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(digital music)

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- Hi, my name's Lee Maxey, and welcome to another episode

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of "MindMaxing" podcast.

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And today I'm delighted to be here

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with a friend of mine, Kevin Ross, who's the President of Lynn University

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in Boca Raton, Florida.

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And yeah, I'm delighted

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to have Kevin here.

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Lynn had some terrific

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successes in his presidency

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and is doing some really neat things, and this is on the tail of

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a neat article talking about

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some of Lynn's alternative

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approaches to admissions

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which I think have been really successful.

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Today's conversation is about

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adolescence to adulthood,

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what kinds of things higher ed is doing

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to help students or people

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find their way to adulthood

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which is not as easy as it may have been

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in the past with so

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many different options,

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and so many different choices

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and so many different paths.

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So welcome, Kevin, glad you could be here.

1:04

- Thanks Lee. Great to see you. - Yeah, start off with our

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first question, which is,

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what's working in helping

1:08

adults achieve adulthood

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as they find their way from adolescence

1:18

or young adulthood to adulthood?

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- I'm not sure if this is a new innovation or just something that's tried and true,

1:24

but we believe that

1:24

requiring certain things

1:27

of students actually is working.

1:29

There's certain elements

1:29

of a Lynn education

1:32

that every student is required to do.

1:34

And it requires a lot of practice,

1:36

trying things over and over, maybe not being so good at things

1:39

the first time you do them

1:39

and learning over time,

1:41

and getting lots of in

1:41

the feedback in real time.

1:45

We require our students in

1:45

every class to read quite a bit,

1:49

to write a lot, to present a lot as well,

1:52

and to collaborate. So it's not just in that

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one public speaking class that you get finished with,

1:56

and you're thrilled that it's over with 'cause you're scared to death of that.

1:59

And I shared this with our students at convocation just the other day

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and I could see their eyes getting very wide. I was, but you know, come

2:03

after our first block

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and we're on a block schedule, that's just how they do it.

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And this is a wonderful place,

2:12

a very safe place to practice

2:12

those types of skills.

2:14

And students can see the building blocks

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and the progress that

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they've made in real time,

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particularly because of what

2:19

was for us at COVID innovation

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with a block schedule, which is really like learning

2:23

through project management.

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So it's not something that's

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esoteric and out there,

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and so far away that we just talk about it in a theoretical way to them,

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it's more something that's very tactile that they can understand and feel,

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so we think that has a lot

2:36

to do with persistence.

2:41

- Can you talk a little bit more about

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how you create that safe place to explore

2:46

and do those things that may be, writing's not easy for everybody

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or public speaking is a common one

2:52

that's not easy for some people? - Breaking it down into sum of its parts.

2:57

Not starting with that 20 to 50 page paper

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is a good way to start. Really having students

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understand who they are.

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We use the Gallup tool StrengthsFinder

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in the first few days

3:08

of students being here,

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so they understand, great

3:10

everyone's got deficiencies

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but these are things that you're actually good at and passionate about.

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So let's explore those, let's

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take the more positive track,

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and we find that that does

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engage students much more.

3:21

Really, I think this path

3:21

that students are on,

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if you break down their

3:24

entire college experience

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to their major, to their classes, to actually what you're doing

3:29

in those classes with

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rubrics, learning outcomes

3:33

that we all have, but what we like to do is

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have that end user perspective

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in mind and a lot of other corporations

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and independent organizations have done that with great success.

3:44

We've studied them. So really trying to meet

3:46

students where they are

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and where we know they need to go

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and breaking that down at the course level

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has been really a critical thing for us,

3:56

and studying that data and then refining it over

3:56

and over and over again. So there's no silver bullet by any means,

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but we've been at these

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things for long enough

4:03

where with a consistent

4:03

group of leadership here

4:06

so that we feel that we

4:06

can actually move the ball

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on that a little bit and

4:09

make some of those changes

4:12

and study and see if it made a change. And it was positive one.

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- So an earlier podcast we did with Anthony Carnevale from

4:18

Georgetown, talk about,

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he just described it in 1983,

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the age for adult financial

4:24

independence was 25.

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And in 2019, it was 32.

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It's probably older than that now. So people aren't getting

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to that adult financial independence

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and I'm sure in my mind that went right to

4:43

how do I budget for the 20

4:43

something kids that I have

4:46

(chuckling) right now who

4:46

apparently are unlikely

4:49

to be financially independent until they're a little

4:50

older than I had hoped,

4:54

but people are not moving

4:56

into that adult financial independence,

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or maybe even what I'd call

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adulthood in necessarily

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the same rate or as quickly

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as they did in earlier times.

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What are some of the barriers that you see

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as adolescents are

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moving to that adulthood

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especially related to education?

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- So I think one of the challenges is that and I shared this with

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students and parents this week

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as everyone moved in, is

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there's not another time

5:21

in your life as opposed to college,

5:24

or there's not another time in your life, other than college,

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when you'll have this many people focusing on your success and this many offices and

5:28

services to do whatever

5:32

you want to do and be successful at it.

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That does not happen later on when you work for a corporation, necessarily.

5:38

You may have benefits and things like that but it's not gonna be what

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it is while you're here.

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And unfortunately I think there is a not,

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it's not fully understood or perceived

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by students of what all

5:48

those goods and services are.

5:52

And there's probably a program

5:54

for everything at every

5:54

college for students

5:57

that what they wanna do or

5:57

what they really need to do.

5:59

And that goes back to the

5:59

requirements I mentioned before

6:03

of a curriculum. A curriculum shouldn't be

6:04

a bird walk necessarily.

6:06

It shouldn't be choose a number of courses that meet certain criteria

6:08

with the distribution method.

6:10

It should actually be purposeful. It should have intention to it.

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And part of the moving

6:13

to adulthood, hopefully,

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in some ways, we could tackle

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that through a curriculum.

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We try to do that here. And I think we're pretty successful at it.

6:24

We don't have it all figured out by any means, but there's certain essential skills

6:29

that students need to have,

6:31

and that comes out of things that are doing outside the classroom,

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but it must come from things we're doing within the classroom as well.

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Some of the challenges we see here

6:40

are not unlike anyone else. Mental health challenges are significant,

6:43

particularly in whatever component,

6:46

I don't think we're quite post-pandemic wherever we are right

6:47

now, just in a deep world.

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That was a challenge even

6:50

before the world was shook,

6:54

shaken all of us together.

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And, I think that having a place,

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as I mentioned before,

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for students to test

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and to try adulting is a comment that

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or a term that was made a number of years ago, kind of as a joke, but they need to.

7:09

They need safe spaces to

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and I mean safe spaces

7:11

where they can try things

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and fail and learn from

7:14

whatever that shortcoming

7:17

or failure might be. So that's, those are the

7:18

things that I'm seeing,

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and I think our colleagues here on campus would say the same.

7:24

There's a strong desire to be an adult

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but there's also a strong

7:26

desire for people to be the CEO.

7:29

And you have to get there by

7:29

doing a number of things first,

7:32

and some of that is

7:32

learning things the hard way

7:35

and then regrouping and being resilient.

7:39

- So what, looking forward and thinking of,

7:43

in a broader sense,

7:43

what are some structural

7:45

or impediments that

7:45

exist that could change

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or you could see changing

7:49

in the near future?

7:52

As you said, we are maybe

7:52

post pandemic, endemic,

7:56

whatever it is, just had COVID personally a

7:57

week and a half or so ago,

8:01

so it's not over,

8:01

(chuckling)

8:03

but, we're definitely seeing

8:03

a lot of reverberations

8:08

from the disruption that we've had over the last several years.

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So, what are some things

8:13

you see changing to make it more possible

8:17

for people to grow into

8:17

their successful adult lives?

8:22

- So I actually had COVID

8:22

a few weeks ago, as well.

8:26

Everyone I know has gotten it again.

8:28

So as you said, we are living with this and we figured a lot more out,

8:31

but I guess that's the hopeful

8:31

nature that we have here is,

8:36

when things were taken away from us, when our campus environments

8:38

were taken away from us,

8:40

the value of campus community

8:40

was far more evident

8:44

than I think it ever had been. And we all read the news too,

8:47

and we hear that college isn't worth it, and it's too expensive,

8:50

and it's not, you can go do other things

8:52

where you're just gonna

8:52

have the same outcomes.

8:55

And I don't personally believe,

8:57

I work in colleges and dedicated my life to higher education and the

8:59

potential of young adults,

9:03

I believe that we really saw

9:03

how valuable college was.

9:07

So as our campus community and many others

9:10

around the country and the world have erased back to each other, there's been, I think,

9:13

a renewed sense of optimism of the impact

9:16

that we have at colleges,

9:16

particularly small,

9:19

independent colleges like us, because people, they're

9:21

waiting in line now

9:23

to get the things they used to complain about (chuckling) because they weren't that bad

9:27

in the first place. And I think really been an

9:28

interesting shift in some ways

9:33

with, our campus community has

9:33

always been a very tight one.

9:36

It's a very diverse one,

9:36

lots of different views

9:39

and races and creeds and cultures. And that's by design.

9:42

We have a portfolio approach

9:42

that we use here at Lynn

9:44

and people really missed

9:44

that when we had to go remote

9:48

for a short period of time.

9:50

So I'm very hopeful. I think that as wherever we are,

9:54

there's some know ability

9:54

and a little more certainty

9:57

than there was in March of 2020.

10:00

And hopefully that optimism continues

10:02

and we all continue to take advantage of the resources that

10:04

we have on our campuses

10:06

for our students. And I know that our faculty

10:07

and staff miss them dearly

10:10

and wanted them back, and it's

10:10

been really exciting to see

10:14

that in action when it's happened.

10:18

- One of the things that's really, I think, special about

10:19

Lynn is for your size,

10:21

how many international students you have

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as part of your overall population

10:27

and not international from one country,

10:29

but from a variety

10:29

(chuckling) of countries

10:32

and different areas of the world.

10:34

Can you comment on how

10:34

you see things differently

10:38

for people from other cultures,

10:38

people from other countries

10:42

and relationship to

10:42

their path to adulthood

10:45

because they are coming to your institution, and I'll say mixing with

10:47

people who are coming straight

10:51

from Florida or straight from other parts

10:53

of the United States. So what are your observations there?

10:58

- So Lynn really is a mid

10:58

United Nations in a lot of ways.

11:01

And I can't take credit for that. It's something that started

11:03

in our very earliest days

11:06

in 1962, when we were Marymount College.

11:08

They were part of a Marymount system, Catholic women's schools

11:10

all over the world.

11:13

And so that was one of

11:13

the special elements

11:15

that we've continued here at Lynn for,

11:18

this is our 60th anniversary. So, over a half a century

11:22

and it's really a remarkable environment.

11:25

So as you point out, we don't have all of our

11:26

students from one country.

11:29

It is a portfolio, it moves and shapes

11:31

or it moves and changes over time,

11:34

and that shapes what our

11:34

campus community feels like.

11:37

I recall when Venezuela was

11:37

one of our up top countries

11:42

for recruiting students, and

11:42

then when things imploded there

11:45

and same with Saudi and places like that.

11:48

So, we kind of watch what's going on

11:52

around the world and we feel it.

11:54

We're kind of at bellwether (chuckles) in some ways for what's happening economically

11:58

but also socially around the world.

12:00

And so there's always

12:00

that change and churn.

12:03

I was talking to a consultant the other day and they wanted to come and do a seminar

12:09

on change management at Lynn University. And I said, "That's called

12:10

Tuesday around here."

12:13

So it's a place that's, we're very comfortable with that,

12:16

and we like that, but

12:16

what that does for us here

12:19

and for our student body about, a little over 30% of our students are from

12:23

the state of Florida which one might argue they

12:24

were from somewhere else

12:26

five years before that, 'cause everybody moved to Florida in the last five years.

12:30

And you know, about 45 states

12:32

and then 18% of the student

12:32

body is international,

12:36

from about 110 countries. So you really can't pigeonhole and say,

12:40

"Okay well that's the school

12:40

where the kids from X go,"

12:42

and it surprises a lot of people.

12:44

But what that means is that we believe there's great strengths

12:46

in our differences,

12:48

strength in our differences, and we celebrate that

12:49

and that's embedded again

12:52

into the coursework, the dialogues, the core curriculum we have.

12:56

So students are taking classes,

12:58

it's not just enough to be around lots of international students and

12:59

students from somewhere else

13:02

who may think differently than you, and we can't even say that,

13:06

"Oh, those are our international students," 'cause that's such a wide

13:07

and diverse body as well.

13:11

So in the classroom, they

13:11

really do wrestle with topics

13:15

of difference and different

13:15

perspectives every day.

13:19

And that's just the dialogues

13:19

of self and society and belief

13:22

and reason and justice and civic life. So the domestic lens is quickly shattered

13:27

and we immediately go to,

13:27

"Well, what do you think someone

13:31

from Zimbabwe or China?" And that's where we find

13:34

that the greatest learning happens.

13:39

- Struck me, I have

13:39

thought this many times.

13:41

We talk about college as

13:41

being sort of like one thing.

13:44

It's not, it's so many different things.

13:47

And we talk about students. Like, they're one thing.

13:51

There's so many different

13:51

kinds of students.

13:53

And I think that's one of the challenges,

13:56

societally that we have is,

13:59

a label doesn't necessarily

13:59

capture anything

14:02

much more than a little

14:02

bit of an individual.

14:05

So just other thoughts you have...

14:08

- Along those lines,

14:10

oftentimes when we're

14:10

talking members of the media,

14:13

they'll say, "Well college is like this,"

14:16

and my retort often is like, "Well, the media is like this."

14:19

They said, "Well, not my paper." And I said, "Okay, well not our college.

14:21

Can we start over?" Because we're not an elite institution.

14:26

We're not an open admission

14:26

institution either.

14:28

We've got, in addition, to the

14:28

variety of types of students

14:32

we have, we have lots of types of learners. We've had a program for

14:34

students of learning differences for over 30 years, long

14:36

before it was called

14:38

any thing or diagnostic. We just believe that

14:39

students had the potential, and if we work with them the proper way

14:43

and met them where they were, we could get them to

14:44

where they need to be. So you're dead right, and

14:45

understanding that that type

14:51

of student range is, I

14:51

think, critically important

14:56

for students to be successful because it's, one size

14:57

fits all hasn't worked

14:59

for a long run.

15:02

- While the normal schools

15:02

are a thing of 100 years ago,

15:06

so (chuckling) yeah, we aren't

15:06

going to bet back to that.

15:10

So what are some of your

15:10

closing thoughts in terms of

15:14

ideas for educators for

15:14

higher ed institutions

15:19

to help with this process

15:19

of helping people move

15:22

to adulthood? - So part of it is, stay in

15:24

the course and stick it around.

15:30

And we tell our students that too, first thing is show

15:31

up, you know, be there.

15:34

And a lot of us at Lynn

15:34

have been here for a while

15:37

and we've tried a lot of, I

15:37

think, we've been kind of bold

15:41

and persistent experimenters, and we try to keep that end

15:44

user perspective in mind

15:47

and learn from it and refine

15:47

it and refine it and refine it.

15:50

So there's really no sense of arrival

15:52

if you're in this business,

15:52

if you're in higher education

15:56

because conditions

15:56

change, as you point out,

15:58

our students are a little different than they were but there's some similarities.

16:02

But one of the nice things about I think working at a place like Lynn,

16:04

and as you pointed out from

16:04

a technology standpoint,

16:07

we've been at this for a while with partners like Apple and others,

16:10

is that you really do

16:10

get to see the impact.

16:14

It's not just a flash in the pan idea

16:16

and innovation, if you

16:16

will, that's gonna go away

16:18

in a couple years because an administration changes, or faculty decide they

16:20

don't wanna do it anymore.

16:23

So that type of commitment, I think,

16:26

to never being satisfied with our approach

16:29

to student success has made

16:29

students very successful

16:33

because we're always thinking about like, and not just because we wanna

16:35

change things all the time,

16:37

but we're always thinking

16:37

could this be improved?

16:39

What's the data telling us? And candidly sometimes oftentimes,

16:44

'cause we use a design

16:44

thinking lens here a lot,

16:46

is what do the students think? We could cook up this amazing program

16:50

and then put it in front of them and they go, "Eh, not really that interested."

16:54

We need to make it connect with them

16:56

in a meaningful way so that

16:56

they can benefit from it.

17:00

- Thank you, again Kevin. This has been a wonderful conversation.

17:03

Look forward to talking

17:03

with you again soon.

17:05

- Thanks Lee, appreciate it. (digital music)