The Mission Is the Strategy: First-Gen Leadership, Access, and the Power of Showing Up

[0:00]  My job is about half data and half relationships, and we're never going to be able to staff something 24/7, but AI can. If you're not an AI user, you're likely going to be left behind. We are an institution that is a helping hand, not an ivory tower, right? We're not trying to say no to students; we're trying to say yes. Getting into college is only step one. You have to find a place that you're going to thrive. I either get to work for 35 more years or I have to work for 35 more years.

Welcome back to another episode here on the Harthouse podcast. Katie, you grew up first-gen; nobody in your family has mapped this road before, and now you've dedicated your career to kind of being the map for other people. When you look at that full picture, full circle, what does it represent for you personally?

I think it talks and helps me think about aspiration, right? Of finding your purpose, finding your fit, and then if your passion is helping other students and other families find their passion and purpose, how great of a career opportunity to be able to do that every single day.

Love it. I love that you throw out those words passion and purpose because I don't know that we were always trained to have this mindset of passion and purpose. Um, and I think a lot of people think chasing a paycheck is what needs to be done, right? I don't know, just kind of the system that we were trained to be in, but when I think about the work that we do, it is definitely passion and purpose.

And you've been doing this for a long time. You spent 11 years recruiting, was that correct?

Correct. I started my career as a temporary admissions counselor for West Virginia University and just kind of have worked up the ranks throughout my career to eventually this vice president role at Eastern Michigan University.

Ever would have thought that you'd be back at this college level doing the work that you're doing?

So, I was one of those crazy people that early in my career I told my supervisor, "Oh, I want to be a vice president of enrollment." And I didn't really know what that meant when I was 25, right? So, you just kind of see that as where you're going. But, I was so lucky to have incredible leaders who believed in me and never questioned my sanity, right? When I was 25 being like, "I want to be a vice president someday."

And so, yeah, that really has kind of helped me in my career and given me so many opportunities to really explore what it means to work at different colleges, the missions of different colleges, and how to find the role that is best for me in my career.

You're speaking to many things right now that we got to really break down. One of the things you said is, "I spoke this into existence." Are you a believer that, you know, the more that you say, the more it becomes true? What are your thoughts on that?

I believe in advocating for yourself. And if my supervisor didn't know what my career aspirations were, how were they ever going to coach me, right? And so, I think a lot about, yes, speaking that into existence was certainly part of it, but it was important for me for my supervisors and continues to be important for me in my career that I have supervisors who believe in me. Um, that's the most important thing I think to where I find my passion in my career is that I'm working with somebody who believes in the work that I'm doing, who can push me to shoot for excellence. And so, yeah, I think that that's a really important concept for everyone to have in mind that you're never going to get opportunities unless your supervisors, unless your coaches, unless your mentors know what you want out of life so that they can push you to be better and push you to be excellent.

Closed mouths don't get fed, Katie. It's like all these things that we heard as a young kid and we're like, "Yeah, whatever." It's like so true. And it's like the small things when you really think about the sayings. It's like, "Man, if I would have just listened to this," you know? And it's so cool that you're in this space of education. Higher ed, obviously taking some hits, but you guys are excelling. Like, what does a day in Katie's world look like?

Yeah, so I truly believe in education as a transformative experience for students. And so, it's not just something that you show up and you do the work and you go home. Ideally, you find parts of your job that you love, that you want to do more of. So, I always say my job is about half data and half relationships. And so, in order for me to help guide my whole division and my whole team, I got to spend a lot of time with data to make sure everybody knows what they're doing, to help move students through the enrollment process, that we're identifying challenges that students are getting stuck with a process or procedure, all of the technology that goes into all of the systems that we have to collect the data.

But then also, I would be horrible at my job if I didn't talk with students. And I didn't go to admissions events, and I didn't go to athletic events, and just see what the student experience is. If I am going to sell that to students, right? And enrollment management is also oftentimes thinking of a little bit of a sales role in higher education. If I'm not experiencing that, and I'm not talking to our customers and our students, then I'm missing part of what my job truly is.

I love that. And you mentioned data. Like, we're in a space now with If you have good data and you're a user of AI, you're probably winning. Are you guys in that space as well, educating, using it?

I think that we're on the cusp, right? And so, there's a lot of things that we still need to consider in terms of data privacy for our students, right? There's a lot of guidelines in FERPA and all sorts of other federal compliance issues that we want to make sure that we're using data and we're using it ethically and responsibly. Um, but in saying that, we also have tools on our campus to make sure that we are utilizing it. Um, we have the Google Suite at EMU's campus. I'm a big fan of ChatGPT, and so, right, I'm using it to kind of craft messages. I love being able to upload data that doesn't have any student information in it, right? I can kind of blind the student information, and I can see and I can put a report in there and ask it for trends of students who applied from October 1st to November 1st, and how do those students look different from students who applied May 1st to May 31st, right? And so, you can look at all of these trends with just typing in and chatting with it. You don't have to have an advanced data analytics degree in order to do some of this really, really fun work with it.

And so, I hope that higher education can continue to evolve. Of course, we want students to use it responsibly. You don't want to use it irresponsibly. Learning is part of what we do, right? You have to learn it, and you have to be able when AI gives you a response, you have to have the critical thinking skills to know whether it's hallucinating or whether it's giving you the right information and whether the information that you're asking for is relevant. Uh, but yeah, I think that there's so many opportunities with AI that if you're not an AI user, you're likely going to be left behind in the years to come.

Uh, I think again, we're still on the cusp, but what does 10 or 15 years look like? And it's probably a workforce that at least is AI literate. Yeah, I think a position you'll see somewhere out there would be like prompt engineer, right? Because you have to be really good at what it is that you're prompting it to do as well. Talk about hallucinations; you have to just understand it. I was trying to understand the things that it actually does. Yesterday, I was about a new camera, a different camera actually, I would say a second camera. And I was like tweaking it, and I'm no camera expert by the way. This is just me learning. But now with ChatGPT, it makes it a little easier. So I was screenshotting like the picture, like, "Hey, this is what this looks like, but this is what it should look like because my other camera looks like this." And it was just giving me all this, "Hey, tweak this." But even then, it still was not giving me accurate. I still had to go back and tweak those little lines.

So for those that are using AI, yeah, use it. You know, it allows us, you mentioned fun, the word fun. I think it's a very fun tool. It's like my video game, but still you got to be safe around it as well.

So you're definitely right. Katie, what role models or examples did you have in this world of VP that led you to be as good as you are today? I can imagine there's other leaders that are pouring into you.

I so appreciate learning from stellar examples. And so I think back to even the professors that I had throughout my career who gave me seats at tables that I didn't always belong at. I had an amazing professor; his name was Dr. Scott Myers. I was his graduate teaching assistant when I was getting my master's. And he was teaching a group communication class, which as you can imagine, had a lot of group work in college. There was a lot of conflicts, right? Like this person's not carrying their weight and this person's not helping us, and so he invited me to the room every single time that a student came to his office hours.

And just being able to see that amazing professor and see how he functioned, how he taught in class, being able to see his interactions with students and truly how he cared about students but also held them to a high standard of accountability. So I think back on my college career with a great experience in that. And then I had amazing VPs, Dr. Stephen Lee, George Zimmerman, Sharon Martin, and then I had a really unique college president at WVU. His name was Gordon Gee. He had been a college president, I believe, for over 40 years by the time I had interacted with him, which is really rare in the world of higher education, right? Usually, college presidents are in and out in kind of 5-year time spans. He wasn't at WVU for his whole career, but he had started his career as a college president there when he was 36 and then ended his career there in his late 70s.

What an amazing perspective of somebody who had seen multiple institutions, had seen generations of learners, who was really a... and no leader is without flaws, right? There's no perfect person, but I think he really embodied what it meant to be student-focused and have a students-first mindset. He was always at every orientation program that we had. He had a great stand-up set and a number of different interactions. Uh, we used to joke that it was always hard to keep him on schedule because he would just run into students in a hallway and he would just have an amazing conversation with a family or a student, giving out business cards and following up with students, taking them out to dinner.

And for me, early in my career, to see all that he was doing to support students as a student-first mentality was amazing for me to learn from that example.

I love that. And is it your background? We haven't really talked about it, but you're a first-gen, right?

I'm a first-gen student. I went to a really small liberal arts college called Albion College, and so I only graduated with around 300 students. And then I went to West Virginia University for my graduate work, and so it was a bit of a culture shock at first going from a graduating class of 300 to a school of around 30,000 at that time. And so I learned a lot, but that for me is again, like as I look back at my career, every institution has a mission. Especially when we're working with first-gen students, one thing that I think of and that I encourage them is that getting into college is only step one. You have to find a place that you're going to thrive, right? Retention is such an important part that people don't talk nearly enough about. And so, how can you find an environment that you're not only going to get in, but you're going to get out? That's an important part of this college process, right?

I love it. I actually got a question.

Yeah.

When it came to you mentioning being brought into rooms, right? That you probably didn't belong in. Why did you say that? Was it because of the level that you were at? Was it being a female? Was it because of, you know, just education background? Because that's a really important question as well because you showed you said you didn't belong there. Clearly you did because you are today. But, um, it takes a lot to also keep it strong. Right? And sometimes I would fake it till you make it a little bit, right?

Yeah. I certainly learned as I went. Um, but I say that because again, I was having conversations with my supervisors about this is where I want my career to end up. These are the skill sets that I want to develop. I took my performance evaluations very seriously as part of your yearly kind of feedback with your supervisors. And as a result of them finding out that I wanted to be a VP, they invited me to meetings that were with a higher level of people than what I would typically interact with.

So, I was maybe an assistant director at that time interacting with deans and department chairs and athletic directors and provost offices. So, I wasn't necessarily always interacting with middle management, but I was given an opportunity to, "Hey, my VP wants to have a strategic conversation with a dean of this school about strategic enrollment management opportunities." And my supervisor, I remember him having a conversation of like, "Don't feel like you have to provide like a whole bunch of interaction. Like this is just an opportunity for you to be a fly on the wall and just learn." And what an amazing experiential learning opportunity, right? To see how he was dealing with the meeting, what the academic side of the house was doing.

And so, yeah, did I deserve a seat? Maybe that's the wrong word. Maybe I deserved the seat because I wanted that aspiration, but I didn't necessarily have the skill sets yet developed to like really know how to maneuver some of those conversations. But learning that through the experience of it.

Hey, if you're getting value from this conversation, do us a favor and hit that subscribe button. We drop episodes like this regularly and we don't want you to miss a single one. Now, let's get back to it.

Yeah, I think it's cool for a leader to be able to do that for you, but it's also, as you mentioned, cool to just be in those rooms. And ask to be in those rooms, right? Because it's like we could easily, as you mentioned, say, "You know, we didn't think we deserved to be in those rooms." But someone saw something in us to say, "No, you do deserve to be in these rooms."

And, you know, to just the background of not seeing family graduate to sit here and be like, "Wow, how the heck did I get in these rooms?" I still get in shock sometimes.

I was going to say, yeah, have you ever found yourself in a room that you're like, "Wait a minute, I have imposter syndrome. I don't belong here?"

Oh, 100%. I think it's so normal. I mean, now more than ever because when you have a dream and that dream is like coming to life and then you're like, "Is this real?"

Yes.

Right? So, I think I've been... I loved wrestling. I think I may have told you this. I don't know if I told you this, but I loved wrestling and wrestling is now I'm interviewing wrestlers. And when I started this journey three years ago, I've always loved wrestling, but three years ago I really took this serious. And I said I want to interview a wrestler. And within like two years, I'm interviewing a wrestler. Like, and it's the Hardy Boyz, right? It doesn't even get more legendary than that. These are kids I grew up on.

So yeah, I still think to myself like, "How did I get here? Am I really this good or am I good enough to get to this level?"

Um, but I think that's really when the good mental health matters. What are your thoughts on that, Katie?

Good mental health. Do you feel like that’s what kind of kept you going? Was just being in tune in the mind, having good people around you?

Yeah. I believe in fun at work. Um, I say this a lot. I either get to work for 35 more years or I have to work for 35 more years. And so, uh, I hope that I can continue to find fun. It means surrounding yourself with colleagues who hopefully also can make each other laugh. There's always weird things that happen. We're never perfect. You got to have inside jokes. You got to maybe do some April Fools' pranks every once in a while. You have to figure out what's going to bring you joy outside of just emails and meetings and all of those types of things because the job is hard still, right? Like, there's no easy job and I think sometimes people frame it as like, "Oh, if it's not easy, then it's not worth it."

Like, no, there's hard things, but how can you balance that with finding joy in the work that you do? And so, yeah, I just truly believe in that mentality of your mental health matters. For me, it means that I'm communicating with my team sometimes with memes and gifs because I'm a true millennial leader. I like to just send a good gif if somebody says something off the wall that is a reaction. Um, those are the types of things that I think just keep me going as a leader and keep my mental health intact.

And I also truly believe I have a dog. I believe in animal therapy. Uh, I believe that sometimes when you just have a bad day, you just need a dog or a cat or a pet to help liven your life up a little bit. If I could have my dog here in my office with me, I definitely would.

But what are your thoughts? How do you kind of balance all of the mental health challenges that come with being a working adult?

Well, first, what kind of dog do you have?

I have a 3-year-old golden retriever.

Oh, okay. Big dog.

That's a big dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love dogs. You can keep the cats.

I lost both of my dogs, one last year and one the year before. And I'm like, why do we set ourselves up to... We knew the dog was going to die. You know, it's like I don't want no more dogs. I'm emotional, but yeah, it took us... We had a 12-year-old golden retriever, lost him. I was without a dog for about six months and I was like, "I got to get another one."

I got kids now, so it's like, you know, they're a lot, you know, so taking on a dog, that's easy work. Let me tell you, taking on a dog is easy work.

But it's not either. But back to the mental health, it was a journey. How about that? It was truly a journey of what my past was. I think we've kind of spoken online and really asking myself all these questions, you know, all this still today, still asking myself questions, but it was I seen a therapist at 30 years old, I think. Really only one time. I still vouch for this lady because it was just such a good session. You know, I felt like she did not and a lot... I think we have a stigma of what therapy looks like. She just asked me questions, you know, and through those questions I was just getting, you know, answering my own questions. And I'm like, "Oh, crap, like you have the answers within you."

But it's sometimes the questions that we ask ourselves and how we ask ourselves or how people ask us. So, it's definitely that. I actually created a mindset journal.

Oh.

Uh, when I was going to... when I left my job and I went an entrepreneur, this is just the copy of it, but I created this for people that when you're in the space of a leader, an entrepreneur, a founder, it's a very lonely world.

Yeah.

Sometimes, right? So, it's like who is asking you questions? Who is pouring into you? Because we're... You just mentioned, Katie, you're pouring into people. Who is pouring into us? So, to me, it's making sure while I am that person that pours into others, that I remember to pour into myself, that I remember to love myself, that I care for myself.

Um, and then gardening. I would love planting.

Yeah.

Do you have plants around here?

I have 50 plants in my house. You know, like I have a problem. They're a bad addiction, you see, Katie.

Um, but what do you do outside of, you know, to just keep the mind going?

I'll go back to something that you mentioned. How do we kind of pour back into ourselves? For me, I don't have super thick skin. And so, for the majority of my career, I accepted every piece of feedback equally, regardless of who it came from, right? And so, I read this amazing book called Radical Candor by Kim Scott, and it really changed my mentality around who and how to accept feedback from. And that feedback should only be accepted when it comes from a place of love.

And there's only a certain amount of people that love you and that really care for you and that really want to offer you feedback that is from a place of growth and from a true reflection of your strengths and your talents. And so, my mental health did suffer a lot early in my career because I would accept every bit of feedback that somebody gave me equally. And if this person had a complaint, then I was trying to appease this person and change my personality for this person and then go over here and change that.

So, I know that I have to continue to work on having tougher skin and really identifying the people in my life that are going to offer me feedback that I need to internalize as opposed to just accepting all feedback equally. So, that for me is a big component of my mental health. Um, but besides that, spending time with my dog is always high on that list. And um, my husband and going on vacations and finding those moments of joy in your life.

I actually won my student workers gave me an award called the metal award, which is because we were talking about mental health and I was talking about headspace. What will get you into a good headspace? I'm a classic millennial. I listen to a lot of emo rock in high school, and so like if I know that I'm going to have a really tough meeting, I like crank heavy metal music in my car and that just puts me in the right mentality for that.

And so what about you? What are the things that like put you in a leadership mentality? And maybe that's your journal or other things.

Um, what puts me in a leadership mentality? That is a really good question. I don't know that anything puts me into it.

Okay.

I think sometimes I just do it and I don't even know it. You know, and I think from a very young age, and maybe it was my upbringing that just I've always been the father figure of my friends. When I was 19 years old, I had a five-bedroom house. I moved in all my friends. But I was dad. Like I didn't play around. I was to the point where I was taking... because they would like lower the AC to be cold as hell in the house and I would just take the damn AC off the wall. You know, just so mad. But I was also already leading people.

I was 19 years old. I was a general manager. So I had to, you know, when it comes to my leadership, I didn't even know I had it. Someone obviously saw it in me. And when I became the manager, I would always remember this person that said this to me. He was like 50 years old. I'm like 20, and he says, "Ephraim, you're a great leader. Yeah. But I can't work for you. You know, but when you get the team and you're going to do phenomenal things."

Um, and I would always remember that. You know, it's just there's probably that age gap, but he saw the leader in me. And I just, I don't know, I just give it back to the people in my life. You mentioned great people, educators, you know, people that I've seen.

Um, even thinking about now, all these years later, my mom, even though there was still a struggle at home and I was battling that, seeing who she is today, you know, from the perspective of upbringing and all that other stuff, so much respect for her because she was truly just an unstoppable force, right? Seven kids, didn't graduate high school, but still went on to get a degree, still went on, you know, become a nurse, and her kids are doing damn well.

So, I think there's that, right? To just look back and say, you know, it's kind of always been embedded in me. Um, I now, probably more than ever, am confident in it. If that makes sense, right? Like I'm 30, probably 36, and at 30, I would say I'm probably the most confident. Was it kids? Maybe. I also took on a role one time to be a facilitator. I never thought I'd be teaching anybody anything.

Yeah.

Uh, you know, especially I'm not teaching kids. I'm teaching adults that are worse than kids, actually. But, uh, I loved that, but even through that, I always asked myself, "What was in it for me?" And what was in it for me is I wanted to be more confident as a speaker.

I wanted to be... um, just that's cringe. To go up in front of a classroom every week and it's a new set of people, but I realized I loved that, you know? So, then I became more confident and I'm like, "Okay, I'm already a leader. How do I lead, but also I was always not wanting to share stories." I was just that guy, right? Just not... uh, but yeah, that's a little bit about how.

I love that. That's such a great story of grit, right? And how grit can inspire greatness in different ways. And I feel like that's the story of a lot of first-gen students, and um that they saw that grit elsewhere in their life, even though they didn't have a direct person to kind of emulate, but it was the grit of, "I can do this because they're doing hard things and I can do hard things, too."

Yeah. I am that I never play sports, but when I see someone do that, that's just Oh my god, it motivates me. I am very competitive like in the space of whatever it may be other than sports.

Yeah.

Um, because I just like, "Oh yeah, if they could do that, then I need to match it or better." Like I never want to play. It's a bad thing, maybe, but you know.

No, I also... I don't know if you've ever taken Gallup strengths, the strengths assessment. Competition is my number two strength, and so I am also... I have zero athletic ability, but I'm constantly aware of what others are doing out in the world, and if they're doing it, I can do it. So, it sounds like we have that in common.

I want to talk because you mentioned a lot of millennial, right? And now what we're... The younger is Gen Z? Is that what they are? Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Yeah, it's coming up here soon.

I can't even keep up. I didn't even know we were millennials until we started using that word, right? But um, what does communication look like at this level? Because I think that's really important. Um, we're in a new space of technology, the way that we like to communicate in general because of social media being a big part of it.

Are we looking at that gap on how do we communicate and meet them where they're at?

Yeah, so I think as a millennial, we all went through phases of basically we were the first generation to really utilize social media, and for us, it was highly personal, right? There used to be Twitter; you used to post what you were having for breakfast and all sorts of things, and now that's kind of a different space. For me, now it becomes a professional reflection space, right? To make sure that I have a professional persona.

Um, I have a good LinkedIn. All of those types of things are important, I think, as leaders continue to grow that you're putting yourself out there in spaces, that you're doing podcasts, and that you're doing other things to introduce people to who you are on a professional stage.

But I also think about how often my team uses chat versus how often my team uses email, right? And they'll text me. I don't think millennial leaders are structured in as structured as previous generations in terms of hierarchy, right? I have no issue if somebody who's not my direct report reaches out to me directly with an issue or challenge because I don't believe necessarily that it has to go through six things if it's an issue. Just let me know if it's something I can impact.

And so I think that those are the things that I reflect back on in terms of communication that I think we have a little bit more openness in terms of opportunities for feedback.

I love it when I get a text message in the middle of the day and I can solve a problem quickly as opposed to trying to go through six things and scheduling a meeting to fix something.

So yeah, what about you? What are your thoughts on how millennials communicate?

I think that we're in a space now where people don't like to talk face-to-face and they'll probably prefer to, as you mentioned, just this is the best tool that someone can use because everything's on it. So when I think about it, I am at all. Like however you want to talk, you know, I prefer this. I prefer to see a face to be quite frank.

I prefer to probably talk on the phone unless I'm really, really busy that I don't want to talk on the phone. Um, I'm not a big text, but I love to... that becomes a communication outlet for some people, right? Because I'm definitely down. I just go back to the old phone ways, man. Hey, how you doing? You know, and I'll sit here for an hour and a half, but what happens is I start pacing back and forth like, "Oh my god, I'm so bad at that."

I'll sit here and get on the call and then I have to get up and then I go out and I come back and then I'm like walking in circles. So I really got to put the phone down, but no, I think that we... everything is so quick. You know, so I even asked you a question.

So, when we talk about communication, are we at a space now where if I have a problem at 11:00 at night, I'm a student, right? At your university, and I have a problem at 11:00 at night. Am I getting an response, or am I getting, you know, an email the next day, or as you mentioned, 48 hours later? What does that actually look like?

Cuz I think that could also hinder how kids see education. Like, I want to get in there, but I don't feel like I'm getting the answer quick enough. I'm not getting the Amazon effect, right? The next day or same day.

The ways that AI can be utilized in that space in particular, right? We're never going to be able to staff something 24/7, but AI can, and it can answer a lot of great questions. Um, especially if a student is asking questions about, "Do you have this major? Tell me a little bit about this major. What transcripts do I have to send?" All of the processing type questions are easy.

Where I think people still need to answer questions is questions like, "How do I make friends in college?" Right? I think that that's a personal question that lets us engage a little bit more. But if you just want to know what GPA you have to have in order to be admitted to the aviation program, you should be able to ask that question at 1:00 a.m. and get an answer to that question at 1:00 a.m.

And so, I think about AI and how we can utilize it efficiently, and then figure out ways to still have a human-to-human connection when that's appropriate. What are your thoughts?

I mean, I think you hit it on the head. It is a 24/7. It is having that conversational SMS message, right? Where I could feel at any time because when we talk about your average student, they're probably working a full-time job and maybe going to school part-time, and you know, the easiest time for them is when they just got out of work at 10:00 or 11:00 at night.

You know, I think about just those... Look, the office doesn't even know you're there.

No, I just... we're very sustainable here, so my lights turn off if I don't move every 20 minutes or so, which is a great mental health thing that I have to stand up and move around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was going to say, but I'm pretty sure at some point it probably gets a little annoying, right?

Just yeah, just every once in a while it happens at inopportune moments.

I love it. But now I think just it is really cool to see where we are going. Back to the AI, where we are going.

Yeah. People are very scared of it, but we mentioned it earlier, it's like if you know how to use it and you use it correctly, it's going to be like any other tool that you have in your toolbox, right?

I think we're in a space, you know, millennials, we got to see the iPod go through so many generations in such a short period of time. We've seen the social media from the MySpace days to, as you mentioned, we were just throwing anything and everything.

Yeah.

I kind of giggled when you said this because it's like, we are now very professional. Like, you got to be very mindful because now it becomes almost part of your resume.

I'm I used to, even very young, 20-some years old, I was leading these subways. I would go to your Facebook and see what type of person you are.

Mhm.

You know, and it would tell me so much about you because of what you were willing to put on, you know, online like that. So when you said that, it's like, man, I don't know when my mind shifted like that, but I just started deleting pictures and stuff like that.

Yes.

I could find some really deep cuts, and right, just nothing bad, but just like, "Oh, did I really need to be posting these things when I was 16, 17, 18 years old with opinions and thoughts on things that I had no reason to know about?"

Sometimes I get memories on some random comment that I put on my Facebook. And I'm like, first of all, why did I spell it like that? And like, I knew better than that, all right?

Like, why was I doing that? But, uh, yeah, funny things. Good times, I would say.

As we talk about communication, we talked about us being first-gen students. There's some kids that are probably on the fence on, "Do I want to do this?" What is your message to that student, Katie?

Oh, that's such a good question. What we know about higher education and education in general is that it pays off. And so, that's the main thing that people have this perception that it's not going to be worthwhile, that you're going to go into debt. There's all of these extreme cases, right?

Um, at places that, yes, there are places that charge 60, 70, 80,000 dollars a year, but there's plenty of places that charge less than 10,000 dollars a year. And if you have need, like, right, it can be a very, very affordable proposition for students. So, the indebtedness conversation is one that we try.

It's education has great value. At wherever you can complete, that is the place that is going to have value. But, also it opens up so many doors. And so, when I reflect upon education, I think of it as an opportunity to not be beholden to one individual, one job, one career, because it's giving you skill sets that you can go out and maybe be an entrepreneur eventually, right?

Maybe switch careers because you've already done a lot of basic work in one area, and you're just able to kind of switch. And so, I love the conversation around education that, of course, it has an economic value. We know that a student with a college degree, on average, is going to make a million dollars more in their lifetime, regardless of the college degree that they choose.

But, it also has intrinsic values of making you a great citizen of the world and making you question and be curious about the things that you maybe will see in the news media or in engaging with AI. I hope that students leave higher education with curiosity. That's the number one thing that you don't believe that you know everything because you take all of these classes and you realize, man, I know this much about a lot of different areas, but if you lead your life with curiosity, what are the amazing opportunities that it's going to lead you to?

You know, I would say so I did hear that and I thought that was a very good way to look at it, right? You can go mess up at the university and college and it'd be okay. You can not go mess up at your job and it'd be okay, right? Like there's a difference there.

But what's cool as well, so I did hear that part, but what was also cool is that, you know, I took... I was, as I mentioned already, 19 years old GM. So I already knew business because I was in it. So I went to school, you know, while I was in leading, I was in small business management. So a lot of the things I was learning, I'm like, "Why am I here?"

I'm already doing this, right? Like I'm young. Like I think I knew it all, right? We just mentioned that. And I am now 35 and I was talking to my accountant on some things. I'm like, "Oh man, I remember that in school."

You know, if I would have paid attention at that moment and stopped thinking that I knew it all, I'd probably understand a little bit more. But it is those things that teach you that you don't know when you're going to utilize it in life. You know, those tools, those people, the people that you meet that could change your life.

You know, I always thought that to my wife. I'm like, "Yo, why aren't neighbors not kind more kind to each other? Like your neighbor could be what takes you to the next level, but sometimes we're so afraid to say hello."

Like communication, right? Like why don't we communicate? This is great, but just saying hello, "Who are you? How are you?" You know, and I definitely very diverse allows you to meet people from all walks of life, but it always goes back to how we're communicating that things exist within the school.

And I forget like I was just I guess one of those average kids. I just went to campus after work at 6:00. I was ready to get out. It was too long of a class if you ask me, and then I'm ready to go home. You know, and I wasn't coming back on the weekend, but maybe if I had more of those experiences as well that maybe I would have stayed a couple of more years, right?

And I think that's what's so cool about what you do, Katie, is that you're so excited. Like you're going to bring all the fun stuff. Like you're going to talk about that.

So I actually ask you if you were talking to a student, Katie, all right, I'm putting you on the hot seat.

Yeah, okay.

Talking to a student and I ask you what are some of the things that your school offers? Like, you know, why your school versus others?

So I usually try to flip the switch to students, right? And that ask them a million questions because higher education can mean vastly different things depending on what the students want and need. Some are looking for a great social experience that I want to make friends. I want to find the love of my life. I want to engage with Greek life and everything else that's going on, all of which my campus has.

But there's other students and we cater to a lot of different student demographics at our institution. We are an institution that is a helping hand, not an ivory tower, right? We're not trying to say no to students; we're trying to say yes. And so that may mean that we're helping a student who maybe has a child, maybe is working two jobs and they're trying to adjust their schedule and maybe they're just looking for those academic connections or looking for career advancement.

And then we talk about career services, right? And all of the opportunities that they're going to have to elevate their career, to set their family up for economic success. And so for me, a lot of times it's higher education can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. And there's no one answer as to why you want to pursue higher education.

Obviously, there's some programs that you have to have a degree for, right? Let's say if you think about maybe if you want to go on and be a doctor, then yes, you're going to have to take inorganic chemistry and you're going to have to do all of that MCAT and all of those other tests in order to make it in that career. But that's my favorite thing about higher education is that you can have two students who have drastically different experiences and they were both happy with their experience because their why of why they were approaching higher education was different.

We're all allowed to have a different why. Uh, and so to work at an institution that can understand all of those different whys, uh, there's some that are really funny. Uh, that we'll get students... we recently renovated all of our residence halls that all have air conditioning. And so there's some people that are just like, "I really want to go to a school where I have air conditioning in my residence hall room."

And so like that's an easy one, check we got that one. Uh, I can help you with that.

To go back to one though, Katie. You mentioned, "I want to find the love of my life." Is that really one that you get?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, not as explicitly as that, but certainly there's... when else in your life are you going to be surrounded by largely a group of your peers, right? After high school, you know you work in multi-generational workforces.

Yeah, yeah.

And this is kind of a prime time of your life and I say this with a bit of heart and that I used to oversee at WVU orientation leaders, and at this point I think I have at least three different marriages as a result of them being orientation leaders together.

Uh, and so that's always a fun conversation to have that they're meeting in this space. And now my current president who started today at Eastern, he tells the story of meeting his wife at his freshman orientation.

And so there's always an opportunity, right? If everything else is going well in your life that yeah, this is an opportunity again. It's your social. If you're willing to have conversations in elevators and at the rec center while you're working out, you never know where those conversations could lead.

That is crazy. And the new president must be exciting times at the school. You guys excited?

We're so excited. It's what a great opportunity to welcome back an alum who has a passion. I always think that if I have a special love in my heart for my alma maters, I know he has a special love in his heart for Eastern because it's him and his wife's alma mater.

They're from Michigan originally, and so they understand everything that makes Michigan great. And so yeah, I look forward to working with leaders who have passion and energy. I joke all the time I drink a lot of energy drinks. It's my one unhealthy habit.

It's really, really bad. But usually I only have one a day. But my new incoming president, I've joked with a lot of people that I'm going to need two energy drinks a day to keep up with him because he's just got such high energy and I don't think he drinks caffeine.

I haven't seen him with caffeine yet. But like I'm going to need to up my caffeine intake to keep up with him. But I love that opportunity to have a leader who's pushing us.

That is cool and someone that you mentioned that is an alumni, someone that his wife is an alumni, grew up right in the area. Like wow, it doesn't get any better than that. You got to have passion, right? To go back where you were raised at, to go to school, and even want to deal with that.

Um, I do not drink coffee either, actually.

You're not a caffeine guy?

No, I about a year and a half I gave up coffee. I'm trying to figure... see if I have it on my...

Oh, right here.

I switched over to this here, Mud Water.

Okay. Interesting.

Yeah, it's a little pricey.

Um, it's like $40 a container. But if you follow these instructions, yes, you're going to do $40 a month. However, I don't follow these instructions because it's a huge scoop. I do a little bit less and one container has probably lasted me now three, four months.

So think about it. Now I'm spending $40... I was thinking that that was like one can of something and you were spending $40 daily on your...

Oh, no, no, no.

It's supposed to be $40 every 30 days.

But even that's still a lot of money, okay? I'm frugal, all right? Listen, I got kids.

You got to do what you got to do to keep you going.

Yeah. I um, now it was just really... coffee to me was always like I think for taste. As soon as I'm up, I'm energy. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm sleep. Like it's that simple like that. I don't need the coffee, don't need the energy drink.

I am all day full of energy, so you better keep up. I was telling my wife I'm going to Vegas. I love walking. So I'm taking my videographer with me and I'm like, she better be ready because I am walking all over this Vegas and if she's not, then you're going to be left behind.

That's just how I am until my head is on the pillow.

Comfortable shoes. Sometimes we try to look nice and we sacrifice comfort for looks.

I hope she knows. We're there for days. I hope she knows, but Katie, I really appreciate you doing this for us and just having this conversation. So authentic. I appreciate you as a leader. I can tell why you're so good at what you do because you're naturally you. I can sense that here.

Um, where can people follow the university, maybe get some more information? What is the socials? What is the websites?

Uh, we are emich.edu, Eastern Michigan University. Uh, I have a LinkedIn. I try to post weekly or biweekly some types of thoughts reflections. Uh, so I would encourage you to follow us along there.

Uh, we have an Instagram, TikTok as well as Facebook, and so you can find us on any of your major social media platforms, but just so looking forward to hearing people's feedback and opportunities to engage with wonderful leaders like yourself as well and have great conversations.

Well, that's appreciated. Somebody's going to message you online like, "How do you even have time to post and podcast and still be as good as you are?"

Katie, we appreciate you. Guys, if you want more conversation like this, make sure you guys do follow, subscribe wherever the platform is, man. Allow people to see that there's leaders out there that are truly so passion and purpose-driven, not chasing a paycheck, really just pouring into the next generation because it's not about us.

I'm Ephraim, this has been Katie. We'll catch you on the next one.

Laters.