Higher Education Doesn't Need More Cheerleaders. It Needs Critical Friends Who've Been in the Arena.

by Claire L. Brady, EdD

This is a love letter to higher education. Not the glossy brochure version. Not the rankings or the branding campaigns.

But the real thing—the messy, meaningful, often exhausting work of helping people learn, grow, belong, and become.

I spent 23 years working on campuses. I became a full-time higher ed consultant and coach not because I was done with higher ed, but because I wanted to serve it better and impact more students. Many of us who now work as external partners made the same choice—not out of distance, but out of expanded commitment.

We didn't leave the work. We expanded our capacity to do it.

What We See That Others Don't

We know the rhythm of academic life in our bones. We understand what August asks of people. We feel the weight of midterms, commencements, crises that don't follow calendars, and decisions that affect real human lives. We've sat in the late-night emergencies, navigated budget cuts with care, and celebrated student wins that no spreadsheet could ever capture.

But here's what working across institutions taught us: the problems that feel unique to your campus often aren't. The committee that's been stuck for eighteen months? We've seen that pattern play out at dozens of institutions—and we know what finally unlocks it. The strategic plan gathering dust? We've learned why some become living documents and others become shelf-ware. The promising initiative that died in implementation? We've identified the six places where momentum typically stalls.

They think we parachute in with generic solutions.

We know every campus culture is a fingerprint—and we've studied hundreds.

They think we're expensive band-aids.

We know we're investing in capacity that outlasts our contract.

They think we don't understand "their culture."

We know because we've worked with institutions facing the same challenge—and we bring the pattern recognition they can't see from inside.

Why This Work Still Matters

Higher education is imperfect. We know that intimately.

We've seen bureaucracy slow good ideas to death. We've watched burnout take brilliant people out of the field. We've facilitated the meeting where a VP finally admitted they have no idea how to move forward. We've sat with the committee that mistakes endless discussion for progress. We've witnessed budget meetings where student success loses to optics.

Loving this work doesn't mean being blind to its flaws—it means being brave enough to name them and staying engaged long enough to help solve them.

And still, we believe.

We believe in campuses as places of possibility. In higher ed professionals who show up every day as educators, advocates, and steady adults in moments that matter. In faculty who care deeply about learning, even when the system makes it harder than it should be. In leaders who are trying—often quietly, often imperfectly—to do right by their communities.

What We Actually Do

We're the ones who facilitate the strategic planning retreat where real talk finally happens—not the performance version of planning, but the honest conversation that's been needed for years.

We coach the new vice president through their first public campus crisis at midnight because we remember our own, and because isolation makes everything harder.

We build the frameworks that finally get shared governance unstuck, not by choosing sides but by creating clarity about who owns what.

We ask the questions that need asking but feel too risky to raise from inside: What if this tradition is actually holding us back? What if this committee structure is the problem, not the people in it? What if the thing everyone's working around is the thing we should finally address?

We challenge assumptions not to be provocative, but because students deserve better outcomes.

We introduce new tools, frameworks, and technologies not to chase trends, but to free people up to do the most human parts of their jobs more fully. We're not here to sell you software. We're here to help you think.

An Act of Devotion

For many of us, higher education was the place where someone first saw our potential and said, "You belong here." That moment—sometimes quiet, sometimes life-changing—still fuels everything we do.

As consultants and coaches, our work is an act of devotion and of care. We hold up mirrors not because institutions are failing, but because reflection is how growth happens. We ask hard questions because the mission deserves clarity.

The best consulting isn't done TO institutions. It's done IN PARTNERSHIP with people who never stopped caring.

So this love letter is both gratitude and promise.

Gratitude for the institutions and people who shaped us, challenged us, and gave us language for purpose. For the 23 years of late nights and early mornings, of student crises and commencement celebrations, of budget cuts and breakthrough moments that taught us what really matters.

And a promise to keep showing up—to keep listening, questioning, and building systems that serve people more fully. To bring what we've learned across dozens of campuses back to each one we serve. To be the critical friends who've been in the arena and choose to stay engaged.

What Comes Next

We remain deeply hopeful—not because the work is easy, but because the purpose is clear. Higher education has always evolved through people willing to imagine something better and stay engaged long enough to help make it real.

We're still here. Still invested. Still believing that the best chapters of higher education are not behind us—but waiting to be written.

To every consultant and coach still doing this work: You're not just helping institutions. You're holding space for higher education to become what it promised to be. That's not a side hustle. That's a calling.

And to every higher ed leader who's ever worked with an external partner who truly got it: thank you for trusting us with your mission. The critics say higher ed's best days are behind it. We're here to prove them spectacularly wrong.

What's your "why" for staying connected to higher ed—whether from inside or outside campus walls? I'd love to hear your story.

*Image created using ChatGPT