Should be empowered to look in the mirror and its a way of talking about society and institutions that are helping and should be recognized whatever is going well but also willing to say we have a way to go. The subtitle starts with the notion its abou that all of usg together with the notion. I found the subtitle interesting at the cover of the book you dont have one higher than the other. Why was that . They are connected and thats the point there are ways in which we work collectively through those to think about the notion of the sense of empowering. You tell an important story in this where its never an overnight thing. To plant the seeds and then have time to grow and its a great example of that as a person going through their own journey of a think about that time timee which for a lot of liters isnt always easy. We start with the idea we are under 60yearsold and ive been fortunate to be there for 25 years and what ive learned is the success that we have had has come as the result a lo of a lof people taking their time to analyze and assess the problem and challenges to get to know how the culture needed to change and that means half the students graduate and it also means that we think about understanding it takes more than sitting through some classes to touch the hearts and minds of people and we have a selffulfilling prophecy. We want to make sure they succeed. Look at the student to your left and right thats a terrible thing to say. Its a matter of knowing you dont think progress overnight so when we talk about what it means to help people understand going through this process, how do you know when you are on the right path of shaping the culture, how do you know because sometimes you need those benchmarks. You dont even appreciate it and i would suggest and the books suggest and my colleagues all say we have to get out of the culture and step out of it and look back at whats going on. If you purchase our analytics and number two, looking at the economic backgrounds but number two, doing focus groups. Ive learned over these years it is in that process that we learn more about who we are one of the many fascinating things that i think has happened at the University Baltimore under your leadership is how you also reshape what people see when they look at you. If a university that frankly now we are talking about a community that is leading the nation in many ways in how it is training and teachinis teaching scientisd mathematicians and engineers and we are not talking about scientists and mathematicians engineers to students of color that are scientists and mathematicians engineers etc. So talk to us how that took place and now as many people nickname the factory, talk about that transition. The transition. First of all it is true people continue to talk about the first years as we were not well known and in many ways we were so. We hadnt become residential. To build a Solid Foundation it was in that setting that i realized we have some good stuff here. We have set some high bars. So now we factor in when you walk down the campus you will see students from all over the [inaudible] students of all races and disciplines into those areas are important but im excited we have students in the arts setting up language and culture. Ive got plenty of students on campus it is a place where its important that the social sciences are important and i bring that up because it is something we say in the book which is we have to appreciate the fact it isnt one area of discipline and another versus another. It isnt the best but its how we integrate these and how we teach the future scientists to appreciate the value of ethics but theyre looking at the digital humanities and technology. So looking at the university and looking at the mirror of society held we teach our students they can be proficient in a number of areas they can learn and love language and culture even in math vice versa. This book is coming out such a powerful time because we have never seen the university as a system under such attack of the virtue of Higher Education and why people need more training and so on and so forth. Talking about how to empower the university, but is war response for that criticism, and what is the role of the end Howard University . Guest university . Guest co. E are feeling that. We are able to look at the big picture. It isnt for everyone. A lot of students dont want this to. Understanding what is happening in the postsecondary world we saw the meeting to appreciate the end Research Universities or the community colleges. Scope rich and diverse with all types of institutions, people asking the First Response is always absolutely. Show me a family that has seen some success and that has gone e on to get a job thats where they continue to in college and universities. The challenge we face that most people dont realize is they have experienced College Graduation and if you havent experienced it dont appreciate what it can do for your family. So its basically empowered to say to the nation and beyond that it matters. Creating citizens into teaching people how to think in Civic Engagement, all the things we do that other institutions do, but at the same time, we should be empowered to loo look an interny at ourselves in the mirror that we can do much better. There is more that we can do. Host when you think about the more that we can do, i cant help but think about your own personal story, your own personal journey that brought you from alabama to maryland and now leading one of the most prestigious forwardlooking universities in the world. Tell us a bit about your journey into the role that education played in the journey. Guest i appreciate that. The childrens march on birmingham and all of my life ive loved reading and math and thats what i want for every child is to appreciate the meaning of words and understand the connection so i am fortunate to be at a university that allows me to. I could never imagine i would be at a University Like this because what im able to see on the campus that is so inspiring is people from countries that appreciate what they have in common. We are in all of the place and have come to learn to talk about ideas and prepare to be leaders. I think of money owed journey where we have that experience in the Civil Rights Movement then understand through community and values to get people to lead in Civic Engagement. I had the honor to march with doctor king and its the same year my university was founded. We are together and ive been there at the university over the years. I would also say as we tell our stories the question has to be for the donors or alumni but it also means looking at the context. Looking at the context of one stage we are fortunate in maryland they come from different Political Parties and work well together so, our political leaders and elected officials in sure that we keep building the quality of education and its been encouraging to those of us in the field the understanding is very clear our families will be closely connected to education. Host they are not just people from baltimore and maryland were from the united states. It is a Global Community. What was your first exposure to the Global Community and how did it change you . Guest i had the pleasure of studying in egypt, my wife and i at the university in cairo and there were students from over the world therallover the s the first time i was in an environment where except for those at the university often didnt speak english and when i began to learn some things about another culture and most important it was a broad experience in many ways, and it led me to appreciate what we do today to encourage more and more of our students to have the experience abroad as we have more and more that come to us as faculty from all over the world and the most important thing is for us to first appreciate the responsibility we have in the country to understand humankind and reach out to other people with an extent about coming to say that we are all a part of this human race. Host how much of your education was the . It is allencompassing where they are into bringing them along in virginia and then the university. In the early 70s when i began to understand, ive been in birmingham and by world had been primarily africanamerican and there were differences and challenges. However, all those experiences shaped the other institutions. Its very special in the state of maryland because it is the only university founded at such a time that people of all races go to accompany them. From the beginning we were in institution of different races but this is what i saw around the country and what we worked to improve on. We have desegregated now in that we have students of all different races and institutions that we havenbut we havent tr. For there were people like themselves and from their own account of course. When we talk about the university and society are we teaching our young people how to interact substantively from themselves and this is one of the strengths working hard in the classroom and beyond the classroom. From the own race or country you want to know all different backgrounds as human beings and that the world is so diverse. We dont talk enough about how we should go about coming to appreciate other people, caring about other people who are different from ourselves. This is a part of our success and we can always do better. And how are the University Better than we are. Weasel that perfectly on display. We saw that perfectly on display almost five years ago after the uprising is. If you dhave to do as you just t our joy and interconnectedness and pain. For we need to talk about that moment that was so important for you to use your voice in such an empowering way. Guest we were worried about the children of baltimore and the citizens there and it was a large high end up from one of the buildings and it said if there were students that put this up. Youre spiritually and emotionally and psychologically connected. Theyve been involved in all kinds of Civic Engagement and they are working and connecting to be supportive. People dont realize that baltimore is the site of the most educated people in the world. Youre the seconwe are the secod community in the country. [inaudible] 30 of americans have experience going to college, graduating from college so the point im making is a the notion of the empowered university should be the power to not only look inward at the campus to help the children of the regions and the people that are poor. What is th the whole festivity e into part of what they were we g in that period is what other institutions have looked to do whetodaywhen theyve had challed that is to get into the city and environment. Theres much more work to be done. Our universities that we are proud to be a part of baltimore and not, we stand by. Who are from western china and all over the globe. What did you see among the students when everything that was happening very much whether its their adopted backyard or their real backyard they try to understand the issues and we were having faculty and staff and town Hall Meetings and at ththemost important what it meao reshape the thinking about people that hadnt had a voice. So, large numbers of th the cous particularly in the humanities, social sciences and the arts are focused on those areas. We are a part of the National Movement and that is what the faculty itself working with students to look at these challenges that we faced in our society and our cities. And its not one city or a couple of cities. These are those around the country, we notice of the disparity. And its become a part of our solution has been to infuse these challenges into the work the students are doing in the classroom and in the Community Engagement so that as they become leaders, whether they are going to be a lawyer or a teacher or a scientist, they have a better appreciation of this devastating impact of poverty, the strength of that children bring to the classroom, and most importantly, the possibility of changing the way that we do business, of rethinking th the narrative so t we stop blaming those people who are less fortunate. And at the same time, teaching young people how to take as much responsibility as they can even as we work to change policies that can be so discriminating. We think about the role poverty plays its everything that we see. One of the things you focused on is on the context of Brain Development and how exactly are we exercising this muscle and creating platforms for every child, every person has the chance to exercise that any liberating way. We think about this role that these disparities play in our larger society. There are some people that say understanding those discrepancies that isnt my issue, that isnt my thing. And for you was taken to such a lead on educating not just the current future leaders in our society, how do we help people to understand, how are we training or scholars to understand the role that each and everyone ha every one has tn addressing some of these regardless of occupation they going to war regardless their field of profession they choose. Guest i go to economics were allowed to say i look at the income inequality in our society and the large millions of americans of all races and we see at the top more and more. The challenge is a structural challenge as we think about how we help our children through education, which is a piece of it, but there are other issues that our Society Needs to appreciate, and that is the advantage, all kinds of advantages we have about how its ways of building our families. Its so understanding the devastating impact of things like poverty and race and gender discrimination can help us understand how solving those problems will last us all up as a society. For the campus what has been amazing to be focused on people in our inner city areas and other places where we have challenges around the state of maryland and what that means is looking at ways of helping children learn and looking at other policies. Looking at issues involving healthcare there is the need for the broad understanding of all of the ways in which poverty is that negative impact and the issue of stress and its relationship to learning. Yet what i can tell you is we work on our programs from the first kids coming to college that has been firsttime offenders and to see the strength of those children and we see their ability to think and how we can hone in on those skills and those from baltimore to the other schools, and i have seen scores ive been reading and math if we develop programs designed to help the Amazing Program involving the math and science teachers in the majors to work in middle school for exactly those kids work in the schools America Needs to understand if they are not doing well it is remarkable that you did matter they are not looking at. Its more complicated than that. We have to get their support we need to find ways of helping out, and accountability related to the support we give to teachers and children and families. Its that supports that can make a big difference. Thinking of support, its interesting what support do we need, what support do we ask f for. Theres a great story in your book and its on page 71 on the chapter of great and greatness you are talking about how you were the interim president of 1992 and William Schaefer of the former mayor of baltimore independent that point became the governor of the state of maryland but you met with him and had the chance to articulate your vision and what you wanted to do and what you thought could happen. There was a point here where she says what can i do to support the candidacy to become president im going to ask them to make you the president. And at that point i think everybody thought that sounds great thank you. Please do not contact the board of regents. And nothing that you aske the td them for was not for a call or recommendation. You asked them for trees. If you know anything about politics, its always very powerful, but i wanted to be president if they wanted me to become president. I didnt want him to say that they made him do it. He was a do it now kind of person. This is what i would say to you. I knew we needed more green space and he had some power. He looked at me and smiled and said i can do that indicated a. Of 20 some years have gone by and i said governor, you did this for us and he got tears. It was a special moment. It really was. Host its also very symbolic because you had these grow into these amount of things and frankly they will outlast us all. They will be here looking out for generations and providing shade and support. Its also emblematic we think about Higher Education in the point. And that the problems in our society. Climate change is real and one of the things is the environment, whether it is the environment of engineering, science, policy, we have thousands of students that are working in those areas and large numbers of faculty working on environmental issues, whether it is about water, all the way over to the areas of technology connected to the environment, and so all of that while a im thinking about the import university to get involved in the problems of the society. But Climate Change issues, the environment would be some of those. The one part i would mention we need to look at it more carefully about th that relationship not only between k12 and universities, but the fact that a large percentage of the students that get into colleges dont graduate and while we said that about half, the fact is that distribution is fairly bimodal. In other words, the wealthiest place that he will see people start graduating when thinking about for years for example, but the largest percentage of the public quite frankly are going to be below 40 . I am always saying this shouldnt be acceptable to any of us. In the 25 years ago because we have most of the freshman and sophomore on campus but weve gone from under 40 now 70 some percent and you can conclude those that we knew about. We worked very hard to make sure the students that come to us actually do succeed. The other part of that is there are different strategies we need to be using. One is that redesign we hear people are redesigning courses and we understand of the election method is one way of delivering and there is the need for more active learning if we look at the Chemistry Discovery Center and students working in groups and use of technology, realtime kind of assessment going on. If making it as exciting as possible. I also ask about k12 and universities. How many of you know those are bored in school. Helping students appreciate the excitement of learning, giving them more actively engaged rather than opening their heads and pouring in th into knowledg, teaching them how to use technology can make a big difference, and then finally, for us we have been using this word over 20 years. We say that its the house of great and i will tell you the fact that 60 to 70 have a parent from another country speaks volumes about what people from other countries often bring to the country when you look to those that came to new york and got the nobel prize, it is that quality and hunger for the knowledge. We are putting up the society we must be empowered to look in the nearer and ask those hard questions are we hungry for the knowledge and are we teaching our students not only to be hungry for the knowledge that excited the curiosity and asking the questions. So it is about looking not just as a university, but as a society. Host how do we teach and instill that hunger . Guest working with kids in second and third grade asking the questions, me, me. They are so excited. I was getting on the floor with them into doing math because i think others at the university should be as concerned about pre k. As we are about the programs. You see that throughout in the early years but the question is how do we keep that from being somehow diminished and make sure that we keep pulling the curiosity back. Its about giving them incentives to keep asking the questions. Allowing them to make mistakes. Sometimes we learn more when we get knocked down than when we keep moving ahead. And most important how we keep experimenting and trying different approaches of getting the work to be comprehensible and to understand. If i go to the board and i put up a problem of different equations and then i get a test on the problem and everybody fails the test, we have a notion too often the ones we have presented it, that is our responsibility. As a society we do that. We have to keep thinking about what is our expectation. What are we expecting. The ted talk that i gave starts with the idea of High Expectations, but its not just High Expectations of the students come it is High Expectations of all of us. What i love about this is that my colleagues are constantly working in the humanities and individual rights and the social scientists to find ways to pull them into the work and they are taking responsibility for taking it as far as they can and using us as colleagues in the process. Postcode and the idea of using them as colleagues, it goes back to this idea of a collaboration, a partnership inside of the work which often times the people is not easy and its not simple. Thats also something that has to be taught and collaborated. We learn to do by givin by doine learn more when we see actions rather than people telling us what to do. So, part of what i said when i was talking about the talk is also about building of Community Among students. What does it mean to build up a community anthe community and fd when you say it takes researchers to build researchers. It takes artists to produce artists. Any of us know we are much better when we have seen how others have been. The collaboration that goes on and that we see in a theatrical production working on the imaging of the work that i see people doing in the womens gender studies these are all the ways we can be much better. One of the things we say in the bucket has tbook it has to do we controversy involving the title from an mac line because we talk about something that happened that was exciting at some and it was challenging. The exciting thing that happened is when we won the game against uva and here we are, a campus without the resources of that wonderful institution and it went well, but we took the time to look and sa say who are we. We take a great pride having won the national championship. On the other hand, we had a student protest as all campuses will give us a time to speak to students we are sorry we havent been more effective, we were working to do the right thing. We havent done all that we needed to do. We will get bette better and thy to get better whether it is about a student protest or about challenges with any group, it is to listen carefully to what they say and that is what we have been doing. We have been listening to our students, to experts on these areas and reshaping the way that we do business and most importantly, getting the resources indicating a level of humility. It seems to me part of being empowered as a university or a leader is remaining humble and a saying i have so much more to learn. It seems to me at every level of our society, we need leadership that speaks to the question of humility and a willingness to listen to different voices and to listen to people different from ourselves. I am proud of our students and colleagues when we have sessions that will bring people from different Political Parties, different points of view and we come together to hear those different points of view with an understanding that quite frankly we could even agree to disagree with the stability. We must teach our students and our society that very important message. Host when we talk about the role of the empowered universities, you mentioned something thats important. You talk about producing an educated citizenry. It seemed when you talk about the idea of the educated citizenry, this isnt about how do we get more people. Its something much bigger than that. Would you like to. When you were saying producing that its our responsibility and it leads to this critical question what does it mean to be educated in our society, and how is that changing, what does it mean to be educating our site society . Guest it is a question we should be constantly asking. The head of phi beta kappa, it is to produce the students have learned how to present their arguments and to base their arguments on evidence, the importance of evidence. Number two, to be willing to listen to the other points of view, to listen to the other points of view and to look carefully at the evidencebased to support another point of view and then most importantly, to learn how to find a Common Ground and figure out what it is we can all agree to for the public good or the common good somehow, and so for us we are through our work in the humanities and sciences looking at ways of helping students learn to ask the hard questions, to read critically but to appreciate the value of evidence in a society that is bombarding us with information and different points of view with things being confused about what is truth and what is not. Educated people should have the skills to ask the questions that will lead to the evidence that can therefore determine what is true. At the essence, the heart o of gold iallof this the power to se truth. Host when a person is on the path to seek the truth, i think one of the things that you touch on is the truth has a tendency to shove itself can hide itself in places that you might not expect and with people that you might not expect. How do those institutions and individuals go about finding both their individual and collective truth . Guest i think that we can become more successful at seeking and addressing the truth and making sure that we are first understanding the biases that we bring to the work, all of us bringing certain kinds of view i think its very important for all of us as educators and as citizens to be willing to open up our minds and to hear that other perspective. Ive learned so much from people from different perspectives on campus because it is a microcosm of america and of the world is through the philosophical points of view is so important to understand those perspectives, and also to be able to ask questions in a way that does not simply makes people defensive, but rather hopes the next person to be more introspective to think about what he or she is saying. I would argue that too often weve been teaching people to win the argument as opposed to engaging in the argument and in the debate in such a way that we can figure out what really is the truth as we think about whats best for everybody as we understand there is some things that we should tell the truth and make sure that we have honor in the work that we do. It is an oldfashioned idea, but i believe that as educators we can show our students through our behavior and working with them but while we know people can make mistakes, the honorable thing to do is to make sure we have sincerity when we are working to find the facts and use those facts making decisions about what we do. So, the power to again look at ourselves very carefully and also the power to be honest about whats wonderful about Art University and ways in which we can be even better. Host you talk about that quite a bit in the book which is so important and we found on page 184 where you were talking about the fact challenges still remain. This isnt always going to be something where you cross the finish line. You accomplish one thing and then you have a new challenge and you highlight a few where you say of course redefine curriculum innovation, the faculty that do not appreciate or see the need for the new approaches there are some departments few or no faculty members have redefined in a meaningful way and occasionally new hires will come in to teach the course and without understanding the new approaches that have been carefully developed and implemented reverts to a more traditional approach to the pedagogy. This idea that the change is always there, change is not always welcome. How exactly do we continue to push knowing certain things will work in assorted things wont and that that is perfectly fine, but that is only a complicated things for the organization to be able to take on. Guest my colleagues were very helpful in writing this because wbook because we decidee wanted to hear what people thought about why we were being successful. I say this to the fellow College President s, we know about our College Campuses and theres a lot we dont know. After 25 years i thought i understood the reasons, and while i may have learned some, i learned so much from all of the focus groups that we have about ways in which people had to go around obstacles in order to get it done. It wasnt that we were necessarily empowering them say because of the personalities or power struggles, they had to move around the obstacles to get beyond them to get the work done. It was a humbling experience. So, when they could say [inaudible] where we need to be involved in innovative approaches and us we listen, people are not accustomed to seeing large numbers of students in science and engineering in america. The First Response we have is we were just not as good. The fact is even based on the work weve done with the academy of sciences, the fact is that the higher test scores, whether it is about the geeky exams, the socially prestigious universities, believe it or not, the better the chance that first year or two and there are many reasons for it. It isnt because the student is and working hard. There are issues involving our attitude about the work. What we are constantly doing it still has more to do is trust that, changing the culture to make sure that there is a reasonable chance of succeeding. As the science, psychology or the arts. Most important when we celebrate the success of seeing them do so well and going on to the country and beyond, thats all great, but what about the average student in the bottom third, we as students have great anecdotes about the top, but what about those that are not among the top, what are we doing and what do we need to do, thats what they mean being empowered to be truthful about the whole story. Host where do you see Higher Education going as our society continues to evolve . You talk about the number of people that have started in the Higher Education and have been completed, the amount of people with credit and no degree, watching the cost of Higher Education continuing to rise in certain areas and schools faster than others. What do you see as a future of Higher Education, more consolidation, buildout, how do you see this going . Guest iem somebody with a very positive view of the future and i see that with great confidence. I often ask people to question n if your grandparents go to college, were your parents in college, 30 were going to college but i know in the 50s and 60s, i know a lot about where we were as a society and those people were not born in the 50s, so they really dont understand just how challenging our society was ten when people talk about the challenges were facing today, and we do face these challenges but thats not the first time that we have faced this. But back to the 60s. We see some of those challenges iand decisions in all the problems but i say that as i think about the future because i am convinced in using the same quote that i used before. What do we mean, of course we are going to continue to see a lot of facetoface interaction because a lot of people need that for a number of reasons especially different ages and backgrounds tha but we are also seeing the increasing role of technology and vote online programs and many of our classes have of course resigned and you have some parts in the working groups but you also have some things online and that use of technology in many ways that you are going to see those things happening but i also see that we will be talking about the postsecondary opportunities. The twoyear programs come with a Certificate Programs. My campus the rest of the University Systems are part of the Greater Washington partnership which involves the Virginia Institution in washington, d. C. And maryland, virginia tech, all the institutions in between. And we are working with companies to look at the skills of what people need. One of the challenges that you may not know about is that there are so Many Technology jobs that are not getting killed right now. Well, it is exciting to see the work that we are doing and others with that Greater Partnership to have the Certificate Programs that would allow many more humanities and majors in the social sciences to get into the technology field. Theyve got that broad education, certain courses they can take and whether it is statistics or programming, it allows them to get jobs. Its the only way that we will get with the Technology Infrastructure we are not producing enough science majors or people of color come and women in the 80s for example, we had about 36 of the Computer Science majors and now were down to 20 or slightly below that. Its a major travesty that we have not as a society looked and said something is wrong with this picture. Our approach is to have women in it and so we are encouraging more to get involved in Computer Sciences and working in k12. Probably the most Exciting Program to meet is one for girls, middle school girls involving yoga and coding. If you test fascinating program you were able to become an ambassador for girls and technology and its funded by the Security Agency and some of the other companies in the area and we need to be encouraging much more of that. So, the point tha i am making is that somehow the ability of our education enterprise and to be honest with the strength on the one hand and to say that weve got these problems, the shortage of people in technology and the fact that students from lowincome backgrounds dont have the background support from all of these are ways that we can solve problems and make a point to our society o that higr education matters. Host what i love about that is whether it is the program are these Program Partnerships between the Public Sector and private sector are the institutions of Higher Education and philanthropy, everyone has an Important Role to play. Guest even when i look at the k12 programs, they have done the best looking at our School Systems and innercity schools and the centers in those schools and the idea of connecting the arts and sciences together to aspire to become engineers and having women or people of color, showing them what its about, having our students from the university there as tutors and mentors, there is the need for the intersection of the groups at the same way that i talk about the leadership that we face, the academic success and cultural change, we can talk about our society the public and private sectors working together. The government, universities, companies, the foundations the goal of strengthening what we do in education. So, we only have a few minutes left and very quickly, to share a story and get your response to this connected to another university when the university came up they wanted to talk to you in to see if you have any interest in the presidency, and as i know him very well. They said do you mind talking with him and so i went and i emailed you and as you always do, you immediately we are sitting down for lunch and i started getting into it and you smiled and said i think i know where you are going with the questioning because i was asking if you are interested in this presidency. And you said something that i will not forget. Youve said to me to be very honest you said the students were there come a better chance than not they will be fine for. The thing that brought you is the thing that keeps you there and it isnt just the progress the university has made that its the fact that you know being in that seat matters. Not only do i say thank you for that into the clarity that you gave me how i think abou and hoy own life and my own career i am incredibly grateful to this book into the contribution tha that youve been to all of us not just in the targeting university but the role of education in our society. The final point would be that message that weve been in power to think that kids that come from middleclass backgrounds, working class backgrounds, whatever can be the very best of growing up to be scholars, our kids go to the best places. The idea that you can have excellence in all types of these institutions and you can have authenticity, they care about these students. It is an exciting place. Come and visit again soon, please. Thank you. Will
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