Virtues & Vocations, Part 15: Character & Transformative Leadership

Episode Topic: Character & Transformative Leadership 

Nathan Hatch served as the president of Wake Forest University for 16 years and previously served as Provost at the University of Notre Dame. He recently published The Gift of Transformative Leaders. We will discuss this book and his lifelong commitment to making character central in higher education.

Featured Speakers:

• Suzanne Shanahan, Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director, University of Notre Dame
• Professor of the Practice at Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame
• Nathan Hatch, served as the president of Wake Forest University for 16 years and previously served as Provost at the University of Notre Dame

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/c2b992.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Virtues & Vocations. 

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Transcript

Nathan Hatch's Journey to Leadership

0:06

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Monthly Virtues and Vocations webinar, conversations on Character in the Common Good. This webinar is part of Virtues and Vocations, a national forum housed at The Institute for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame, and supported by the Kern Family Foundation. Virtues in Vocation seeks to foster a community of practice amongst scholars and practitioners across disciplines who are keen to understand how best to care, cultivate character and moral purpose in higher education and the professions. This webinar series is one way we facilitate these conversations and community of practice. I am Suzanne Shanahan and I direct the Institute for Social Concerns and I am host of this series. Our conversation will run until about 1240 and then we'll open it up for questions. You can submit your questions through the QA mechanism. I'll pose them directly today. We are delighted to welcome, Dr. Nathan Hatch for a conversation on character and transformational leadership. Nathan Hatch spent his entire career in higher education, first as a professor and scholar, next as Dean and Provost at the University of Notre Dame, and finally as president at Wake Forest University, providing a steadfast vision for the future. During his 16 years at Wake Forest, he weaved together strong tradition, high innovation, attracted new talent, defined the vision of a collegiate university, broadened the university's appeal and built strong leadership teams. He expanded academic offerings, enhanced diversity and inclusion, deepened the university's resource base, renewed athletic facilities. Pioneered in equipping students to navigate the path from college to career and work to knit character into the very fabric of the learning community. We always like to give a shout out to those who have strong Notre Dame connections. So it is worth noting that in addition to being a former provost and dean, all three of Nathan's children gr graduated from Notre Dame and Nathan is currently serving on the Notre Dame Board of Trustees. Today we will talk with him about his most recent book, the Gift of Transformational Leaders and His Lifetime of Work, making Issues of Character Central in Higher Education. Welcome Nathan. Thank you, Suzanne. Wonderful to be, with you and with this community. Fabulous. as I mentioned, when we met briefly before the webinar, we always like to start with a bit of backstory. So would love to know how you ended up as Wake Forest president. Was this something you Dre dreamed of when you were growing up as a small child? Are you thinking, yes, I wanna be a university president? what was the pathway that brought you to Wake Forest? No, actually I dreamed of being dream, dream teacher of history. I had wonderful, history teacher seventh and eighth grade. I was passionate about history and politic. Went to Wheaton College, I studied history. And so my goal was to be a professor and that's what I did. I went to graduate school and was fortunate enough to get a job teaching early American history at Notre Dame. And that was my goal. I didn't, I did not have great administrative ambition and I was in the trenches, writing and teaching, for a set number of years earning tenure. I did seem to have a knack for organizing things, whether that was conferences or grants or putting people together, or very early on I put together a series, on the history of the professions. And actually that eventually came out as a book. And then one, one August day, a new Dean of Arts and Sciences, at Notre Dame, a philosopher named Mike Luxe called me out of the blue and said, Nathan, can we talk and I wanna talk tonight. I went over to his house, he said, would you come work as an associate dean? And I need the answer in two days. this was 10 days before school started. he said, basically said, come try it for a couple of years. nothing, nothing will be lost. And so I did that and he put together a wonderful team, The College of, arts and Letters at Notre Dame. And that was a wonderful experience. it was a dynamic team. We did a lot together. and that, at that sort of led a path towards, I mean, for a while I still taught, I hadn't finished my second book. and I was doing administration, so that, that started me on a path of administration. And I love teaching. I love doing research and writing, but in the end, I love to help build an organization. And that, was the eventual path I took. But it was a gradual, right. I read somewhere you had this reflection about Father Ted Hesberg and, what you wrote was, higher Education today needs more dreamers, not plotters. I. Many may those of us privileged, to lead colleges and universities lift our sights and renew our capacity to Dr. Dream in the generous spirit of Father Ted. What do you mean by that? This notion of being a dreamer? father Hesberg, he became in his thirties, became president of Notre Dame in 1952, and Notre Dame, was known largely as a football school. They had won four national championships in the forties when Hesberg in 1952 was doing a tour in la they asked him to bend over like he was hiking a football. But Hesberg dream of a great Catholic university. And while Notre Dame wasn't that was his, always his goal. And I think that now has been realized at Notre Dame, but it was that relentless dream. And I have such great admiration for him because he was such a gracious person and he never went at his enemies. He withheld that dream. He attracted great scholars, and he just worked at it for, I think he was president for 35 years, and it set Notre Dame on a wonderful course. Do you think of yourself in those terms, in terms of being a dreamer of sorts in your work? not, I not compare myself to Father Berg, but I always have been one to say, why can't we be better? And you know, make no small dream. So I have been someone who said, why don't we think in an, in, whether it's in a department or a university. a college or university. Why not? Given who we are, why not try to be the best and let's not be content with where we are. That somehow that was in my DNA. sort of where did this, interest in leadership in particular come from? you have a 2021 Chronicle of Higher Education piece. You have this new book, the Gift of Transformative Leaders. is this something that's been percolating all along for you or is this a more recent sort of, I am stepping down from my extraordinary leadership role and now reflecting on that? Or has this been longer term for you? I think it's longer term. It all, it had to do with recruiting faculty. I always was saying, let's. Let's think boldly about who we recruit. and when I became provost at Notre Dame, we started something called Targets of Opportunity. That is, could we recruit distinguished people appropriate to Notre Dame's mission for which a department wouldn't? And I can remember, I remember three people we were recruited. One was John McGreevy from Harvard, and John Cayman was a wonderful professor, a wonderful chair of a department, a wonderful dean, and is now the provost at Notre Dame. Or I think of Sabina McCormick, who's a distinguished, medieval at and classicist at Michigan. She came to Notre Dame or Brad Gregory, who, who was a rising star at Stanford. and you see the difference those people made. And then as provost, the two early appointments, That were made that I and I, you could see almost immediate transformation. One was Carolyn Wu, and we recruited from Purdue to be Dean of business and business at that time was, sort of dysfunctional, terrible morale. It didn't seem to be going anywhere. And Carolyn was a dynamic leader. I mean, within five years, Notre Dame's undergraduate program and business was ranked number one in the country. She just started a number of programs. Carolyn could be challenging. Carolyn is a dear friend, but she was a strong leader and she let the provost know where the business college wasn't being appropriately supported. I also saw a similar thing in engineering, which seemed to be a dispirited place, and we recruited a dean named Frank and Cora, and just the difference. That could make by having the right leader. it reinforced my disposition to, to focus on leadership. Great. I wonder, you know, you talk about someone like Carolyn Wu who you really recruited into a leadership role. do you think of yourself as someone who saw, say in a young John McGreevey, the potential for being Provost? is that something you saw? Could you see that right off? Or is that something more that evolved? We recruited John for his academic potential. I mean, he was on the cusp of getting tenure at Harvard. I mean, he was a rising star, so that wasn't in that recruitment, it was just as teacher and scholar. But it clearly became evident that he had leadership potential. Great. One of the things that I'm really struck by is your notion of hiring people better than you are. And this first, I first saw this in the 2021 Chronicle of Higher Education piece where you say we need exceptional leaders, ones who break the mold to face the storms that are buffeting higher education. Today, finding tomorrow's leaders will require today's presidents and provosts to hire people more gifted than themselves. can you talk a little bit about this perspective, how you developed it, and the extent to which you think this is a common perspective in higher education? Yeah, actually, I've often commented one of the most surprising things to me about leadership in higher education is how few people really operate with that philosophy. And there I think there are a variety of reasons to hire people better than yourselves is can. I like the image of a solar system. You bring in a new big planet and it changes completely the gravitational forces. I think some people, some leaders are so self-confident, they feel they don't need much of the strength. They can just radiate their strength through others. I think some people have never seen, what, what a transformative leader can do. And then I think too often we trust the search process, and I think search consultants are a bit guilty here saying, okay, we'll do a search. We'll bring you three candidates. This is the best you can do. Now hire, and I find it takes much more effort. I wish search consultants sometimes would be paid a bonus if they say, Nope, we haven't found. academic leadership is a rare thing because it is not, it's not a top down thing. You have to build trust, you have to build coalitions. And finding those people, I think takes a lot of effort. And then recruiting those people takes one has, I mean, with Carolyn, woo, when I first tried to recruit her, she said no, she was delighted. She was working for the provost at Purdue, and I think it took three or four months before she sort of would entertain an offer. So I think it, it takes a certain degree of persistence. And do you think this is, this notion of hiring folks better than yourself, do you think this is something that's a particular suggestion for higher education, or do you think of it as more generalizable to other industries other, no, I think it's generalizable. I mean, if you read. If you read about the early Microsoft or the early, Google or something, I mean, these are people who, they go and they just hire great people. So I think it is, it operates in other sectors. are there, are there particular challenges that you see to this strategy? You're, if you're hiring great folks there certainly, perhaps have strong vision, strong thoughts about implementation as well. And if you have a team of extraordinary individuals, how do you think about cohering them as a broader team? I mean, I think that's one of the criteria in hiring someone is can they fit into a team or are they just doing their own thing? And, Laslo Bach, I think is his name, who was the chief Go, chief people officer at Google said one time, you need people with a strong ego and a weak ego. Strong ego that they know what they want to do, but a weak ego in the sense if someone has a better idea, they defer to that. And just, they just don't insist on their own idea. Interesting. I like that. And so I think, it's a tension. And it, and at Wake, I, if the book had been longer, I would've written more about building a team, because we worked very hard on that. We had a consistent consultant for a. We would spend half the time saying who we were, how we worked together as a team, how we built trust before we got to the work of the university. and how do you, you know, if you think about that dynamic in the context of higher education where, people's leadership roles, they roll over, they move on to other leadership opportunities, is there a challenge of consistently rebuilding and reconfiguring a team of extraordinary individuals? No, there is, I mean, example I face, my first appointment as provost here was a woman named Jill Teal, who was very young. She had been at Colgate. She clearly was a dynamic force, but she had only earned tenure there recently, they had a new dean, so there wasn't a place for her. And we. Sort of went out on a limb and hired her to be provost at Wake Forest. And she was wonderful and a dynamo. She was here four years and then went to be president of Colorado College, and today she's CEO of National Geographic. but what, you know, we had her for four years and it was transformative. And, a, a wonderful model, which I talk about in the book is Kevin White, who just stepped down as, athletic director at Duke. And his whole philosophy was he wanted to hire really talented young people. He would teach'em to business and then send them out from the nest. And today there are 32 athletic directors in the country that were trained by Kevin. Wow. That was an explicit example. He did, he assumed he, he wanted talent, but he wouldn't keep interesting. I, I wanted to keep people a little more than that, but it means if you do have talent, you're going well. and I, we recruited at Wake Forest, Jonathan Walton, who, who had been in the divinity school at Harvard and was, minister of the Harvard Church. And he came here for three years. And then his alma mater, Princeton Theological Seminary, recruited him as president and that was most appropriate. But he had, he did a wonderful job at Wake while he was here. So I'd love to talk about some of the elements of transformational leadership or transformative leadership. And you identify a set of them in the book. things like Frank, assessment, ambition, vision, resolve, trust and mutual empowerment. and the final one you note is character. and I would love you to flesh out a little bit more what you mean by character in this context, and what kinds of dimensions of character you think are most important. Yeah. I mean, if there's any acid test, I think it's what Jim Collins talks about great leaders, and he actually uses the word humility. And what he means by that. Are they out for themselves or they are they out for the good of the organization? And it seems to me that is, that's really critical, in any sector, but particularly in higher education. I mean, any significant leader has an appropriate amount of ambition, but it's what is the ambition and, is it, does it spring from. Having colleagues and departments, colleges and schools does one get their satisfaction in that and not just the attention and the acclaim that one gets for oneself. And when you think about something like humility and you are, identifying possible leaders, either recruiting folks from the outside or promoting from within, how do you, How do you see that humility? Is that something that, in all of our, I think you have to, you just have to look at someone's whole track record and, so to see how they've operated, it's challenging. But I think you have to talk to people who have worked for them. do they, do people like to work for them? Do people prosper in working for them? I mean that's like Kevin White, if you talk to the whole range of people who have worked for him, I mean, they just, it was like a, if you were with Kevin, it was like a family and he was taking care of you and he was promoting your best interests. And character in a sense, I think you have, you just have to look at track record. have they exemplified that in, in positions that they've had? You know, are they trusted? I mean, I think leadership, particularly in higher education depends on trust and, people, whatever a leader says, people are pretty. Shrew at determining what really is motivating them. they see through any facade, so are they really committed to the wellbeing of others? And I think if you, I think you can detect that, but by appropriate exploration, although I think one has to do it much oneself. I've become quite critical of search consultants. They're necessary, they're great. A lot of friends in the business, but late in the game, search consultants are really find it difficult to show any clay feet. they wanna present pristine, pristine candidates. And you choose, and there, there's a kind of missing element of what is that person really like day to. You know, that critique I think is a, an interesting one. Given the prevalence of, and importance of the role of search consultants, do you think that perspective is shared by others or, do you think lots of folks are really looking for the pristine candidate and worry much less about what that person is like day to day? I mean, I think some of both, but I think, I think often you get burned if you don't, if you don't know that. so if you're not exploring that, then what you're getting, you hope for the best. But yeah, you can run into trouble. There are many misfires by not doing that. And it's, I would admit it's challenging. I mean, the best I, I wish searches could be done like the, the, a previous search at Princeton Theological Seminary, and I knew the chair of that search. they had a regular search consultant. I struggles that did it. But then they hired another firm who did a kind of CIA study of their leadership. They were paid a fee. they didn't care if you hired the person or not. to, and it also helped eventually when they hired someone, they knew what their strengths and weaknesses were. Yeah. I wish more hires could be done like that. And as you think about your own track record of hiring as certainly in your 16 years at Wake, it was really a transformative moment of leadership. I described just some of the things that happened under your leadership. When you think about hiring, do you think about leaders in relationship to one another? So are you thinking about that leadership team, or are you thinking about leadership of this school? What's best for this school? And then you work on the leader, on the team dimension. Were you thinking as a team, we have strength here, we have, opportunity, there maybe weakness here, and how do we round it out? Do you ever think about, you know, some of it depends on the position. I mean, if you're hiring a dean of a college, you want that co, you want that person to be out for the good of that college. And sometimes that's intention with the other college, you still have to manage that. Yeah. But if you're hiring a chief financial officer or a provost, or a chief legal counsel, you need someone who is always thinking about the whole. now you do want Dean, anyone need, they need to be interested in the hall, but, and since their chief job is to build that sector, or if you're an athletic director, your chief job is to make athletics work, not present too many problems to the president, which is impossible in the current situation. But, so it does vary, but I certainly, I, in, in hiring people and then in trying to develop a team, trying to get people always to look at the big picture and the good of the whole organization. And to, and to treat if their tension, there are always gonna be tensions, but to treat people with respect and. One of, one of the great lessons is if people at the highest level got along, it meant that people under them got along a good example of that at a normal tension in universities between the provost, academic life and like the executive vice president, someone who controls the finances and that there's often tension. it's almost necessary, but when those positions work together and their staff, then their staffs can work together and it's a great, you just get a lot more done. And I was very privileged in my later years at Wake Forest, provost Rogan Kisch, and executive Vice President, Hoff Milam, they got along and their, they built the, but their teams built the budget and they never had to come to me with an argument. It just, they were both of the temperament that didn't, you know, they weren't hiding funds. They weren't, they weren't saying bad things about the other sector that they really worked jointly. that's a tremendous blessing. one of the lines that you have is that great organizations flourish at the hands of transformative leaders. can transformative leaders, make organizations great? Is the Ray, do you see it in the creation process as well? And is there any difference in the kind of leadership to bring something from not great to great versus I've never, I don't think departments or schools are self-generating. In fact, at higher education, they're almost the opposite. You have different fields, different interests. It always takes a leader. and I can give a couple examples at Notre Dame. I mean, Notre Dame, like in the fifties, did traditional mistic philosophy, and then it, I think there, there was a philosopher named Ernie McMullen who came to chair that department. He transferred it to do more modern analytic philosophy, hired a bunch of young, talented people, and it was just, it, that philosophy department became something special. And there was a set of good leaders that followed him, but leadership was key. There was another, great example from Notre Dame, and that's the leadership of John Cini. John is not a person who, when you first meet him, sort of takes the air out of the room. he's, he does not seem like a transformative leader, but he is. He had a vision and he would build coalitions towards how do we create a wonderful Catholic department of theology. And, so it's also a theme. It's why I talk about transformative leaders and not leadership. Leadership comes in so many different forms. We tend to think of it in, in, in a certain way, a sort of dynamic person who speaks well, who, sort of has it all together. But, there, I think I, I like to emphasize that when I'm talking to students Because too often people say, I wanna be a leader, and thus I'll act in a different way. And people see through that. I think leadership is successful only when you are yourself and you operate out of your best self. I'm curious, I wonder, I've been thinking of late of the character of institutions separate from the character of leaders, and I wonder if leaders are where the institutional culture lives or whether it lives on beyond them. It gets embedded in the ethos of a place. So if you think about your own 16 years at Wake Forest in a transformative moment that your leadership, doesn't that somehow get absorbed into the ether there, it's part of the fiber of everyday life and extends beyond you, or do you think it really kind of shifts and pivots? No, I think it's both. I do think institutions are deep organic cultures and they are something. I think the best leader draws upon that. Doesn't try to make radical changes, but I mean, white Forest was a place that, in a sense it was a university that taught like a college tremendous tradition of faculty being deeply interested, concerned, committed to students. And so in our strategic plan, we didn't wanna change that. We just said, we wanna make that better. We weren't gonna be the next Duke or Emory. And why try to do that? And but how do you, in life to, to espouse such a traditional goal doesn't mean you just do things the same. And so I would talk about being both radically traditional and radically. I mean, two, two of the programs we started the goal of which were traditional values. One, one was we recruited Andy Chan to come start the, a whole program in personal and career development. And he really rethought what career services would be. He was a vice president of the university. So in a sense that was in, it was a pretty ambitious new program in order to support traditional gold. And similar in, in the program, for, leadership and character that Michael Lamb lead similar. That's, I think the issue of character was at the heart of what had always been as a religious institution, which it is not a religious institution anymore, but that, that sense of. Not just the intellect, but the mind and the heart. what's life about? What you, what students should give themselves to. And so when you think of something, these are conversations about character and it's certainly, wake Forest is such an extraordinary leader in that space. Was this an right, was, you talk about that balance between tradition and innovation. Did you have a vision for that all along, right? that character would become so essential, a signature element of the wake experience, but also being a leader more broadly? Yeah. Did you have that in the back of your mind? I mean, or did that evolve? it was a core, almost unstated commitment. I mean, I think, I think I learned a lot that at Notre Dame, I mean, father Hesberg was always saying we're not just. Teaching people how to live. So I was deeply interested in that. And, I was in Wake, didn't have a premier scholarship program like UVA or University of North Carolina does, or Notre Dame started. And so I was saying if there's a possibility of doing that, I think it should be focused on character. And then I was fortunate enough, a, a Wake Forest grad who was a Rhodes Scholar called me one day and he said, you need to meet this guy Michael Lamb. This is the kind of thing he does. And one thing led to another. And so we brought Michael here. But once again, I had vague notions of what that might be. But once again, I, you hire the right leader and then it becomes, I mean the core of that was they offer 10 scholarships a year. They have a cohort of 40 students, but the program became much. That. so I had a sort of commitment to it. I didn't know how to implement it institutionally, and fortunately we've had a leader that's been able to do that. That's great. when you think about that, signature program and how important it has become both to waken nationally, are there other things that, in your leadership that you have particular or extraordinary pride of in terms of how your leadership changed the culture or the emphasis? I mean, there are two other things that, that, since you might say, they're not peripheral, but we had the opportunity with our medical school to build a downtown research park and. It took a lot of effort, it took a lot of financial commitment, but over time, a million square feet of old tobacco factories have been turned into labs and been, it's helped to revitalize the city. So that took, a lot of effort. It took a lot of different leaders that's, I mean, that, that stands today as a very significant thing for the university and for Winston-Salem. I mean, the other thing was, we hired a leader for our medical center named Julie rela, who has been just fantastic and, in so many ways. she's a person who was able to just take a dispirited organization and revitalize it, not necessarily by bringing in new people, but just, Making feel people feel better about what they were doing, drawing out the best that, that's Julie's great gift, but also Wake Forest, medicine was in danger of being too small in a state that has other major medical systems. And Julie, over a period of years worked out a, an agreement with Atrium Health in Charlotte that Wake Forest would be the academic center, start a new medical school in Charlotte. It would actually fully opens, next fall. and now it's part of even a larger system, Chicago, in Milwaukee. but it took, wake Forest had tried that before and failed and Julie's particular style, she was able to pull that off. And with all the challenges. I really give great credit to Julie for doing that. When you think about your tenure at Wake, are there, are there things that sort of alluded you that you aspire to and never quite got a handle on? Or are there individuals whose leadership, you didn't expect great leadership and you saw it, or you expected great leadership and didn't find it? Maybe you don't need to mention those ones, but, in public, I mean, one's, hopes and ambitions always have outstrip what is PO possible. And I, in some ways I feel tremendously blessed at what we were able to accomplish. But you always hoped to be able to hire better people, for more pockets to sort of take. Take on leadership roles, but I don't have any grave disappointments. I mean, I would've loved to win a national championship in football or basketball. I bet you. but, I think that, I mean, I made mistakes. I hired wrong people. Jim Collins says, if you hire three out of four, you, your batting average is good. So yeah. The, some people I hired that didn't work out and, there, there's some people, you cannot change cultures overnight. There's a particular person at Notre Dame that led a sector who I wanted to move out, but for a complicated set of reasons I didn't for five years. It just, it was, there was too much change going on to make another change. I do think you have to understand a culture and understand its tolerance for change. you have to weigh that all the time. And do you think that, people often talk about universities as change averse places that it's very hard to create change? oftentimes fear of failure is a problem. fear of sunset, things that have long outlived their purpose. it, what's your experience and how have you tried to confront that kind of stuckness that people describe in university cultures? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think colleges even more than universities are not ready for change because you have a lot people who come and that's their, it's the. And in that context, change is very difficult and people can feel very threatened. I think you have to do it very judiciously. you have to show, you have to show that you are for the people who have given their life there. Even if some of their work may be mediocre. And in that context, I can remember one time at, I was a young administrator at Notre Dame, associate Dean, and we were rambunctious. I mean, we were trying to move, we thought we were, we thought we were great. And it was very easy to disparage the past. A wonderful historian named Phil Gleason. Don't dispar, you build on that. And it was, it's a wonderful lesson to, to, they, those people may not be where you are today, but you know, they gave their lives. And they need to be honored. Yeah. I kind of hear this resonance about the importance of care in your leadership and in your role as a leader, care for your team, just care for people in general and how important that is to creating cultures of possibility and opportunity. Yeah. No, I think that's, I think that's true and I think I was greatly aided, by my wife, Julie, to say people need to be taken care of. I mean, we tried to go out of our way to, and holidays and all visit with. Staff? Is it with people who did janitorial work? People, the security people. I mean, if you want the, if you're telling, students that, that a life of caring is their aim, you'd better create a culture in which some of that is realized. Yeah. That's great. I'm gonna turn to our first question from the audience. so here we go. For Wake Forest in particular, with its focus on character, how would you expect or hope, for graduates of Wake Forest to be different, even 15 years after graduation from those who attended a peer institution? Yeah, I wouldn't wanna say Wake Forest is so different from others. I mean, you. Much of what I learned was at Notre Dame, and I think any of the same goals as do other wonderful institutions. Yep. But I do hope for, from any of those institutions, I hope we have graduates who have a moral compass and who, in a world that, honors seems to honor only a success at any cost. The people are willing to make judgements that are humane and purposeful and not necessarily in their own interest. That's lovely. Thank you. as an administrator who focuses on character in leadership, how do you balance crisis management with institutional, repentance when there are major moral feelings by leaders? That's a doozy. Yeah. Yeah. I always tried to be as transparent as I could. dealing with faculty senate issues where both at Notre Dame and anyway, those could be quite contentious. But my philosophy was to try to be as open as you can that not be defensive. but in this day and age, it's very, I mean, the Black Lives right before Covid, the whole Black Lives Movement, movement. I mean, we had some really challenging times at Lake Forest and I would be openly challenged by students challenged in public. Those, there was one statement I made that I felt, I later came back and apologized for seeing it from their point of view. I think trying to be transparent, not, Not just using institution speak. which I think some university leaders, you know, their lawyers tell me, you gotta, I mean, I you've gotta be real. And when I issued messages to the community, I tried for them to flow out of who I was and not just sort of what is the appropriate thing to say. Yeah. It right. Again, you can kind of hear in that answer really extraordinary empathy. next question. As an experienced professional who didn't come from the Notre Dame education system, how did you build trust with senior leadership to demonstrate future potential? What are senior leaders in higher education looking for, especially among those who don't come from their own educational system? So folks coming from the outside, I think try to understand where people come from and take them on their own terms and try to see leadership. I mean, it was a wonderful example from Notre Dame there, there was a librarian at Notre Dame, but was hired right before I was, she was very talented, came from the University of Michigan and she had sheshaw a lot of problems at Notre Dame and early on, I mean, she took me on, she, you know, public meetings. She would sort of say, when are these changes gonna be made? I mean, it was, that was, it was pretty adversarial. But Jill Teal and I worked with her. she was quite a dynamic leader and actually she came to be, she. She came to turn our library around and one year they won, an award, sort of best library in the country. But it was, it took some patience and some guidance and some, her big thing was that, library professionals needed to be faculty and we worked that out. So that there, there were some things we were doing wrong, admitting that and making those changes. Great. Thank you. next one, president Hatch. I really appreciated your point on the importance of humility in a transformative leader. What about the importance of gratitude? I think that's, I think those go together because good things happen are not just. In an organization, there are huge number of people, many of whom are unseen, who are doing wonderful things. And I, so I think humility should go with an attitude of gratitude to people across the organization. Super. the root of the word radical is rooted. You spoke of balancing tradition and innovation. I wonder if you could say more about the roots of higher education. Are there better ways to draw on these roots as we envision the future of higher education? Yeah. I think, if you go back more than 50 years, it was assumed that a collegiate education involved character. I mean, go back to Emerson character is above. That's the, that's what we're about. I think a lot of that has been leached out of higher education, but to focus on that is, is in some ways not something new. It's a return. to roots. Yep. and I think it's encouraging. It's encouraging to see at so many institutions, a deeper hunger for that. Yep. Absolutely. you mentioned hiring people who have both a big ego, strong ideas and perhaps ideals and a little ego humility. and mentions sussing that out requires getting to know a person. It seems like search committee and consultants are structurally organized to assess people, but not to know them. Do you have tips or suggestions for transforming the structuring structures for hiring and higher education? Yeah. I have several things. One is, I don't think you, you should go through a thing and you come up with some candidates and if you, if don't choose those candidates, call it a fail cert. I think one needs to be more patient to get the right person. the other thing, sometimes at Notre Dame, fortunately the way the article, academic articles were set up, if you were go looking for a dean, the provost chaired that committee at Duke. I know the policy, if they were looking for a dean, there would be an internal committee that would come up with candidates that would give to the reporting officer of the provost. I find that curious because often you have people, you have a committee who really what that job is. So one thing is to. Make sure in generating a pool that you have people who know what the job is. The other thing is, I do think to, I think search consultants have a hard time, but finding ways so that you are able to talk to two or three people, honestly, who have worked for the person Worked around them who maybe they left the institution and can talk openly. I mean, it's hard for, to get that information From people who are still at an institution. But I think one has to use every creative means to, to know that person and not just their resume and not just what happens in an interview where people have on their Are giving their all the right answers. When you think about your own interviewing as of someone. It. Are there, is it important for you to feel a connection or to like the person and feel like, oh, we'll get on well even if we think differently about things. is your own view, in other words, important? I mean, my view is important, but I wouldn't, I guess I've learned to work with a lot of different kind of people and one of the helpful things in trying to build teamwork among a senior group, we had people of the group who were extreme introverts and who would not want to speak until in their mind it was all wrapped up and we had other people who processed by talking. It's good. It's good to understand that. Yeah. And certainly there, there's certain people that you would enjoy. But the asset test is what were they doing as leaders in their responsibility? Yeah. Yep. Great. next question. Your approach to leadership seems a bit out of step with the current political environment where the current administration is trying, in effect, to change the government without regard to adverse consequences on those affected mass layoffs and firings. How do you convince folks of your approach that it is the, how do you convince folks of your approach in light of this? Suzanne, I thought you weren't gonna get into politics. Okay. We can just skip that one. no. I think what I think without commenting on what's swirling outside, you just try to demonstrate a kind of leadership that takes people seriously. Yep. Yep. That's great. I love that. in what ways can, leadership and higher education transfer to other institutions? You mentioned early on someone who had gone on to, national Geographic, for example. I do think the students, you know, go forth and they do great things. And I think if they're, I mean, I think of a young man who was deeply involved in the leadership and character program. You know, he went to Yale Law School, he's now clerking at the Supreme Court. I mean, he's gonna be a leader, but I do think he comes away with a core set of values that won't change. Yep. this relates to this next question, which is this conversation has been pitched, at Leaders and leadership. What would you tell an undergraduate student who is still in the process? Career and vocational discernment, what advice would you have for a young person? Yeah, I mean, I've, I often have talked to students about that and I say several things. One is try to be good at something. I think a bright student today, they have so many interests. and that's valid. But, they need to have something that they're good at and can develop a skill, an interest, a passion that may take time to develop and they don't. And you don't know, I mean, I didn't think of myself as a leader when I started teaching at Notre Dame. You sort of have to try things, try it on, see what, so sort of, don't be too hard on yourself. and the other thing I say is whatever job you get, and probably your early jobs aren't gonna be ideal, do well at it. Because that's what don't, it's disinterest, the danger is that I'm not interested, I'll not invest in it. Future jobs will come from people who do well at whatever their assignment is and often if you're in an assignment that you go the second mile to help the organization. Great. I wonder if a related question is really about aspiring college and university leaders. If you have advice for that group of folks, so folks who may be starting out as you did as an assistant dean, sort of h how did, What do you attribute your success to? Because clearly. You had progressively more significant leadership roles, hiring good people. No, I covered my weakness. No, I mean, I do think I, if I think I assessed organizations shrewdly. I think I had that gift. And then, okay, how can we make this better? To sort of, per se, okay. What levers can be pulled that are reasonable? if there's anything, and, a consulting firm, study what, does intelligence, how smart you are, correlate with good leadership. And it doesn't. Biggest correlation is self knowledge. And, I think I always understood myself strengths and weaknesses. So I, I tell students, really find out what do other people think of you? And there, there are few chances in college except maybe in athletics or ROTC where people get day to day-to-day feedback on who they're And I think we, students need that because they can go along sort of thinking themselves in one way that, that quite different from how they're perceived. And so there's no easy answer to that, but try to, I mean, it's challenging because, probably who you are is not exactly the ideal. So with that, I just wanna thank you for this extraordinary conversation about, transformative leaders. And as I think of this set of, characteristics that you describe, whether it's ambition or resolve or frank assessment and character, I sort of wonder if you are just describing yourself here. So back your mind, that's for someone else to note. Yes. but thank you so much for, spending the hour with us and for folks listening in, I wanna welcome you to our next conversation on March 31st on the Black experience, HBCUs and American Democracy with Deandra Rose at Duke University. So thank you Nathan. This was just a whole lot of fun. Really appreciate it. Thank you Dan. Yeah, and everybody get the book. Lots of good advice. Thank you.