Ep. 91: Host Dr. Ryan Sauers & guest Dr. Michael Benson: President, Coastal Carolina Univ.

Dr. Ryan Sauers hosts the Community Connections show. It brings you positive stories and encouraging news from top leaders in various sectors of communities all over the country, along with super insights and timely discussions.

Listen to this super episode 91 of the Community Connections Podcast show with special guest Dr. Michael Benson, President of Coastal Carolina University. This episode is encouraging and insightful and shares life and business lessons from Dr. Benson that we can all learn from. He is also an outstanding community leader, husband, father, and author, in addition to teaching history.   *****Also, you can watch the TV/video show of this at-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUW_VyzHHP8

**For more info on Dr. Benson, visit https://www.coastal.edu/president/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltbenson1/
Twitter (now X): https://x.com/michaeltbenson

For more information about future show guests or sponsorship opportunities please contact: Ryan@ryansauers.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello again, everyone. It is time for another episode of the Community Connection Show. The show that brings you positive stories and encouraging news as we interview top leaders in every sector of the community. And now, here is your host, national speaker and best-selling author, Ryan Stowers.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to another Community Connections with Ryan Sowers. I'm really excited today and my friend, Dr. Michael Benson. Dr. Michael Benson is an impressive guy. He is president of Coastal Carolina University, still teaching history, author of some best-selling books. Mike, Dr. Benson, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Ryan, delightful to be with you and uh thank you for the invitation.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

You're so welcome. We uh had to get it on the calendar and make it happen. You've got a plethora of experience in so many sectors, and I love the fact you're still teaching history, even though you're running an amazing university that I've had a chance to be a part of. Um tell us a little bit about your background and career, how you how you got to where you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, I think it all starts with my parents, um, both of whom gave all six of us kids uh opportunities they never dreamed of. Um my mom never graduated college. She was from a small farming community in southern Alberta, Canada. Um, met my dad at as they were both undergrads in in Utah, Brigham Young University. My dad finished school. Um, mom supported, my mother supported him through that. And then when he went to Stanford for a master's degree um to make ends meet, because they had a my my brother who's a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, um, who has all the kind of all the artistic ability of the family. Um, my dad started selling cookware door-to-door, uh, uh pans and china and stoneware and that sort of thing, and kind of find found his knack uh in life. His his real talent was that. Um and he supported a family uh doing that. We moved around Indiana, Texas, Utah, back to Utah, uh excuse me, back to Texas, then back to Utah again. I lived overseas for a while, uh, two years in Italy on a church mission, three years for graduate school in England, a year and a half uh in Israel. I say all that because uh those were opportunities that my parents, as I said, never dreamed of. And um, I'm the youngest of six kids. I have four sisters, uh, and then my older brother. And um that my parents stressed two things. My mother was a piano teacher, so music was always in our house. I play the piano, but I'm not nearly as talented as my sisters are. Um, and my and education. My dad was a big believer that education was that one thing that could take you anywhere. Um, you know, George Washington Carver, uh, or excuse me, uh Horace Mann called it the great equalizer in our society. And George Washington Carver said that uh education was the key to unlock the unlock the golden door of freedom. I I just think that's such a beautiful, powerful, uh, expressive uh statement. So I've I've been fortunate, Ryan, uh to be in education my entire career. Uh now I'm at my fourth different institution, but uh I have five children myself. Two of the the older two are both graduates of uh of uh of BYU and doing well, and then our three youngest will all be at Myrtle Beach High School together next next fall. So the first time they'll all be in the same school uh that one year. So uh that's a bit about me. I love we love South Carolina, I love working at a university. I've had chances to do other things, and there's nothing like coming to a place where every day you're surrounded by two things. One, subject matter experts in whatever discipline our faculty choose to do, um, and committed staff. And the second thing around students who are really at this uh kind of fulcrum moment in their life. And if you can somehow exert some kind of influence in a positive way on them to help them kind of find their path, that uh I have mentors in my life that did that for me, and I really call that a responsibility to pay it forward and do that for others. And uh that's why I'm here and that's why I love what I do.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Well, you know, and I know you'll say it takes a team, but obviously under your leadership, uh, you know, I've been on the count campus countless times. And the energy, you're right, the energy from the youth of tomorrow. You know, I've told many places where I'll teach, I said, you know, everyone wants to write you guys off, like they wrote the generations off before us. We've all heard the generations in front of us, you know. I said, but I don't believe it's just the TikTok generation. I believe there's a lot in there. And I agree, you know, you and I made it through the dissertation, you know. So if we if we did that, you know, with the goal of helping younger people uh make a difference in the world, right? That's that's where it's all at.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah, you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

So, but tell us, you know, a lot of people just think, okay, uh, well, that sounds great. You know, you guys did this or that, and you know, get to go, you know, teach or run an uh, you know, people would say, I'm gonna just want to run a college one day or work my way up. I mean, what's the I mean it's a loaded question, but you know, what what obstacles does that look like? I mean, what's the sure you don't just you know put your name in a hat and one day you know pop up at the top, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, uh the very short Cliff Note version. Um, I finished my doctorate at Oxford in Middle Eastern history, thinking uh, you know, the world was at my feet. I would have all these ample teaching opportunities and went to a couple of job fairs and and conferences and got no bites whatsoever. I mean, I'm like I was really pretty discouraged. And so uh my cousin invited me, this is the summer of 1994, begging pardon 1995, invited me to come work with him to roof houses. And we were flipping houses in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I I learned in short order that roofing is a really hard way to make a living. I have enormous respect for people that engage in manual labor every day because I did it and uh so grateful that I had those kind of lessons learned. And while I was up on the roof, uh one of my fellow roofers, uh, I was asking him what his parents did. He said his father worked at the University of Utah in fundraising. That led to a discussion with him, which led to my getting hired at the University of Utah. And I eventually became assistant to the president, a guy named Bernie Matchin, who was uh had been the provost at Michigan, came to Utah, was the president there, and then shortly after I left uh to take my first presidency, he went to Florida. He was the president of the University of Florida for almost, I think almost 15 years. But uh Bernie gave me wonderful opportunities. And when I was 36, um he I was nominated to be president of a two-year school uh in central Utah. And and as I as I call my friend Gordon Ghee, who's been uh kind of a serial president like I have a lot of different places, he became president of uh the University of West Virginia uh at age 36. And I called him and I said, Gordon, what what advice do you have for me? He said, Michael, it's very simple. Do not make a 36-year-old president of anything. So uh I had a lot of on-the-job training, um, learned, you know, learned by sins of, as I, as I say, mistakes of co-mission rather than omission. And uh had a wonderful time. And you know, I found that I loved what I did, and that led to successive opportunities, uh bigger school in southern Utah, southern Utah University, which is a beautiful part of the country, 6,000 feet, high desert, uh, surrounded by national parks. Well, we were there almost seven years, and then from there we got recruited out to Kentucky, right? Horse country, horse farm country in central Kentucky. Loved our time there, and then uh took a year off at Johns Hopkins, finished my last book, and then um came here uh to coastal Carolina. And now you will not get my family out of South Carolina. They love the pace of life, how beautiful it is, how kind people are. And we're at a school that I think is just like a rocket. I mean, I'm I'm writing this thing and and hoping we can hold on because uh there's a really exciting trajectory for our institution. And you know, for people like you that are relatively new to coastal, just like I am, I'm in my fourth year, but I feel like I'm I'm still kind of a newbie. Uh this is a community that really supports this place. And they sacrificed in the 1950s not knowing where this journey would take them. But they knew they wanted a higher education presence in our county. And the closest at the time was you know, College of Charleston, 90 miles to the south, USC is two and a half hours away, Clemson's even farther. And so there was this kind of vacuum of higher education opportunities right here in the fastest growing county in the state of South Carolina now. And uh, you know, look where we are now. We're gonna we're gonna eclipse 11,000 students this fall, and it's it's really exciting. It's it's fun to be a part of a of a team at an institution that's forward thinking and and growing because believe me, I I read a lot of uh Chronicle of Higher Ed and Insider Head, and there's schools out there that are closing, that are facing enrollment cliffs. And we had 20,000 applications this year for the fall uh semester. So good time to be a Shauna Claire, Ryan.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Absolutely. I'm I'm trying to, you know, it was funny. Um, Mike, when I was doing a little teaching there, um my very first day I walked on the campus and this guy looks at me and he goes, What are you what are you doing? I said, I trying to find the classroom. I'm just a part-time guy happened to be in town doing a little work. And he's a I guess he's uh one of the official photographers. And tell me about friendly. We start talking, and within like three minutes, he said, You know, I said, I had a friend like you know, he's about 10 years younger than me, but I said, he played football in here like 20 years ago. He said, What's his name? I said, Nick Johnson. He goes, I didn't I just saw Nick last week. And I mean, mind you, I don't even I'm not even I live in Atlanta. And and he goes, Here, let me take you over there. And then the friendliness is my point of just smiles on people's faces, so you just feel that energy. And it was that was my very first step on the coastal area on campus. I'm you know, a guy that we didn't both have a mutual friend. So I love that work. Uh, and you've obviously seen so much of the world and so much the United States, but uh, I agree. I'm a Southeastern guy, so I'm gonna do that. All right, so what do you um why do you still what's the passion for you? I mean, it kind of you kind of alluded to it, but a lot of people, I don't know, other uh university presidents, do they still teach in the classroom? Have you seen some of your peers do that? Or do they step out? Uh is that a mixed bag?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, some say that I'm just too busy. And I'm I'm not being critical of my fellow presidents because look, we are busy, but you know, we choose to be busy on the things that we we choose to be busy on. I mean, uh there I would argue there's nothing more important than being in a classroom and being in in connection with your students. So if you really want to find out what's going on, uh kind of your finger on the pulse, as it were, of campus and what students are experiencing, then get in the classroom. So I tell all our members of our presence council, my expectation of you is to teach a class, one class every academic year. So you can team teach it. Um, we have a new athletic director that we hired just last week, and we introduced him to campus on Tuesday, and he's gonna start teaching not this fall, but in the spring. So it's important for our group that has the responsibility to manage and to provide leadership for the institution, to learn from the source, and that source is students in the classroom. So uh believe me, I I and I I'll tell you in full disclosure, Ryan, the last class I taught, which was a seminar on World War One, um, I was gone quite a bit. Uh it was a busy semester, so I had to be in Columbia. And when the evaluations came back, um I my students didn't hold back. They're like, hey, we like President Benson, but he's got to show up to class. And oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

You know, it's it's funny you say that is um, so you know, my my doctor was in leadership. And you know, I always look at it as how can I really understand, you know, 18 to 22, 23 year olds, including graduate students, if I don't see what they're thinking. I mean, some of these kids are younger than my, you know, many of them are younger than my kids. So, you know, that's the problem. 51 years old, I'm sitting there going, how do I stay relevant? You know, if you're telling a story about 9-11, they're like, I don't get it. Tell a story about smartphones, they're like, you're to be relevant and you're teaching history. I'm over trying to teach, you know, we we have to start. And my baseline is all right, now I know a lot more what you know what's going on in this generation. And there's a lot to be excited about. There's a lot to be excited about. Um, but yeah, I think that's great that you do that. Um, but yeah, I can see what you're saying. I'm sure they they don't understand that you're running a university, they have to travel across the country, you know, but you know, at least you know they know who you are. But so so let's go back to what you touched on, like on relationships. I know you know we're connected on LinkedIn and other things, but I know you're a big relationship guy. You mentioned mentors. How important to our listeners, you know, as a leader, is those quality relationships?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Well, I think they mean everything because um if you look at your own path in life, uh none of us uh achieve our successes in a vacuum. I mean, at one point we've been helped, we've been mentored, we've been encouraged, we've been coached by different people along that path. And so, you know, relationships, you think about it, uh, the only thing we take with us really in our in this life, beyond this life, whatever you believe, is uh the experiences you've had, knowledge you've gained, and the and the relationship you developed. And you want to be remembered as someone who really valued that, who treated people with respect and dignity and the way that you wanted to be treated. So, excuse me, I you know, I sit in a nice office, I I have a title, but that's you know, it days in I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a friend, I'm a brother, and I really try my best to look and to, you know, when I when I go home at night, um, just like everybody else. When I sit here, I'm like everybody else. And I'm no more important than the people that keep up our campus so beautifully. And uh, you know, we're all part of a big collective team. I don't mean to sound Pollyanna about it, but you know, I really stress the importance of respecting other people for what they do and valuing them and telling how much telling them how much you appreciate what they do every single day. And relationships, I really, you know, people can see through things. And uh if you're not genuine and uh you don't come across as really having a sincere interest in in them, I really get to try my best to get to know employees and their families and ask about their kids and that sort of thing. And I hope they feel that because um that that's a tenor I think I can set as a leader. Look, I can be as dumb as dirt, but I'm I got the title as president, and people will look to me. And so if I go out and I'm positive and I've got a little pep in my step, uh, people will take cues from that. Conversely, if I'm stooped and so you know, the sky is falling, and man, higher ed is hard, uh, they're gonna be down in them stupid.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I really positive.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Yeah, it's funny when I was doing a little work to each one class, I didn't know this, but it I was doing a little work there at Coastal, and I had two little classes I was teaching, and there's a bunch of undergraduate students, and I was walking down the hallway going to get a like a power aid or something, and there was a hardworking custodian guy, and I was over there shaking his hand, talking to him, and four students came up and commented like, You showed us more about you in the second day of class. And I said, That's just I'm I'm not better. I was just talking to him about how his day it was. We were about the same age, and they go, That is true leadership. I'm like, but it's not fake. And they go, We saw it wasn't fake. They go, you just showed us, and and I guess what I'm saying is the same thing. You walk around at an early age. I had a business with my father, and he said, Son, if you walk down the hall, people are gonna look to you like the you know, the sky's falling. They're going, What's what's going on? On the other hand, it can be a bad day, but you know, poker face it up a little bit, smile. And I took that with me because you're right, people are gonna look to you and you know, go, what's going on? Why is my he looks upset? You know, so it's it's it's something I think that's just that enthusiasm and encouragement, even when we don't feel it. But I love what you said. I was gonna get back to that. At the end of the day, we could have whatever title or whatever show or whatever books we've written, but we're all just human beings doing the best we can.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Tell me about your your last book. I mean, you've written how many books you've written? Is it two or three?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Uh I've written two by myself. My middle one was done with a co-author, a guy much better than I am, Harvard Law, excuse me, the L Law School guy to uh Hal Boyd. He now is the assistant to the president at it uh Brigham Young. But um the third one was uh really the genesis of that was uh a trip to Johns Hopkins University where my I had a niece that went to school there. I'd always heard about it. You know, I'd read Daniel Coy Gilman's inaugural address from 1876. Um, and the story behind that is after two inaugurations when I was getting ready for my third, I thought, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go out and read what other people have said. You know, my two first, my first ones were serviceable is my my kids said they were mid, you know, they were okay, Dad. But I really tried to prepare for my third one by doing some research and finding what people had had done in the past. And the gold standard, Ryan, was this speech given on February 22nd, 1876, because of the vision that this geographer, Yale Yale-trained geographer, who had been recruited to Hopkins uh from the University of California, uh as the first president, uh taking over an endowment, you know, a school had been endowed with seven million dollars in 1869, which was an extraordinary amount of money. It's a lot of money today, but it's worth about $160 million today, uh, and with a completely blank slate. And he said, here's the money, Mr. Johns Hopkins, uh, here are the trustees. Now you go go establish a medical school, a teaching hospital, and a university. And if you well kind of put a final point on it, if you look at how far Hopkins had come or has come, you know, yeah, uh Harvard had a 240-year head start, and yet in that first 25 years of their existence, they awarded 596 PhDs, and they were not easy, they were very rigorous, a ton of work. Harvard produced about less than half that. So they set a standard. Uh, and then during uh COVID, you remember all those ticker tape kind of banners on CNN of all the numbers and the cases, and the source was always Johns Hopkins Hospital. Oh, yeah. Um so I was really taken by by that story, and nobody had done a kind of full dress biography of him in the last 70 years, and I was just I I think bold enough and had the temerity to propose it to Hopkins Press. And they said, Yeah, we'd love to have you do it. And I did it and I loved it, and I'm really glad it's over.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah, yeah. You know what I was gonna say? I've I've done I've written two, and when I finish my dissertation, I have an idea for third. But all my mentors said, Ryan, take a deep because I've got my dissertation about pushing two years ago, not even two years ago. And as you might, I mean, oh, so I did it a little bit over a stop, start, stop, start. But I have this great book idea. But I'm gonna be honest with you, as you well know, that writing a book is a labor of love. And I I no matter how much you love the subject, you've got to sit down and you know, and I I wonder what's the name of your book? Because I saw it on Amazon the other day.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah, so here it is. I got one of the things. Yeah, put it up there. There you go. All right, so I'm gonna read it. Yeah, this is Daniel Coy Gilman and the birth of the modern research university. So yeah, it was uh no, if you look at the the American model of a research university, nobody had tried what Gilman proposed, and that is a German emphasis uh at a Heidelberg University, for example, on primary research, where you hired really, really capable investigators and scientists and and researchers, and you gave them the tools to go out and and discover things. And then he took the British model where there was a real emphasis on the seminar or on the on the tutorial and on teaching, and then melded them together and created uh the research university as we know it today. And just you know, Hopkins has led the country for 41 years in terms of the amount they spend on sponsored research. This year they spent 4.1 billion dollars, which nobody is even close. The second uh closest to them uh is the University of Washington. Um, and they're less than half that. So look at and and kind of the the the the genesis of it, as I said, was you look around you. I mean, the technology we're using today, chances are it was developed on a university campus. You know, the the Google rhythm that you have on your phone that runs uh uh the algorithm for Google developed at Stanford. You know, I could go Gatorade, you talked about Pirate, Gatorade developed at the University of Florida, right in the 1960s, and then there's a story after story of what creative faculty did in their labs, probably using research graduates. They spin it off. Uh, there's a there's an application for it in society, and you and I are the better for it. And uh that there's nothing, there's nothing like it in the world, the modern research university.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

I'm gonna read that book because uh, you know, I I continue when when I do get in classrooms or online classes, whatever I'm doing. I'm I'm always about how do I take what I'm teaching and take my 30-something years experience and make it real world for these learners because that's what they every class every because I've ever taught, so we want to know how to make how do we use this? I mean, what are we gonna do with it? I'm like, all right, here and I give them stories, but I love what you said because I when 94, I'm dating myself in my senior year of uh college. I studied at Oxford, and my girlfriend and my wife, you know, for 27, 28 years, she went as well. And we that during that semester, I was there and we did one on one with professors, and I got to see a lot. You know, we're in uh Tourist D. London, we're in, you know, I don't remember even which college was, but it was the real deal. And I say that like a yesterday, that's like 30 years ago, but you know, I it was. Just that it gave me a different experience of education, you know, that tucked away, you know, that that's been very interesting. Um, so you got your book. So, you know, when people are watching this for any leader, any community, could be the local chamber. Uh, I know you're very involved with a lot of things. What do you tell your kids? I mean, I have the things I tell mine, but but most important characteristics and more most important things to you personally uh that have gotten you to where you are, that uh kind of your mantra that you go by.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah, with my kids, it's pretty simple. And I, as I said, I mentioned we've got five, three still at home. But um, you know, they're surrounded with so many distractions. And you know, life for kids today is a lot more complicated than I remember growing up. And I, you know, part of me really has a tremendous sense of empathy that they're they're having to grow up at a much younger age uh when you know life was a lot uh simpler and a lot less complicated. Still in all, I tell them, look, life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react. And you know, that that famous Viktor Frankel quote about you know, in between stimulus and response, there's a gap. And in that gap is your ability, your freedom to decide how you're gonna respond. And that's how you develop it and and become uh a human being that doesn't blame other things uh or bl blames uh other people for mistakes because you know the one thing you can decide every day is your attitude. Now, a lot of things are gonna happen to you, Ryan, that are not favorable. You know, we our our air conditioner broke this morning, and when Carolina Cool came out to give us a price, I'm like, oh my. But I'm not gonna let that affect the rest of the day because there's nothing I can do to control that. But that's to my for my kids, I think that's the most important thing. Take responsibility for your actions, do your very best, you know, learn from your mistakes. But you can always choose how you react to a situation. That's the one thing you can control.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

I love that. Uh, think of that, Victor Frankl. So I remember reading like your response able, you're able to have you're choosing able to how to respond. And um, that's an amazing book. Was that the trying to go back? Was it man's search for meaning? Man's search for meaning, yeah. See, see, I got you just got to pull out the uh old memory bank, yeah. Um we we we didn't have the phones to pull up everything right then, but uh um but no, I agree a hundred percent. And um people are watching, you know, people are watching, you know, saying the show all the time, uh, how we react and how we respond. And yeah, like you said, you know, there's people, all parts of my life, you know, they can get hot, they can write a heated email, like that is how we handle that, you know, the measure response. Do we go or we choose to fly off the handle as well? You know, and I I we all have emotions, but it's how we handle it. So I love that. That's what I try to tell my kids all the same. Um, all right. So let me ask just a couple other questions. What's a fun fact, something you really enjoy doing, or something that you that maybe people don't know about you? Yeah, karaoke.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yeah, you know, I love to play the piano, and I play the piano in church for the kids, the the three through 12-year-olds, when they have singing time. And uh, that's something I really enjoy. I when I was a kid, I was I was kind of a pudgy little kid, and I got made fun of. That really bothered me. So when I was in fourth, third, or fourth grade, I started to run uh to try and lose weight. I mean, there was no uh nothing, this is nothing fancy in the late 1970s, you know. I'm 60 years old next year, and running led to my really becoming a pretty competitive runner. I had an offer to run the half mile in college, but I started running marathons. Uh so my best marathon time when I was 18 was two hours and 41 minutes. Holy cow. Which is a about a six ten mile. And I I mean I could probably won one mile today at about a probably 650 clip. But I I don't know how I did it back then, but I mean to give you context, you know, I uh uh some guy just broke the two-hour marathon, which is about a 431 mile for 26 miles. But yeah, I ran the Boston Marathon when I was eight, uh I was 19, just one of uh 20 teenagers from the around the world that did it, and that was uh the height of my running career. That's awesome. I just try and go out and walk the golf course when I play golf, but uh really enjoy running and I learned some really valuable lessons. I mean, self-discipline, um, you know, running's hard, um, especially if you do it competitively, and it really requires uh you know what Plato said the first of best victory is to conquer self. And I really tried to implement that in a lot of different things. You know, no, no task is too hard if you'll discipline yourself just to say, look, I'm gonna do this and hunker down. So that's kind of a fun fact.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

I love that. And uh 26.2, uh best I ever got towards that was probably my 30s. I did a sprint triathlon. And uh that you know, that wasn't back then. I mean, I had to, I enjoyed swimming, but you know, we had to swim through the ocean, bike, whatever, 10-15 miles. And each of my friends that did it, you know, one of them had a fierce swimming, one of them was a good runner, one of them in a bike. But I was like, you know, that those were fun days, and yeah, I'm with you now. The brisk walk is uh is my guess. You know, do do that kind of thing. Um, all right. So as we kind of come to a close, you mentioned, and it's awesome because you're correct, you're a hundred percent correct. I'm seeing, and we just saw it in the College World Series, the university unfortunately that closed in Alabama.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Um yeah, Birmingham Southern. Birmingham Southern.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

And I had people I know that went there and graduate from there. So there's other ones I've seen as well, because the Chronicles of Higher Education. So we're over there, and it's very sad, but then you see, what do you say, 20,000 applications?

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

So would you in kind of a nutshell with the leadership team, what do you think is bringing people that kind of applications to coast?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Well, you mentioned you're a southeastern guy. I I am too. Um, we just love this part of the country. And I've had a chance to live, been to all 50 states, yeah, five of seven continents, um, and we love it here. And yeah, our location, Ryan, is our is that's the secret sauce. Um there are kids that want to come from the northeast, from the Midwest, even the West Coast, are dying to come to a southern school to have that southern university experience. So as long as we don't mess it up uh and continue to you know have measured growth, we have the advantage of the penny sales tax. Um no other school in the state has it. So for you visitors out there that are listening, when you come to our community for every dollar you spend, a penny goes to a fund, 80% of which goes to our school district to build out K-12 facilities, we get 13.3%. The balance then goes to the technical college next door. So that helps us keep up with the infrastructure growth in a way that we don't have to bond, we don't have to go to the state legislature, we don't have to go to donors, we could go then to them for other things. But the our location, our weather, our course offerings, the fact that we've got the best, I think, colors in college uh athletics, teen and bronze are awesome. Oh yeah. It looks great on everybody. Uh I just think we have some uh kind of built-in advantages. And our task, Ryan, quite frankly, is to ensure that we don't lose the experience of that small classroom with a full-time professor teaching it, uh, an adject like you that cares about the students and has office hours and all those sorts of things. Um, that's what we have to do and maintain and persist in. And I can promise you, we're gonna we'll grow, we'll grow to a certain number, but we're never gonna lose sight of the fact that we're not you're not just a number when you set foot at Coastal Carolina. Yeah, uh, it's an experience that um that can't be matched at many other places.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

I I love that. I don't echo you just seeing the you know, athletic facilities, the expansions, whatever. It it has everything you want to do if you were gonna go to a big school, then it has a small, it has a smaller school field. And and like you said, you you you you there's many bad play, like you said, I've been all over the country, but uh yeah, great place to live. Indeed. Anything uh as we come to a close uh that you want to say, I'm a coach or yourself that I just forgot to ask you, failed to ask you.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

No, I we covered the waterfront. I'm I'm grateful that uh we can count you among the Chaunecler uh faithful now. Um I have a lot of visitors that come to campus, and when when students come here, they really feel a sense of uh, you know, like this is home. I think that's really important. I think as the president, I can help set that tone of uh we're friendly. We, you know, we do serious work, Ryan, but we don't take ourselves too seriously. You know, academics by nature love to walk around in the robes and call each other doctor. Uh when I I was on Paul Feinbaum, uh this was a couple years ago, and he kept calling me Dr. Benson. I said, Mr. Feinbaum, I cannot deliver a baby, nor can I fix your teeth. So you can just call me Mike, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

I told I I told, you know, it is nice when you finish that, you know, you get Dr. Benson or Dr. Sours, but you know, mine's until just fairly recent. But my daughter, oldest daughter's just about to start a second year of medical school. So I said, I'm more of an encouraging doctor. I'm like an enthusiastic leadership doctor. But if you need medical help, you call 911 because I don't know the first thing. You know, and that's that's exactly right. I mean, you have all the the robes and this and that, but at the end of the day, um, you know, we're experts in our field, you know, but uh but yeah, we're not um I'm not working on teeth or are saving life. So um, but I just want to say, I won't say Dr. Benson, but Mike, it's a pleasure uh to have you on the show. I'm gonna close this out here, but thanks for all you're doing. That book, I'm gonna check it out and I encourage our audience to check it out. Uh it looks amazing. And I just thank you today. Start with your air conditioning that you made time to still be on the show.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Thank you, Ryan. Uh, you do a terrific work. We're really glad to have you on campus. And thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Love it. Love it. And and I'll see you real soon. And uh you'll be nice and cool in your new house. I mean, new air conditioner. So, all right, folks. You've um had my guest, Dr. Michael Benson, uh, president of Coastal Carolina on the Community Connections show. It's Ryan Towers, and we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

This has been the Community Connection Show with Ryan Sowers. Stay on the lookout for new or past shows with community leaders wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you want to see the video interview of any show, visit Community Connections TV.com. Thanks for tuning in, everyone, and we will see you next time.