our jobs’ trope.
“It’s really unfortunate that international students are talked about in terms of that kind of anti-immigration rhetoric,” says Jones. “The discourse should be one of gratitude because our overseas students prop up a [funding] system which is broken at the moment. It’s really unfortunate that the discourse has switched.
“It’s partly down to university leaders to reclaim the discourse. They sometimes tend to be quite tentative, they don’t want to be seen as criticising the government - but maybe that hasn’t really worked for us.”
He adds that the economic case for international students is all too often made before the cultural case.
A long game
In Pearson’s personal opinion, if a narrative plays well with some members of the community, political actors will continue to play to that narrative because it gains support. This is why engaging with their local communities is crucial to tackle negative narratives. “If we change the way people feel about universities, it changes the value of that narrative for political actors in using it with their own constituencies,” she says.
It’s a long game, she explains, as what is happening at the moment is symptomatic of wider cultural issues around political debates. “Universities have got caught up in that. The issue of culture wars is not specific to universities. It's become a dominant narrative across all of our cultural and political debates,” she says.
However, she adds, the one thing that universities have that a lot of political institutions don’t is longevity. “We have the advantage as facilitators of local dialogue, as civic institutions, of being able to play a longer game in many respects. We need to defend ourselves. We need to demonstrate the value that we bring. But I don't think a short-term, reactive way of doing so is the way to do that.
“We need to play to our strengths. And our strengths are our longevity as institutions, our role as civic partners, and the openness and transparency that we can bring to issues. And if we seek to engage in the debate in a way that doesn't play to those strengths, then I think we're doing ourselves a disservice as a sector.”
Brand work and institutional values
Franco has a recipe for responding to negative press, or for commenting on sensitive government policy changes.
First of all, she says, unless facts are incorrect, it’s better to not engage. “The moment you engage, you are validating, and you are also putting yourself in a position where you become a target.”
However, there are some times when a response is needed – and she says universities should follow four rules in this case. First of all, it’s important to comment if it’s an issue that’s closer to home and affecting the university’s community. The second rule is to speak up if what happened is a direct contradiction of your institutional values. The fourth is to ensure that the human behind the statement shines through.
The third rule, listed last on purpose, is more delicate. “You need to make sure that if you are going to communicate, you are not alienating an audience by doing so,” Franco explains. This doesn’t mean an institution needs to remain neutral or not speak up, but that it needs to actively engage with all its communities - for example, students, alumni and donors - and consider their points of view to ensure they are not excluded from the process. Clarity on what the institution stands for is essential. “If you are getting backlash, then you need to step back and consider whether you have a bigger issue there. Does your audience know who you are and what you stand for? If that’s not the case, then you need to do a little bit of brand work.”
Asked how universities can tackle negative tropes and stereotypes, Franco says, referring to the left-leaning bias as an example: “Part of it is - you are not going to change that narrative. The students will do it for you. The media audience isn’t the audience you need to care about as far as biases are concerned: it’s the students on your campus. You want to make sure that everyone feels safe and supported.
“That’s the first thing I tell the universities I work with: you have to be fair, and you have to be public in your fairness. And you need to ensure that students who are choosing to share their voices feel safe.”
According to Franco, universities should focus on telling positive stories instead of engaging with negative political narratives. “I think the political side of things is where universities shouldn’t be. Once we talk about that, once we engage with that, we are validating that as an opinion that is valid - and it’s not. The only way we can push against the stereotype is to reinforce what we believe in - a way to do that is to tell great stories. Why engage with a negative and divisive discourse when we can be telling great stories instead?”