Trump election victory shows need ‘to meet people where they are’

Donald Trump’s re-election as US president has highlighted the need for universities “to meet people where they are” in a world experiencing complexity “fatigue”, a conference has heard.

Alana Piper, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), said Mr Trump’s election victory marked a “reckoning” for the university sector. “It’s not good enough for us to…try and convince people to share our values,” she told a symposium organised by the Australian Technology Network (ATN).

“We need to understand what other people’s values are and…speak to their values. I don’t know that we have been as successful at that as we should have been.”

It was no easy task in a world craving simplicity, she acknowledged. Universities had “fallen foul of much the same instinct” that had propelled Mr Trump back into the White House.

The election result represented “a backlash against complexity”, and academics – who were “frightened of oversimplifying things” – were a natural target.

“Things in the world…have been difficult and painful and complex and nuanced and ambiguous, and that’s hard,” Dr Piper said. “Now someone’s come along who [says it is] ‘simple and people are lying to you. All those people who use big words and tell you it’s complicated are idiots. Let’s laugh at them.’

“I’m glad that universities are…out there defending the fact that things are complicated, and the world is full of nuance. But it makes it hard when you’re competing with people who are willing to go for a catchphrase and appeal to people who just want to hear something that makes them feel…certain.”

Nicky Sparshott, chair of UTS’ industry advisory board, said universities needed to resist a push for “binary” simplicity. “We need critical thinkers across all parts of society [who] question constructively [and] agitate with good intent,” said Ms Sparshott, chief transformation officer at manufacturing company Unilever.

“The single most important skill that…we can instil in students, and in ourselves, is the ability to hold two things to be true at any point of time. That’s my wish for any form of education.”

Adjunct UTS professor Christian Bason, a Copenhagen-based expert in societal innovation, said universities should not take ideological stances. But they should “side” with complexity, he said.  

“There is a role to build a higher tolerance for ambiguity,” he told the forum. “I would much rather live in a society with a high tolerance for critique and ambiguity…than the opposite.”

ATN executive director Ant Bagshaw said gender and education levels had been major determinants of voting patterns in the US election. A similar “divide’ affected Australian universities, as higher education became increasingly feminised.

“Education is increasingly a divide in society,” Dr Bagshaw told the forum. “That’s perhaps something [we] need to address. Engaging with these mega trends is going to be essential.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com