Higher education leadership has always meant deciding without perfect information. What has changed is the pace. Federal policy shifts week to week, grant programs appear and disappear, and demographic pressure keeps squeezing enrollment. In this episode of TransferTalk, host Jay Fedje sits down with Dr. Jessica Gerrity, Senior Vice President and leader of the higher education practice at McAllister & Quinn. Her message is simple and hard to follow. Uncertainty is not a reason to retreat. It is a reason to stay engaged, and to bring the right guide.
Gerrity has spent about 12 years at the firm, working with small and mid-sized colleges that are mission driven and teaching focused. Many are, in her words, “off the radar.” A political scientist who once taught at a liberal arts college, she knows the campus from the inside.
What You’ll Find in This Article
- Why institutional silos quietly cost colleges grants, funding, and influence
- Why “don’t panic” may be the most important leadership advice right now
- How presidents can give boards an adaptable plan instead of a rigid one
- Why advocacy in Washington belongs on every president’s calendar
- Where shifting grant rules are creating openings for prepared institutions
- What a mountain guide can teach us about higher education leadership
Silos Are a Higher Education Leadership Problem
Jay opened with an observation from decades on campus. Enrollment has its own strategy. Grant writing and fundraising have theirs. Government relations often has none at all.
Gerrity agrees, and she does not blame anyone for it. Campuses specialized for good reasons over the last 20 or 30 years. “We all have a tendency to want to specialize, right?” she says. The trouble starts when specialization drifts into isolation, and “no one really knows what the other is doing.”
The cost is concrete. Every missed conversation is a missed chance to “run at the same goals.” For higher education leadership, that makes silos a strategy problem, not an org chart quirk.
Grants Are Not Just for R1s
Many teaching-focused colleges still see grants as something only research universities do. Gerrity calls that a misperception. Beyond individual research grants sits “a whole category of institutional grants.” They fund student success, retention, first-generation support, internships, and undergraduate research with faculty.
Those grants touch nearly every office on campus. Admissions, financial aid, student success, advancement, and sponsored research all shape the proposal and share the work of delivering it.
Her example is a National Science Foundation grant for students from underserved backgrounds in rigorous STEM majors. Programs like NSF S-STEM follow this model. Money is only part of it. The grant also asks how students build self-efficacy, find mentors in the field, and meet the state’s workforce needs. “And that just takes more than a grant writer,” Gerrity says. “It takes more than one faculty member.”
Washington Stopped Being Optional
Government relations suffers from the same drift, and Gerrity has a theory about why. “The further you get from DC, the more people kind of want to tune it out.”
For years, that was survivable. Congress had not reauthorized the Higher Education Act since 2008, and earmarks disappeared for 11 years. Presidents lost their concrete reasons to visit Capitol Hill.
That has changed. New Department of Education regulations now cut across financial aid, recruitment, retention, and student success at once. To advocate well, a president needs every one of those offices in the same conversation. That is higher education leadership work, and Gerrity expects the cost of silos to grow. “I think that’s only going to become more pronounced.”
The Free Rider Problem in Advocacy
Jay asked whether colleges are breaking down silos across competitor lines, through their associations. Gerrity says yes, and credits associations with tremendous work over the past year and a half.
Then she offers a parent’s analogy. Joining the PTO helps every child in the school, but you still have to speak up for your own child.
Too many institutions stop at the association. “It’s a little bit of a free rider problem,” she says. The association speaks for the sector. Nobody speaks for your campus, your state’s workforce needs, or your congressional delegation’s priorities.
The upside of speaking for yourself is bigger than most presidents assume. When Congress holds a hearing on first-generation students and Pell grants, staff may call an association. They may also call the president known for solving that problem on campus. That is how higher education leadership moves from absorbing policy to shaping it.
Don’t Panic: Retreat Is a Decision, Too
The recording landed the same week as new Pell grant changes. Jay asked what separates proactive colleges from reactive ones. “I think this is where leadership has never been more important on a campus,” Gerrity says. In a crisis, the spotlight lands on higher education leadership.
Last year, as pressure arrived from every direction, some leaders stepped back from federal engagement and grant seeking to avoid criticism. Jay summed it up in one word: retreat.
The leaders Gerrity admires did something harder. They stayed calm and accepted that “some of it is going to stick and some of it won’t.” As a trained political scientist, she sees a pattern. Institutions have muscle memory. Norms break for a while, then drift back toward what people have always expected.
“And if you retreat too soon, you’re now taking yourself out of a system and that can be really bad for your college or university.”
Know What Is Worth Losing Sleep Over
Part of staying calm is filtering the noise. A policy makes the headline one week. A court challenges it the next, and that rarely makes the news.
Gerrity’s advice is practical. “Just make sure you have good information sources so you know what is worth losing sleep over.” The best leaders test their ideas with people who follow the legal, regulatory, and political cycles. Then they decide what to pause and what to keep doing.
Boards Want a Plan. Give Them an Adaptable One.
In Jay’s experience, boards react faster than cabinets and always want to know the plan. Today the better question is how adaptable that plan is.
Gerrity says boards are “all over the map.” What she does know is that demand for outside perspective has spiked. “I’ve never had more requests for assistance and prepping for board meetings, especially on the government relations front.”
She also names a culture clash that shapes higher education leadership. Academic institutions are thoughtful, cautious, and critical. “It’s like being in a dissertation defense all the time,” she says. Boards want quick decisions on the information available. Presidents who bridge those two personalities will succeed with their boards and with their strategy.
The $40 Million Board Meeting
Her favorite example comes from a conservative college on the West Coast. The president flew a large board to Washington for panels with decision makers and visits with the congressional delegation.
He opened with a number and made the whole room repeat it: $40 million. That is what the college receives from the federal government every year.
“They are our largest donor,” he told them. “So love them or hate them. We have to figure this out. We cannot retreat.”
Then he closed the loop. Any trustee still opposed to federal engagement could suggest a donor to replace that $40 million. Gerrity calls it one of the most effective board meetings she has seen. It tied government relations directly to the funding that keeps the campus running.
Every Mountain Needs a Guide
Jay then reached for a metaphor. He had watched a documentary about hikers who progressed from Colorado’s fourteeners to Denali, Kilimanjaro, and Everest. At each new peak, the hikers saw only risk. The guide saw a preparation plan.
Too many colleges, Jay argues, try to climb alone, or decide the peak is too scary. “You got to have a guide,” he says. Enrollment, fundraising, government relations, and grant writing each need one, “because the storms on the mountain aren’t what they used to be.”
Gerrity added the line that reframes the episode. Guides do more than manage risk.
“The guide is there to keep you out of danger, but the guide is also like, hey, peel off here because this is the best view on the hike.”
That is the part most higher education leadership conversations miss. Colleges talk constantly about risk. They rarely talk about opportunity.
Where Uncertainty Creates Opportunity
Gerrity sees real openings right now, especially for institutions that did not retreat.
Shorter Deadlines Reward the Prepared
Grant turnarounds are faster than they were five or six years ago. “You have to be ready when the opportunity drops,” she says. That takes pre-planning, strategy work, and data identified in advance. Waiting to spot a new notice on grants.gov or LinkedIn no longer works.
Many institutions will look at a tight timeline and wait until next year. That thins the field. “The universe of competition is shrinking and your individual likelihood of getting a grant is increasing even in this environment.”
Broader Criteria, New Openings
In September 2025, the Department of Education ended funding for seven discretionary grant programs for minority-serving institutions, including Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Many campuses had built those grants into their strategic plans. McAllister & Quinn published a guide to navigating the end of those MSI programs soon after.
Gerrity calls the loss disheartening, especially for campuses that serve many of those students. She also sees a shift. Some grants once carved out for particular groups now have broader criteria, sometimes only economic need. That lets institutions define their needs in more flexible ways. “Yes, a window closed, but another window opened.” The stakes have not shrunk either. “It’s still the same amount of money that can do the same good.”
The first institutions to see this may face less competition, because others are unsure whether they still qualify.
Three Pieces of Advice for New Presidents
At a recent presidential conference, Jay saw seasoned presidents asking good questions, but too many seemed soured and in retreat. New presidents arrived with energy. He asked Gerrity what higher education leadership advice she would give a room of brand-new presidents.
- Build a cabinet with both perspectives. “Make sure your cabinet reflects those different perspectives.” Pair new energy with people who know what the college already tried and where it failed. That history informs the vision without stopping it.
- Name someone to connect the silos. Too much of this work lands on the provost. “I really love the role chief of staff in a college,” Gerrity says. Strategy meetings end, and everyone returns to a full plate. Without a clear owner, “that’s how silos persist.”
- Go to Washington in person. New presidents who engage with DC directly give Gerrity energy. “Nothing beats advocating for your institution in person.” Visit members of Congress. Book a meeting at the Department of Education and talk to a real person.
Dr. André Stephens made a related case for presidents who lead from the front in TransferTalk Episode 24.
The Thank-You Note Rule
Gerrity’s most memorable analogy is about gratitude. Campuses often forget to show decision makers what federal dollars accomplish, like a campus daycare that helps student parents finish their degrees.
“It’s sort of reminding your kids to write a thank you note,” she says. “Like if your great aunt never gets a thank you note, she might stop sending you that birthday check.”
Presidents should own that relationship personally, not wait for their association.
Make the 20 Minutes Count
Preparation is where a guide earns their place. “When you have 20 minutes with your house member, you do wanna make it count, right?” Gerrity also admits that “academics are not always the best at being concise or the elevator pitch.” A good guide helps boil the ask down to a few clear points.
Readiness Is the Real Higher Education Leadership Advantage
The thread through this conversation is readiness. Fast grant deadlines, anxious boards, and short meetings on the Hill all reward institutions whose offices already talk.
Transfer credit evaluation is a quiet test of that readiness. It touches admissions, the registrar, faculty, advising, and financial aid. When those offices work in silos, prospective students wait weeks to learn what counts. When they share one process and one set of data, the institution answers fast.
The Big Takeaway: Higher Education Leadership Means Asking Better Questions
The leaders Gerrity admires did not have every answer. They asked the right questions, of people who had walked the trail before. They stayed engaged when retreat felt safer.
That is what higher education leadership looks like in an uncertain season. Prepare instead of panic. Connect the silos. Speak for your own institution. And when the next peak looks unfamiliar, find a guide who knows the trail.
Listen Now
Worth your time if you are a president, cabinet member, or trustee, or if you lead enrollment, advancement, or government relations. Listen to Episode 29 of TransferTalk with Dr. Jessica Gerrity.
Want more conversations like this one? Browse every TransferTalk episode.
