Voices: To increase trust in education and democracy, Utah educators will need to put aside ideological and political differences

Note to readers • This is part of a series of forward-looking predictions for 2026. Read more.

Higher education has long been considered part of the foundation of democracy in the United States. Higher education and democracy form a symbiotic relationship where both have the capacity to influence and shape one another.

Studying the history of both reveals similar patterns of origins steeped in elitism, myths of meritocracy and glimpses of the American Dream. Both have had profoundly positive and negative impacts on the lives of many.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the public’s trust in both is dwindling, with higher education seeing a minor increase this year after almost a decade of decline and public trust in government at its lowest point in almost 70 years.

As we zoom in to explore what may be in store for higher education in Utah, it is important to keep in mind this interconnectedness.

As an educator whose career has focused significant energy on holding institutions accountable to the public purpose of higher education, I take a stance of “urgent optimism,” which Jane McGonigal describes as mental flexibility, realistic hope and future power. Urgent optimism should not be confused with naivety, magical thinking or ignorance to the realities we currently face. Instead, it is a powerful approach to acknowledging that if we are incapable of envisioning the world in which we want and deserve to live, it is highly unlikely that we will have the capacity to build it.

The political reality of being a higher education professional in Utah today is often volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The person who holds the power of appointment for the Utah State Board of Higher Education decried higher education as “too political” while the Legislature passed anti-DEI measures as part of a larger national political agenda. Last year, we saw “strategic reallocation” mandate workforce development as a top priority. A new Center for Civic Excellence makes an overtly partisan effort to overhaul general education. Extreme interpretations and the public syllabus component of HB261 set a strong foundation for government and institutional overreach that would violate academic freedom.

Somehow, state leaders seem to find the capacity to lambast higher education’s shortcomings whenever those fit neatly into their political agenda and simultaneously take credit for the remarkable impacts institutions have with students and communities.

My critiques of the external pressures and defense of higher education do not mean that I think everything in higher education is going well. Sayre’s Law states the politics inside higher education are intense because the stakes are low. There are countless “enemies within,” including ego-driven and opportunistic leaders, inefficient policies and practices, and resistance to change. Higher education is notorious for giving people with few leadership skills significant amounts of power.

Those of us who have experienced and believe in the transformative power of higher education know that the struggle is worth it, and the social cost of losing academic freedom will pale in comparison to the democratic backsliding we currently see today.

Here is where urgent optimism enters the discussion: Higher education, despite its many flaws and exploitative past, has made and will continue to make remarkable contributions to our society, local communities and students.

Last year, we saw a powerful display of the potential for collective action through the overwhelming support to repeal the anti-public union legislation. We also saw steady growth in membership of the Utah College Council across the state.

2026 will be the year in which higher education professionals across the state come together across ideological and political differences to reify our commitments to the educational endeavor and public purpose of higher education. This renewal will take many forms and will necessarily be complex and messy. It will at times appear as dissonant and without resolution, however, seemingly unanswerable questions and debates have long been a central focus of the academy.

Here are three areas to observe how these ideological battles unfold:

Academic freedom

Challenges to academic freedom often do not rise to the public view, but what does are questions around the value of tenure. This year, we will see rhetoric of “viewpoint diversity” employed by legislators, which on its face is a good thing and fits into the larger conservative overreach into higher education. Academic freedom means leveraging our qualifications and years of studying to determine the best approaches to teaching our subjects — not that we must treat all ideas equally or present every argument with a counter-argument.

Shared governance

In this example, shared governance involves the capacity for faculty, student and staff voice to make substantive contributions to the overall priorities of our institutions. It requires that each group engage meaningfully in processes and be willing to compromise.

Community engagement

Lastly, community engagement is an opportunity for institutions to seek reciprocity within their local communities. More than being good neighbors, it means finding ways to align student learning and institutional priorities with community goals and needs. It also means creating spaces where community goals and community voices influence the institution. Quality community engagement acknowledges power differentials within communities, embraces diversity and culture, and works to empower all involved for their optimum contributions and the potential to co-create knowledge

Despite all the uncertainty, 2026 will be a year in which higher education professionals are going to continue to come together under the belief of the transformative potential of higher education.

Sean Crossland has been working in Utah higher education for 15 years and currently serves as an assistant professor for Higher Education Leadership and director of Academic Service Learning at Utah Valley University. He is the vice president of higher education for the American Federation of Teachers Utah. He earned a PhD in educational leadership and policy from the University of Utah, MA in community leadership from Westminster College, and BA in psychology from Iowa Wesleyan College. His recently published Pathways of Social Impact: Higher Education for the Public Good brings together a range of perspectives to deepen our understanding of students’ interests, motivations and approaches to social change. His thoughts are his own.

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