It’s about 25 years old: former FBI Director Louis Freeh, one of his colleagues, and Saint Anselm College President, Rev. Jonathan DeFelice, O.S.B., standing in a campus hallway, handing me an “FBI” hat. Freeh was in New Hampshire with former Senator Judd Gregg, on a visit focused on internet safety and cybercrime. Their stop at Saint Anselm made sense: the college could host a lunch and bring senior law enforcement alumni. The Senator was at one table. Freeh and our president at another. I ended up across from Senator Gregg. My colleague, politics professor Dale Kuehne, was at his side.

Between soup and dessert, Dale and I talked with Gregg about an idea we’d been tossing around, a space on campus that could channel the energy of the New Hampshire primary year-round. Like the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, but with a hometown, Live Free or Die feel to it. A place where students didn’t need VIP status to meet members of Congress or presidential candidates.

We imagined a place where students from any major could learn from journalists, candidates, and campaign staff; where reporters could file stories over coffee; where the community could gather for lectures and debates. The college hosted events already, but usually when and as asked by outside organizations. This idea was different. It created a headquarters — conference rooms, a research center, an auditorium, and a green room. A place where parents from Presque Isle, Maine, would drive six hours to watch their son or daughter introduce John McCain or Hillary Clinton in Goffstown, New Hampshire. A place where civic engagement would be intentional, not accidental.

Senator Gregg listened politely as he ate his salad. Candidly, I wondered if we were boring him or if maybe he just didn't like the raspberry vinaigrette. Louis Freeh gave his concluding remarks, and soon after, I went back to my office, placed my new hat on the bookshelf, and returned to the next issue of the alumni magazine.

A week later, word came that Senator Gregg wanted to know more. He was intrigued. What, really? That conversation … on an ordinary Monday … eventually became the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm.

Professor Kuehne and I would both serve stints as executive director in the years that followed, along with Professor Paul Manuel, our third co-conspirator in all things political.

It took supportive trustees, a federal appropriation, and the complete gutting and rehab of a former National Guard facility. It also took a few large leaps of faith from the Benedictine monks who founded Saint Anselm, especially the college president who wanted to ensure that civic knowledge and engagement was more than a footnote in the college experience. Today, the Institute reminds many students and community members alike that participating in democracy, regardless of partisan affiliation, should not be an occasional co-curricular activity like attending a football game. It's actually the whole point. As Thomas Jefferson and other founders recognized, education needed to be rooted in understanding the complexity and fragility of democracy. Jefferson wanted students at the university he founded to graduate knowing there was a whole lot more than just a future job at stake.

This photo reminds me what can happen when a good idea meets the right moment and the right people. I thought it was just another Monday. Turns out, it was the start of something that changed many lives, including mine.

So if your week ahead feels long or ordinary, take heart. Be prepared for something consequential.

As for me, I think it’s time to frame this.

I think that’s called extortion. But this is Florida, and that’s how the ruling class rolls … sometimes over everyone else. 

At first glance, this looks like political theater from a second-term lawmaker eager to prove his conservative chops and score some media hits and attention.  But if this bill passes, it will be yet another blow to any pretense that university trustees are anything more than potted plants.

In Florida, public university trustees are appointed by the governor.  And if any go off script and ask inconvenient questions, they get reined in by the Board of Governors, which also has a majority appointed by the governor.  The BOG, as it’s called, has final say on everything from hiring presidents to setting tuition and strategic priorities. Here a board, there a board, everywhere a board, but they all report up to one man in Tallahassee.

Still, these handpicked boards do include some accomplished civic and business leaders who devote hundreds of volunteer hours to institutions serving over 400,000 students. I have respect for those who continue to protect campuses and preserve what’s left of institutional autonomy under these conditions.

And now, one legislator wants to dictate road names. Demanding these trustees follow legislative directives about memorials or risk budget cuts is both insulting and unnecessary.

Opinions on Charlie Kirk’s legacy vary. Some see him as a bold advocate for free speech, debate, and civic engagement. Others view him as an amplifier of conspiracy theories and divisive rhetoric targeting women, minorities, immigrants, the homeless, and university faculty.  There may be at least some truth in both perspectives.

But what’s indisputable is that Kirk’s Professor Watchlist caused real harm. This online registry targeted faculty accused of “liberal bias” and led to harassment, including death and rape threats, from Turning Point’s audience. Many professors feared for their safety. Some even moved out of the country. Mischaracterizations or oversimplifications of faculty viewpoints had a chilling effect on academic freedom and classroom discourse.   

Naming a road after him on every public campus has nothing to do with academic achievement and everything to do with political symbolism. Withholding state funds to force partisan memorials isn’t governance; it’s coercion.

If Steele wants roads named for controversial activists, he should involve the campus community and take their views into account, especially at schools serving large populations of first-generation or minority students. Maybe he could start at Florida A&M, the nation’s top public HBCU.

Florida’s colleges and universities are engines of learning, research, and civic life. They deserve leaders who defend access, excellence, and inquiry, not lawmakers who weaponize funding to score political points. And let’s be honest: while Kirk criticized college faculty, curricular decisions, and “liberal bias,” he never attended college. He didn’t earn a degree or experience firsthand the institutions he regularly attacked. Naming a street after him is like honoring a football player who never played the game.   

In our democracy, it’s fine for people to choose paths other than college. Many do. But universities are America’s intellectual and economic capital. Their impact touches everyone, degree-holder or not.

We are living in a dangerous time for our universities, every bit as dangerous as the senseless violence that ended Charlie Kirk’s life.  Florida’s campuses should remain places where thought is free, debate is honest, and roads are not turned into asphalt memorials for a single viewpoint.

I hope we see more reporting on this and the ongoing politicization of Florida’s higher education system.

This moment — universities being “selected,” media swarming, settlements flying — feels like a higher ed sequel to the spectacle we saw in the film.

If you missed the 2012 dystopian blockbuster, here’s the gist: each year, a glammed-up government official named Effie Trinket pulls names from a glass bowl in a ritual called the reaping. The “winners” are sent into a deadly arena — forced to fight to the death as punishment for past uprisings against the Capitol. Meanwhile, the charismatic but maniacal President Snow broadcasts the whole thing as both entertainment and a none-too-subtle flex of his absolute power.

Fast forward to today: George Washington University has joined Columbia, Harvard, and a few others in being “reaped” by the DOJ. Whether their selection is random or deserved isn’t the point. The real questions are: Why now? Why these? And why the laser focus on antisemitism and not a broader sweep of civil rights enforcement?

Let’s not kid ourselves. Many American institutions — including universities — have engaged in discrimination for decades:

• Jewish quotas at elite schools

• Asian American applicants penalized for being “too academic”

• Women and people of color underpaid and overlooked

• LGBTQ+ individuals excluded, often without recourse

• People with disabilities denied basic accommodations

And through all of it, federal enforcement was … minimal. Civil rights progress has largely come from the relentless effort of victims and advocates — not from press conferences or Justice Department statements.

Now, suddenly, the DOJ steps in. Publicly. Loudly. Proudly.

 Selectively.

Should there be consequences for discrimination? Of course. Columbia agreed to pay $21 million to settle an EEOC case over antisemitic harassment, and another $200 million in Title VI claims — over $220 million total. That’s no slap on the wrist.

But compare that with cases where the government barely showed up:

• University of Michigan paid $490 million to more than 1,000 sexual abuse survivors — not because of DOJ litigation, but through private lawsuits.

• USC paid over $1 billion in a similar case. Again, DOJ nowhere in sight.

• At the University of Vermont, a transgender athlete alleged severe discrimination and retaliation. No fine. No trial. No press conference. Just a quiet resolution.

These aren’t footnotes. They point to a pattern: The DOJ acts decisively for some groups, while others are left to fend for themselves.

Which leads to a harder question: When is the DOJ a true civil rights protector — and when is it just a selective enforcer, reflecting the priorities of whoever’s in charge at the time?

In a year when LGBTQ+ protections are being rolled back across multiple states and the EEOC is being defunded, where do those communities turn for protection? And what happens when the government itself is the violator?

Think about systemic failures in the military, where women — and men — have reported sexual assault and retaliation for decades. If “intentional indifference” has any real legal meaning, surely it applies there too. So who gets held accountable when the arena is the Pentagon?

To be clear: universities should be scrutinized. So should every employer. Including the federal government. Because if accountability depends on who’s in office, is it really accountability at all?

Donald Sutherland didn’t just accept the role of President Snow — he fought for it. He believed The Hunger Games was a warning.

“I wanted young people to be outraged. I wanted them to recognize that the allegory was real.”

So…

Are we outraged? Or just entertained?

If we’re going to hold institutions accountable, we also need to scrutinize the system deciding who gets dragged into the arena — and who stays safely in the glass bowl.

She might start with three questions every leader should ask when credible allegations surface involving someone on their team or affiliated with their organization:

1. What did you know?

2. When did you know it?

3. What did you do about it?

We don’t often think of monarchs as crisis managers, but Queen Elizabeth made one of the most decisive public leadership calls of her reign in 2019: removing her own son, Prince Andrew, from public duties well before any trial took place, after his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and alleged abuse of a minor became the subject of mounting legal scrutiny and international outrage.

No press conference. No defense. No vanilla statement promising an investigation. Just a statement from Buckingham Palace that Prince Andrew would be stepping back from public life “for the foreseeable future.” It was swift, unambiguous, and communicated one thing: The Crown will stand behind victims.

Her actions — parental and institutional — were rooted in protecting the long-term credibility of the monarchy, but also something deeper: a willingness to err on the side of believing that harm had been done.

Other institutions have struggled with this calculus.

When the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke at Penn State, key players either failed to ask the right questions — or ignored the answers. Were they protecting children or the brand? The board’s slow response cost the university dearly, in reputation, dollars, and trust.

More recently, the University of Southern California faced major fallout over its handling of sexual abuse allegations against campus gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall. Despite years of complaints, he remained employed until media investigations forced action. Again: What did you know, when, and what did you do? USC’s inept response cost the university over $1 billion in settlements. Faculty, students and alumni said the president had lost the moral authority to lead. More importantly, the university’s failure to act sooner led to thousands of additional victims.  

There are countless examples — across higher ed, nonprofits, and religious institutions — of leadership choosing silence, spin, or stalling. Crisis leadership isn't about predicting guilt. It's about protecting people, and when needed, making the painful call to act before the court of public opinion turns into a courtroom. Whenever a leader chooses to protect the brand over protecting people who have been — or may have been — harmed, they're making the wrong call. 

Queen Elizabeth didn’t need an investigation to tell her the risk to her institution. She didn’t wait for unanimous consensus. She simply led. Quietly. Decisively. Unequivocally. 

Leaders today would do well to remember that kind of clarity.

I’ve had the chance to visit UVA several times — for work, and as a mom when my daughter attended their summer writing program. Standing near the Rotunda, I remember feeling a sense of overwhelming awe. It’s almost impossible not to be struck by Jefferson’s ambition: to create a public university unlike any other in colonial America — a place that would not be governed by clergy or politicians, but by learned citizens, a place that would set a standard for public investment in the life of the mind.

Today, governors and legislatures are tweaking that purpose and the standards by which universities are judged — standards often tied to job placement or economic impact. Few stop to consider that Jefferson never saw higher education as a job training enterprise. He saw it as an insurance policy for democracy and the cultivation of citizens capable of critical thinking, public reasoning, and holding their government accountable.

If you are like me, you weren’t thinking about democracy enroute to your first college class. Like many, I just wanted to get a degree and then a job. I chose “business” as a proposed major because it sounded practical. I picked my liberal arts college more for its location and nice cozy New England vibe than for any understanding of the mandatory curriculum I was about to experience. And truthfully, I wasn’t thrilled about those required courses in philosophy, theology, foreign language, and biology — but I figured, OK, I’m here, let’s just get through this. 

Then came a moment of complete panic as I struggled in that first microeconomics class. Math and I don’t get along. I dreaded telling my dad, a math-savvy engineer, that maybe business wasn’t for me. Maybe college wasn’t either. It was a Rolaids moment. Thankfully that moment was interrupted by an English professor who pulled me aside after class one day. He said he liked my essays. He asked if I enjoyed writing them. I did. He thought I had some talent that could be nurtured. 

Talent or not, that faculty member threw me a lifeline that led to an English degree — and to a career built around words, storytelling, and creative endeavors, first in politics, then in higher education. I suffered through Victorian Literature and Linguistics, but I loved writing for seminars and creative workshops. And in retrospect, every one of those required courses made me better at what I do.

That, I think, is what Jefferson had in mind.

The liberal arts exposed me to ancient arguments, moral frameworks, and the best and worst of human history. I started to see myself not just as someone’s future employee, but as a vested stakeholder in this thing called the United States of America. 

That civic awareness is precisely why Jefferson’s founding vision feels more important — and more at risk — than ever.

I fear that elected officials and their appointed trustees now see universities as job-training centers and economic engines. That message is carried to the public, especially when a state appropriation is awarded for a facility that will fuel a favored sector. And it becomes the rationale to defund or eliminate some programs — some for being too woke, some for being underenrolled, some for their inability to create more nurses, engineers, or astronauts. But even astronauts and engineers wrestle with ethics, ideas, and their roles in a pluralistic democracy. And those engineers and scientists eventually turn to people like me to help make their case to investors, boards, and the public. 

UVA’s Jim Ryan is a celebrated constitutional scholar, someone who could hold his own with Jefferson. He resigned under pressure from conservative alumni and Trump administration officials. His failure? He didn’t dismantle DEI programs fast enough. He wasn’t “anti-woke” enough. By traditional measures — fundraising, research, public esteem — Ryan was highly successful. But like others recently forced out, he ran afoul of a new political orthodoxy.

What might Jefferson say? 

In 1820, he warned that “the atmosphere of our country is too full of the zeal of party to permit the faithful pursuit of truth.” That concern, two centuries later, feels eerily current.

Here in Florida, where I live, public university presidents have also been removed or forced to step down amid efforts to purge institutions of so-called “woke” ideas. In contrast to Jefferson’s vision, we have allowed politicians to decide which academic programs deserve funding and which do not, rewarding institutions that follow ideological directives. 

The implications are staggering.

While elected officials worry non-stop about “woke agendas,” I wonder: would Jefferson see this as reform? Or might he wonder if it’s just political theater designed to redirect public resources to favored majors and other ideologies? 

Would Jefferson support today’s DEI programs? Probably not. But would he support firing presidents for ideological reasons, defunding entire academic disciplines, and dictating university policy from the Capitol? That seems equally unlikely.

When Jefferson founded UVA at age 76, he called it “the hobby of my old age.” He believed in it so deeply that he had it engraved on his tombstone — along with his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Not the presidency. Not Monticello. Not his architectural feats. 

Education.

Even so, Jefferson, like America, was full of contradictions. He enslaved hundreds while preaching liberty. His ideal university was built for men like himself — wealthy, white, elite. But like the nation he helped found, his vision was imperfect, but progressive. His radical idea — that education should be public, secular, and civic in purpose — remains one of his most important legacies.

President Ryan reportedly resigned after threats that UVA would lose federal research dollars, student visas, and faculty jobs if he stayed. He did what others have done in similar situations. It’s become a pattern. 

In this season of fireworks and freedom, parades and pride, I just keep wondering: what would Jefferson really think?

For those who don’t have a crisis communications advisor on their team or available at an offsite firm, here’s a quick master class that landed in my e-mail yesterday. It comes from the CEO of The Atlantic concerning the Signal group chat. Note that this message is coming from Jeffrey Goldberg’s boss, not from Goldberg himself. I’ve added some thoughts below on why I think he nailed it.   

An Invitation from the Atlantic’s CEO

One of the most sacred principles of The Atlantic, as laid out in its 1857 founding statement, is that the magazine deals with politics as they are. We will report the truth, no matter who is in power. The Atlantic, our founders wrote, “will deal frankly with persons and with parties, endeavoring always to keep in view that moral element which transcends all persons and parties, and which alone makes the basis of a true and lasting national prosperity.”

This principle of course came into play when our editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, realized that he had accidentally been included in the “Houthi PC small group” Signal chat about an imminent attack on Yemen. Goldberg at first worried that it was a hoax. When he realized it was real, he left the group, called the officials involved, and then published a story. After they falsely accused him, and The Atlantic, of having made things up, we published a second story with a direct transcript of the chat.

Some of the exchanges that occurred last week might have bewildered our magazine’s founders. I suspect that if you had texted Ralph Waldo Emerson

after a strike in Yemen, he might have tossed his phone into Walden Pond. But the general principle was one that everyone involved in The Atlantic for the past 168 years has understood: Our job is to report on the most important issues of the day—fairly, accurately, and patiently—no matter what anyone in power says.

We take these responsibilities, and our legacy, very seriously at The Atlantic, and we are very grateful for the support that you, our readers, have given us in the past week. In that spirit, I’d like to invite you to a subscriber-only conversation with Goldberg this Thursday, April 3. You can find more details on the virtual event below. I hope you’ll join us.

My Take on Why This is Pitch Perfect:

Positive Opening — An invitation, not an explanation or an apology.

He refers to the publication’s mission and values as sacred principles. Sacred is a great word, which means non-negotiable in this context but sounds nicer and not defensive.

The message moves quickly to what happened and acknowledges there are conflicting versions but points no fingers and names no names. It does not regurgitate every detail of the situation. It assumes the reader has a brain and knows what you are talking about or has access to the internet.

It grabs the biggest bull by the horns by reminding stakeholders that a decision to share the actual text was the only choice once the other side sent the angry bull into the ring.

It dials it down with an esoteric  ‘what if’ — what might Ralph Waldo Emerson do?

It ends with a recommitment to core beliefs and gratitude.

It leverages the moment, discomfort and all, by creating an opportunity for stakeholders to spend more time with the editor, the guy who is still in the ring with the bull, Jeffrey Goldberg.   

We can aim for work-life balance. But work-life blending is an unexpected grace.

Carroll School exists to empower children with language-based learning difficulties, including dyslexia, to leverage their assets and move us all closer to a day when being dyslexic is not only celebrated but even highlighted on professional resumes. 

As we approached writing and designing a signature stewardship piece we had a learning curve with a new client. The schedule and budget were tight. We had an amazing anchor story about the largest  bequest in the school’s history, but a clear directive to produce a piece with a level playing field where all donors would feel equally acknowledged. That directive came directly from the head of school who wanted every aspect of the piece to be infused with gratitude. 

On the plus side, we had some great ideas for stories and images from students, parents and educators. Dyslexia, we learned, runs in families. We had to think about our audience through a lens that was unfamiliar to us. We learned to shorten our sentences and headlines. The point size on pull-quotes went up. We needed to say less with more — more white space, in particular.

For us, there were eye-opening facts we had to consider:

• At least 1 in 5 students in every classroom in every school in America is dyslexic. If your kid is in a classroom with 20, chances are 4 of them are dyslexic or struggle with language-based difficulties. That’s true whether or not these issues have been identified or the teacher is trained to help. Do the math. No, don’t. Keep reading.

• There are tools that make a big difference. We learned about Orton-Gillingham, a highly structured approach to reading and spelling that breaks learning into small units involving letters and sounds. Every student builds on what he or she has learned, over time, solving what was once a puzzle. No two students solve the puzzle at exactly the same pace.

• We learned from alumni how they still relied upon the strategies they learned at Carroll and how that experience of competence and confidence changed their lives.

We learned about a mother watching her second-grade son sign Valentine cards at the kitchen able who noticed he spelled his name a different way each time. He had the right letters, just in a different order. Daniel mastered the skills he needed at Carroll to earn an undergraduate degree in engineering. He is pursuing his MBA. His parents are leadership-level volunteers who give insight and hope to others gained through their experience.

We met John Walton, a fourth-grade teacher who was once “that kid” pulled out of the classroom for extra help. Luckily, he was the son of a teacher who recognized the support he needed to harness his superpower, which he now shares with his students.

Throughout the work, I thought about Bobby, my oldest brother, born in 1957. As we helped celebrate the lives that are changed at the Carroll School, I understood a little more about the pain dyslexia caused him and my parents. He did not have the benefit of a life-affirming, empowering place like the Carroll School.

We spent Christmas Eve together in 1997, a week before he died. I made pot roast that night. I was irritated that he was late because he needed to help me assemble the bike for Francesca and the telescope for Kelly. My daughters were happy that Uncle Bobby would be with us that Christmas morning. I asked him to write the note from Santa so they wouldn’t recognize my writing. It had spelling errors. I told the kids it must have been from one of the elves.

That morning was the last time we saw him.

Bobby fell down a flight of cement stairs in my sister’s basement on New Year's Eve. He’d been drinking that night. By the time he was an adult, he drank too much. It was bitterly cold so he went down to the basement for a smoke to keep it away from my sister’s baby, Mary, his fifth niece, who had been named for both grandmothers. He got to hold her that night, but he never got the cigarette. He also never woke up. He was 39.

The team at Mass General gave his heart to someone named Michael who married the ICU nurse who took care of him. We were all invited to the wedding. My mother danced with his heart when the DJ said, “And now the groom would like to dance with the other mother who gave him life.”

Before Mom died in 2018, she told me how much she wished she knew more about dyslexia back then. “I just wish I could apologize to him for not having done more. We moved so many times.” I kidded Mom that Bobby was her favorite. She said that wasn’t true while wiping a tear, but it was.

“He never talked back. He was so polite. At least I’m not worrying about him anymore.”

Dyslexia did not kill my brother. However, it wasn’t his superpower. It was a confidence-killer. It was a secret that made everything harder. He struggled all the way through school. Grades were always a source of embarrassment. Even so, it was clear that he enjoyed deep conversations about theology, philosophy, science, art and the humanities. He won ribbons at the art fairs at St. Bridget’s School and taught himself to play the guitar. He was kind and humble and loved by many.

As he watched friends heading off to college, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He handled the realities of boot camp at Parris Island without a complaint. He never complained, including the fact that he didn’t understand everything on the boards of his childhood classrooms. He was like that, very polite.  He is buried next to our great grandmother, Agnes. She loved him, too.

Bobby never had children of his own, but if he had, there’s a possibility they might have been dyslexic. I know now it runs in families. I understand now how it affects family histories.

At least 1 in 5 kids in every classroom is dyslexic. He was that one.

I’m so grateful that some of them are at Carroll.

The last time I saw the two-piece, multi-shelved colonial holder of Lenox China, stemware, flatware and my dad’s poker chips, it was being hoisted into the back of a borrowed truck by three first-year Ph.D. students at the University of Central Florida. All three were from Bangladesh and in the Aerospace Engineering program. Two had come to help Nafis, the one who’d given me $40 the day before to hold it for him after his wife approved the purchase. Nafis’s wife commented on the quality of the wood while their daughter played in the crushed river rock alongside my driveway. I told her my mother would be happy to know that she recognized Ethan Allen craftsmanship. I shared with them that my father was also an engineer. Dad worked at Texas Instruments, Raytheon and Harris. I didn’t tell them how mad my mother would be about me selling the hutch. I kept the poker chips.

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As they drove off, I wondered if anyone parked alongside them at a red light would realize they were looking at future rocket scientists or professors or perhaps contributors to science and engineering or some major discovery. Would they have any idea that our country now awards more doctorates to people not born in the U.S. than it does to those born inside the U.S.? And the gap is growing steadily. So says the National Science Foundation.

I wondered where Mom’s hutch would wind up. Would it remain in the country where it had been loaded on and off Mayflower moving vans in New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts and Florida? Would Nafis take it with him if a Canadian company hires him away because he can’t stay if he doesn’t have a firm job offer here? While America debates immigration and building walls and flying refugees here or there, does anybody even care that some of the best brain power comes, learns, and then leaves, often to serve other nations? Does the average voter realize that other countries are loosening their laws to grab that talent? That’s the finding of the MIT Science Policy Review.

Meanwhile, fewer Americans are pursuing doctorates. I’m glad my mother’s hutch is with a family that wants it. But it made me think a lot about the possessions and the people we claim to treasure in this country only to let them drive off. Maybe I should have made that coffee bar after all. I hope our economy doesn’t wind up collecting dust one day because we were unable or unwilling to reconfigure the assets at our disposal.

It looks like more universities and non-profits are using search firms to find their next chief communications officer. Woo-hoo! That’s a really good development, especially on the advancement and fundraising side.

It really is critical to have communications strategy and planning at the leadership table during campaign planning, but it is often overlooked while other elements take the focus. There are feasibility studies to conduct, operational readiness reports to present, donor and prospect pools to analyze, staff and technology audits to conduct. There are gift charts and pie charts and giving trend charts and annual fund statistics to measure against major gift needs. So many charts, gobs of data, so little time. And then there’s the big question: settling on a goal. What can the university realistically expect to raise in what time frame? How many fundraisers will we need to get there? Notice I did not say how many communications people will the campaign need to support those fundraisers. P.S. I have literally never heard this statement uttered in my career or met a development leader who is willing to sacrifice a fundraising FTE for a communications FTE. Never.

So, planning is now at the stage where universities have spent A LOT of money on A LOT of information and everyone is in a ready, set, let’s raise some money mood. Time to call a meeting with communications. The head-scratching, AHA moment has arrived. People are starting to realize that maybe not enough attention has been spent thinking about WHO will explain WHAT we’re raising money for and WHERE it will be shared and WHY it all matters. It's just words, right? What's the big deal?

…. things may get tense, maybe not, stay tuned for Episode 2.

…well before they hired the search firm

Yesterday someone from Stitch Fix sent me these flowers.

Stitch Fix is a multi-million-dollar online clothing retailer that uses personal stylists to sell its products. The idea started in the founder’s Cambridge apartment in 2011 while she was earning her master’s at Harvard. The company now has 8,000 employees, 7 distribution centers, 12 exclusive brands and 3.6 million customers.

I don’t know anyone at the company. It is not my birthday month. I have not complained about anything or reached some milestone purchase point. I am a once-in-a-while-when-the-mood-strikes type of customer.

The way Stitch Fix works is that customers fill out a questionnaire. Then you take an online style survey. A stylist selects five items which are called a “fix” and sends them to you. You keep what you like and send the rest back. The fun part is having someone you don’t know do the shopping. They’ve surprised me with choices I definitely would not have picked for myself, like the black knit jumpsuit I got a few months ago. I thought it was awful until I tried it on. Now I wear it all the time.

Their focus is on making it easy for customers to look their best. So, why the flowers?

Stitch Fix sent the bouquet to congratulate me on recently getting married. The only reason this knowledge is in their system is because I sent the last two fixes back without buying anything even though I really loved everything and made that clear in the feedback I sent. I added a note that said I’d just gotten married and it had been a month in which expenses were high so I wouldn’t be buying anything. My stylist pushed that information up the management chain and the flowers appeared at my door with a note that said:

Jenn told us you were recently married and we wanted to say congratulations to you and your spouse and wish you many years of love and peace.

Love,

Your friends at Stitch Fix

Beyond the act of kindness, here’s the takeaway for fundraisers:

What are we doing with the donors and prospects who give us a reason when they say no to the gift? The ones who say, We just got married. We just bought a house. I started graduate school and we had our first child. I was laid off, or I’ve left my job to care for a sick family member.

Are we sending something from higher up or simply noting it in the database?

Are you combing the notes from the calls your annual fund employees make?

Do you have someone who is worrying about “in the meantime” stewardship?

Love is an unusual word to see on a card from a corporation like Stitch Fix. I’ll remember it. I’ll remember the flowers, too.

What will your donors or prospective donors remember?

A big part of what made Hitt such an effective leader was that whatever he might say, on any topic, he always said it very well. He said it in ways that caused people to lean in and listen. He was in command of his material and his audience. He also had a master speechwriter at his side, something I believe no president should be without, whether they are running a country, a company or a university. In Hitt’s latter years at UCF, it was Joe Adams who helped him craft the narrative for every audience, large and small, internal or external, well informed or first-time listeners.

When I think of legacies like the one that will forever be associated with John Hitt, I think first of the speechwriters and executive communications strategists who help build the story, the ones who do the research, vet the facts, check the tone and know the audiences inside out before the president gets anywhere near that microphone. It is the story that builds the legacy and the storytellers who help the president craft them. Ironically, bonuses and annual reports are always tied to balanced budgets, graduation and retention rates and dollars raised, but legacies are not. It’s doubtful they ever will be   

When people talk about John Hitt, they’ll talk about the lives he impacted and what drove him to make college a reality for so many. They will talk about the guy who was larger than life in some ways, but a bit shy one-on-one, the big university and the big leader with the very homey feel. They will talk about the first time they leaned in and listened. Or maybe the last time. So, here’s to all the speechwriters, but one in particular: my friend Joe Adams who served one president so very well and who always left enough room in the margins for John Hitt to make his corrections.

Together, they nailed the narrative.             

And, with Joe’s permission, I am pleased to repost a tribute he wrote after his boss died. It’s what inspired me to write this blog post.  

Much has been said about the inspiring life and triumphs of former UCF President John C. Hitt, who passed away at 82 on President's Day. Here’s more — including some thoughts from him.

Dr. Hitt lost his dad at age 15, and it was his father's great wish for his only child to be the first college-goer in the family. As Dr. Hitt's career evolved, he sought to transform as many lives and livelihoods as he could through the power of higher education. He succeeded in record numbers, while significantly boosting UCF's quality and impact on Central Florida and elevating the university to the national stage.

I treasure the seven years (2011-2018) I worked with him on hundreds of speeches, videos and other communications. Dr. Hitt was too humble to say it, but his many talents included an extraordinary ability to see beyond what is to what could be. He excelled at engaging others to invent a brighter future. These are among my favorite public remarks from The Partnership President:

“Education transforms lives, and, as a first-generation college student, I am proof of that life-changing process ... With a college education, people are more able to achieve the highest levels that their energy, their ability, and their ambition will permit.”

“Friends, if there is anything I have learned in 26 years, it is that our greatest danger is not to dream too large, but to dream too small. At UCF, we dream big. Our greatest limitations are those we place on ourselves.”

“As president, I realized long ago that I am a living logo for UCF. And so are you.”

“Partnerships get results ... By combining energies and resources with one or more partners of common cause, we can achieve great things together. We can create exciting new opportunities. And we can transform the impossible into the inevitable.”

“My faith in partnerships is grounded as much in practicality as in idealism. It has long seemed to me that no single, individual organization acting alone has the resources to solve the significant problems we face.”

“I am proud that UCF is a place where love, respect, and inclusion guide all that we do.”

“We’ve all known people who want to be something. They want a big title. They want a large office. Others, meanwhile, want to do something. They care foremost about tackling issues, pursuing solutions, and making the world a better place. Be a doer, and the 'be something' will take care of itself.”

“Thank you, Martha, for taking a chance on this Houston boy and making him look good. For that alone, you deserve a heavenly reward.”

“If you are fortunate enough to head a large and dynamic organization, people tend to credit you for much of the good that happens. And, while such praise can be flattering, allow me to set the record straight: The achievements at UCF that coincide with my tenure have far more to do with you than with anything that I could ever do.”

And then this one from his farewell address to the Florida Board of Governors in June 2018:

“As I look to the future, I know that our most daring days are ahead of us, that our students and faculty will inspire the world, and that you will be there every step of the way as UCF continues to turn the impossible into the inevitable.”

A Dr. Hitt speaking engagement could take unexpected turns. More in his own words from 2013:

“At one alumni event this year, a young man introduced himself to me. He said we had worked together a number of times at campus events, but we had never spoken. Now, I attend 100 or so events a year, and I don’t profess to remember every face that I see.

“Yet, based on what he said, he seemed like someone I should recognize. But I drew a blank, and I suspect he could see it on my face.

"Then, he said proudly, ‘I was Knightro!’”

In another outing, UCF trademarks for "America's Partnership University" and "America's Leading Partnership University" got approved just minutes before Dr. Hitt delivered his State of the University address on Sept. 24, 2013, our UCF 50th birthday year. I told Dr. Hitt and adjusted his remarks right before he went up.

Just seconds later and before the program started, a member of the UCF Board of Trustees walked up to Dr. Hitt, shook his hand, smiled and said: “I can't wait to hear what you have to say.”

And to that Dr. Hitt said: “I can't either!”

As UCF's “living logo,” Dr. Hitt rarely walked on campus without students asking for a picture with him.

A graduating senior stopped him in front of the Student Union. She told him her GREATEST dream in college was to meet him and get their picture taken together.

Dr. Hitt smiled, congratulated her on earning a degree and said: “You should set higher goals!”

Of course, he obliged on the picture.

Dr. Hitt had a wicked sense of humor. Upon his retirement in 2018, I assembled a collection of Hitt-isms for UCF’s Pegasus magazine. Sometimes his quips could be sharper than anticipated.

Dr. Hitt to me: “You look a lot like a guy that used to work at UCF.”

Me to him: “I'm a dead ringer!”

Thank you, Dr. Hitt, for making the world a better and brighter place — and then some, as you used to say.

Joe Adams served as UCF President John C. Hitt's speechwriter and communications specialist for seven years. A former newspaper editorial writer and editor who joined the university in 2011, his speeches for Hitt — and later two UCF provosts — earned a dozen awards from national organizations.

Read more about Dr. Hitt’s legacy.

My former boss, Mike Morsberger, gave me this astronaut in honor of the comprehensive campaign we worked on together at the University of Central Florida. The campaign was called IGNITE. The little statue is called Space Girl. He stills call me that, too sometimes.

She showed up with one of Mike’s super gushy notes praising me for the work I had done managing the campaign launch. He said he was thrilled that we’d  actually delivered the real live astronaut he wanted and how much he loved the knights on horses greeting the donors. He thought it was a night people would always remember. It was, except it hadn’t happened yet. And that was classic Mike. That and gushy. The gushier the better. Fundraiser with a heart who sets the bar high — really high. And then he thanks the team in advance for jumping over it. It’s not like you have much choice when he’s already thanked you. 

He was good at keeping everyone on message, like the license plate on his car that had the campaign’s goal and the countdown clock he installed at the front desk. It reminded us every morning how much time was left until the public launch. 

 62 days, 4 hours and 11 minutes. 

I imagined it talking like Amazon’s Alexa. How’s that event script coming? Did you modify it to include the donor from Curaçao who decided to come? Do you have my astronaut yet? Have you done the video with Governor Bush about the medical school? How are we doing with nanotechnology Can you fit nursing in before athletics?  

Tick tock.  

Fast forward to last Friday and Mike texted me. I haven’t thought about the event in a while, though Space Girl has been my companion since she arrived. She reminds me to believe in myself, the way Mike believed in everyone. She reminds me that short deadlines are sometimes when you do the best work.

Mike had a new idea and he needed feedback. Did I have some time? I didn’t, but of course I said yes. Not long after, I was back on the phone with this warrior-fundraiser brainstorming a concept that might make life better for many. It was a big idea. They always are with Mike. He wondered if I thought it could work. I did and I remembered why I kept Space Girl.

I also remembered a night when our team delivered UCF’s first big campaign launch and the sense back then that we would go beyond our best simply because of the way we were asked. I think of that dream team to this day, including executive producer Tony Peluso; creative director Kim Sheeter (now at Embry-Riddle), managing producer Christine Rutherford (now at William & Mary), and the advancement communications team, some still at UCF (Stephen, Susan, Pat, Tambrea, Zack). We had the real astronaut, Mark Kelly. There were multiple standing ovations. There were tears. There was joy. Mostly, there was a sense that generosity to a university starts when donors believe in the mission, and staff believe it too, and everyone feels ownership in the outcome whether you are a gift recorder or the parking team on opening night or just a guy named Mike reminding everyone to believe in themselves as much as he did from Day 1.

I was not serene. My car battery had died and my dog decided she preferred the yard’s sunshine to my pleas for her to come in. I texted the client that I would be a few minutes late. Not a good start on day number 1 of discovery visits for two fundraising case statements. The client is a non-profit leader in the continuing care sector for older adults. The publications would be about two capital projects — lifelong learning centers.

I smiled politely at Mr. Friday while remaining firmly lost in my own busy brain, lining up the questions I would need to ask. Why 375 seats? What kind of performances? If you will build it anyway, why do you need to fundraise? How does life change for people once this is up and running? Is it solving any problems? Are there named gift opportunities? Who are the prospects? And the always critical question — where is the ladies room?

Then the staff member escorting us asked Mr. Friday a much better question.

“How are you doing today?” 

He smiled and paused.

“I am happy, thank you. Very happy.  But I was even happier yesterday. It was my birthday. I am still here. Still happy.”

happy — still happy — even happier 

I wondered what factors contributed to his contentment. And that led me to the obvious connection between happiness and learning. Could it really be as simple as inviting donors to be generous in helping us create more happiness?

Postscript: I went home and thanked my dog for being an underachiever in obedience training. I have short-listed Mr. Friday as a potential sidebar in the case statements. He reminded me that building the case for anything starts with listening, sometimes to a person who cannot see who is holding a stick with a tennis ball on the end of it, especially if it is Friday. 

Make it a good one.

I sent her a link to my website and told her we were a small company. The desk was for someone who had recently lost her job after many years of service with the state. Her unemployment had run out. I didn’t haggle. It was probably the longest text she ever received on Messenger. She marked it pending.

Two days later, I arrived as promised. I gave her $110. She gave me the desk and one can of leftover matte black paint. We were both happy, happier than the person who was coming to work for me at an hourly rate substantially less than she is worth by any reasonable standard, less than anything close to what she needs to cover a $900 monthly COBRA invoice, a mortgage, and life’s basic necessities.

But reasonable and fair aren’t really factors when Florida wraps up your twelve payments of $275 in unemployment. Reasonable gets redefined really fast when someone somewhere is at least willing to recognize that you are pretty damn good at a lot of things they could use help on, things like QuickBooks and 1099s and contracts, things like RFPs and taxes, things that will fit nicely into the deep drawers of this desk and the hours you wait for something better, something a lot more reasonable.            

I value the new desk for the same reason I value my new team member. Both are mid-century modern, smart and great additions that add form and function to my evolving enterprise. I will remind my new collaborator that this desk cannot be bought on Staples or Amazon. Neither can the integrity she walked out the door with after her presence collided with one executive’s ambition. It happens. It happens every day because power tends to ruin some people faster than you can cover something beautiful in matte black and stick it in the garage and then sell it on Facebook for $110.

Like my newest team member, the desk has a story and a history, a story that begins fresh this week. Fortunately for the desk’s new occupant, we are all about stories here, a place where it is always OK to disagree with the boss. In fact, she encourages it.       

Postscript:  Like many older workers, especially women, the reasons this person was given for being let go have more cracks in them than this desk ever will, reasons that cannot be covered or hidden with paint.

It reminds me of that Capital One tag line — What’s In your wallet?

That was the case for this video, the second in a series for the Saint Anselm College campaign to build a permanent home for their Humanities program. Using existing photography and video, including drone footage, we wrote a new script, pulled in the wonderful voice of a college faculty member, and let our amazing collaborators at Heartwood Media work their magic.

We’re proud of the final product, but even better, think it’s a great example of how teamwork by internal and external staff can keep cost down and help set the table faster for fundraisers to have the kind of conversations that are needed for major gift solicitations.  

We all know that videos and publications alone don’t raise the money; people do. But everything we can do to help current and prospective donors better understand an organization’s funding priorities through cost-effective and impactful storytelling is a win.

All the better when we do it as one team.    

What’s in your toolbox?      

Nanci stopped by recently and we did a quick photo shoot for an announcement her company made this week.       

Several years ago, in one of those regular reorgs that happen on college campuses, she found herself in charge of communications and marketing. Not long after, I found her at my office door when I was leading the college’s Institute of Politics. She wanted me to return for a second tour of duty in the department I’d left. Messaging 101.  Know your audience. She came to me. She didn’t send me an e-mail. She didn’t have her admin call me. She arrived in person. It worked.               

Yesterday, Nanci was named a principal in the Art & Science Group, a firm that does deep dive research to assist colleges, universities, and independent schools trying to make the best possible decisions on complex issues. They figure things out like whether a major investment in X will impact strategic priority Y. It’s that reliable, quantitative, actionable data that presidents and boards like to have before authorizing a significant spend or policy change. And, if I’m being honest, it’s the hard data that makes we creative types a little nutty when we just want to get moving on an idea for something and someone suddenly says – 

Excuse me, do you have the data to support that concept?  

You know the one, the quantum physics professor who is now on the Integrated Marketing Committee, the committee I’d just been lobbying to have disbanded.          

Nanci taught me many things, and diplomacy under pressure was one of them.

Pass the donuts please.   

She also explained to me, better than anyone had previously, how U.S. News & World Report tweaks its formulas so it can keep selling magazines, how those algorithm tweaks move the goalposts just enough to shake up the results, sending presidents and deans into tailspins faster than I can consume a row of Chips Ahoy! during a Downton Abbey binge. And, of course, several in that tailspin head straight for Communications and Marketing, requesting their own magazine or trifold brochure to dispute the findings.      

But, of the many professional things I learned from Nanci, one stands out and that is what I call the Aretha approach to management. Respect the expertise of the people you hire. Nanci respected mine. She never called me into a meeting and said –

Here’s what I need you to do and I want it to be this size or this format.

Instead, she said - 

Here’s what we’re up against and here’s what the data is telling us about the target audience. Here’s what we need to accomplish. Can you give me two or three of your best ideas, timelines to complete them, key messages, and cost?

I knew I had her confidence before I even left the office. And she always made sure to ask how it would impact other work in the pipeline, including that of her fellow vice presidents. Respect.         

When she asked me to come back and lead the office, she said – 

I really need your expertise. I just don’t think the way you do, but I do think we’d be great together.   

We were.

She knows her talking points.

She also knows her customer base the way a seasoned development officer knows their prospect pool. I’m pretty sure she had me pegged as a first timer before I was in the chair.

“Where are you coming from?”

Before I could answer, I learned that Steve’s is best known for its fried chicken and that people drive a long way to get it. But it’s also famous for its spinach pies, homemade bread, and a few things you just can’t get in every diner like frog legs and ham and bean stew.

With a flag in every booth and a rocket on its private label hot sauce, the diner’s allegiance to America and the Space Coast is clear. Equally clear was Alberta’s ability to articulate the indisputable fun that can be had here on Thursdays, when the co-owners host Greek nights and the ouzo flows as freely as the conversation.

The oh-so-famous fried chicken is apparently in such demand that even when the diner had to close at the start of the pandemic, they sometimes served upwards of 75 chickens a day to customers who called their orders in. You can get it regular or dark.

I was thinking about Alberta today while agreeing to work up some talking points on a funding priority for a client’s major gifts team. It’s funny how often we find ourselves looking for just the facts in a sea of stuff that’s already been created — case statements, power points, appeals, speeches, proposals — and then trying to distill it down, trying to do what Alberta Russo does every day.

Because, like a good development officer, she knows that not everyone wants the fried chicken. She figured that out about me. I didn’t have the 15 minutes to wait while it cooked. Not this time. So, she gave me an alternative.

“The spinach pie is amazing. It’s $8.99. You can get it to go. It’s ready now.”

I did. It was.

When I met Dee she was a creative director with Madison Avenue credentials and some big-name clients in her portfolio. I was the vice president of marketing for the global leader in aviation and aerospace education and not one to be easily swayed by a t-shirt or coffee mug. She could have sent me the standard e-mail with a link to her portfolio which was, by any standard, great. Perhaps I would have opened it and spent a few minutes. Perhaps not. Either way, it’s harder to ignore a large elegant envelope in your inbox that clearly didn’t come from Amazon. And, when out pops some soft cotton stuff that could double as sleepwear, you might as well take a minute to read the handwritten note.

Dee actually sent me a few t-shirts, all with concepts she thought might appeal to young people interested in aviation. She didn’t ask me for a meeting or send me a PowerPoint with her best ideas. She put them on the shirts. Each had an original illustration and a saying like ‘Inner Space’ or ‘But, It is Rocket Science’ or ‘Explorers Wanted.’ Her note said she’d been thinking about our recent conversation and decided to take a trip to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. (by the way, she lives in New York). It had inspired her to sketch a few things and she put them on some t-shirts. My brain did a ‘wow, that’s a lot of mojo.’ OK, you’ve got my attention.

Fast forward a few calls, one RFP, an onsite visit, a few tight deadlines and an even tighter budget. Deepika had still not landed us as a big client. Getting consensus on such things in higher education is a bit like passing an omnibus spending package in Congress. You have to experience it to understand it. But, when the inevitable holiday weekend boomerang came at me for a full-page ad and I needed the superpower rocket boosters to Mars and back with my creative staff on vacation, whom did I call? Right – the one who sent me the t-shirts.

We spent a long weekend on the phone and emailing and I said things – Oh, and one more thing, can you please get all three campus names in there without using any of the logos so I won’t offend anyone? And, for God’s sake, please don’t use an airplane – we already own that space. Put us in space, outer space. Oh, and can I have it by noon please? She nailed it. And, then we hired her to create a major publication for a department that needed some new messaging and materials. She nailed that, too.

So, the lesson for me is if you are going to send a t-shirt, your execution and timing better be flawless. Don’t skimp on the packaging either. Shoot for a Friday afternoon and worry about the thread count. That t-shirt might very well still get worn three years later during a global pandemic reminding the person you are still out there. Or, it might just be hanging on the person’s office door reminding them that their own good ideas need some mojo, too.

I love this t-shirt. It reminds to be a little more Deepika-ish in everything I do.

It also reminds me that extra effort can and will make all of us – GO PLACES.

First up is Paul LeBlanc, President of Southern New Hampshire University. Paul is a well-known innovator and seismically big picture thinker who has turned challenging conventional thinking in higher education into an art form. He’s also turned SNHU into a powerhouse in online learning for both traditional and non-traditional students. For me, he’s the guy who made a decision to take a risk and add a literary program to a then mostly business school. That decision changed my life and many others. It also busted every assumption I had about quality or excellence in online learning.

The day I first set foot in SNHU’s Robert Frost Hall to register for classes for the new and still unaccredited MFA program in creative writing, I had big doubts. The program had well-known authors on the faculty. Still, I wondered if there was any way it could be as good, as personal, and as impactful, as the kind of learning I’d experienced in traditional classroom settings. It was the same day I met Lynn Safford, the woman in this picture. We were among the oldest in that first class. Over the next two years, we would become the best of friends, nurturing each other‘s ambitions to somehow write a book-length manuscript, but more importantly, to somehow finish. We met every month for dinner at a bistro in Manchester’s Millyard, where we celebrated another 30 pages of original writing completed and sent to our mentors, all accomplished authors in their own right, a team that SNHU had recruited to coach and mentor us to completion, faculty who shared their feedback, called us at home, coached us, criticized us, became our friends and pushed us to keep going, even when we’d run out of plot lines or coffee.

Lynn wrote about fictional and elegant women living in Paris and the Caribbean. I was writing about ten women living in prison cells, real women. Lynn’s women wore sarongs and fine jewelry. Mine wore T-shirts and prison-issued slip-on sneakers. The women had some things in common. They had broken hearts and unmet expectations, for themselves and the people they loved. Like so many women, they were carrying bits and pieces of unfinished business and hopes for the future.

Lynn and I decided we liked each other’s characters as much as we liked each other. They were raw and honest, imperfect and unfiltered. Lynn became another sister to me over those two years. At our last dinner, not long after we graduated, she shared the news that she had cancer and the road ahead would be rough. A year later, she asked me to take on one more writing assignment, her eulogy. And, on a crisp November morning, under a glistening sun, she made me stand up at the end of the lounge chair on which she was lying in her front yard, wrapped in a blanket, and deliver it to her.

“Perfect,” she said, “no corrections.” And then she laughed and added, “I’m not getting a rewrite this time so neither are you.”

Lynn Safford died in November of 2010.

I keep her last note to me and her manuscript on my dresser, not far from my degree from SNHU. They remind me that there are no accidental meetings in this life and that the line between fiction and non-fiction is a fine line indeed. They remind me also how important it is to challenge my own assumptions about people and possibilities, like whether an online graduate program can be personal or impactful, like whether a small literary program belongs in a business school.

So, here’s to Paul LeBlanc, Lynn Safford, and all of the risk-takers out there, the ones who took the first step, into Robert Frost Hall, into the story, into history.

As polls continue to show that President Trump is failing to increase support with women voters, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., did the President and his party no favors last week at the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

It was a missed opportunity for some gender and cross party maneuvering, but the Senator choose instead to stick with messaging about the nominee’s hard right record, positioning her as the long awaited standard bearer for a new generation of conservative women. It sounded like the Senator thought a large and eager group of conservative women were just waiting in the wings to come out and lock arms with someone like Judge Barrett, but hadn’t felt comfortable before her arrival. It was a not so subtle inference for all women that Judge Barrett, with seven kids and a well-documented record on faith and morality, was somehow a better fit for Lindsey Graham and Donald Trump’s GOP. One could only imagine Liz Cheney, R-WY, and Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, biting their lips on such a misfire.

While Judge Barrett’s accomplishments are certainly impressive, the South Carolina Senator’s praise for her seemed more grounded in his hope that she might somehow be a beacon of righteousness for women everywhere. He neglected to mention her potential impact on men in the trailblazing examples he hoped she’d set for conservatives and in that lies the problem. To make matters worse, other senators gave her accolades for mostly the wrong reasons – Barrett’s mothering skills, her well-mannered children, her minivan, and the fact that she could answer questions without notes. The fact that she was the executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review and an accomplished scholar came out, eventually, but women were left wondering if the car that a male nominee drives would ever be mentioned at a future hearing. And then, Senator Kennedy, R-LA, asked the question no male nominee has ever been asked — who does the laundry at your house? While Judge Barrett laughed, it wasn’t funny. It was, however, indicative of what the Republicans are doing wrong.

And, it was a reminder of a different communication strategy, a more hostile, but equally incorrect one, the Senator had at the Kavanaugh hearings when a different woman, Christine Blasey Ford, was in the same chair. That time, there were no comments on her car, her kids, her laundry, her PhD, or her impressive scholarship at Stanford. They were not deemed relevant to her credibility to testify that she had been sexually assaulted by the nominee three decades earlier. The media talking points hammered home a single message - the witness wasn’t credible. After all, she could not remember the color of the house or the month in which the attack occurred. Experts corroborated the normalcy of such small memory gaps for victims and the fact that women rarely lie about such attacks. Meanwhile, the President of the United States bullied the witness on twitter. Women watched. Hundreds of women gathered outside the capital to say they believed her. In the closest vote of a Supreme Court nominee in U.S. history, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed. Two years later, the President is still talking about how badly his nominee was treated. Wrong message for a candidate in trouble with women.

And, now he’s asking suburban women in Johnston, PA, “Will you please like me? I saved your damn neighborhoods, OK.”

Senator Graham, meanwhile, described Barrett’s hearings, as “an opportunity to not punch through a glass ceiling, but a reinforced concrete barrier around conservative women.” The obvious question is – who put them there?

Either way, President Trump, Senator Graham and those who have been fawning over minivans and well-mannered children this week would be well advised to add some substantive messaging tailored for women on healthcare, the economy, education, national security and oh yeah, the virus.