TRANSFORMED
Hosted by Higher Digital, TRANSFORMED is a podcast that sheds new light on the resurgence of higher education. In each episode, Higher Digital President and Chief Technology Officer, Joe Gottlieb, interviews guests to explore the new Whys, the new Whats, and the new Hows of higher ed. Strategy and tactics; planning and execution; people, process, and technology – it’s all on the menu, because that’s what’s required to truly transform.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to the team at Higher Digital.
TRANSFORMED
Establishing Core Values and Revitalized Culture to Drive an Institutional Pivot
Questions? Feedback? Send us a text!
Dr. Emily Messer, President of Texas Wesleyan University, sits down with host Joe Gottlieb to explore how collaborative leadership and modern strategies are shaping the future of higher education. Dr. Messer shares her journey as a first-generation college graduate turned university president, and how she is guiding Texas Wesleyan through a pivotal moment of cultural renewal, strategic planning, and community and employer engagement.
Listeners will gain insight into how institutions can move beyond a “COVID hangover” by rebuilding trust, explicitly defining core values, and leveraging technology and workforce partnerships to ensure strong student outcomes. From inclusive planning sessions to innovative student success initiatives supported by Title III funding, Dr. Messer highlights how thoughtful decision-making and modern tools are preparing students, and the university, for long-term success in one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities.
Warm, candid, and forward-looking, this conversation offers inspiration for higher ed leaders navigating change and reimagining how culture, strategy, and technology can align to create real transformation.
References:
Subscribe or follow TRANSFORMED wherever you listen, to get the latest episode when it drops and hear directly from leaders and innovators in higher ed tech and digital transformation best practices.
Find and follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/higher-digital-inc
Focusing on the culture is crucial within any organization and specifically higher education. Higher education is a complex organization. And so making sure that we took the time to create a culture that was conducive to success was extremely important to me. Creating that trust and buy-in from the different constituents on campus was crucial as we start looking at the next strategic plan. And that's why I go back to focusing on the collaboration that I mentioned earlier and including all parties, faculty, staff, and students in the strategic planning process and even in the core values planning that we did. We had 50 individuals participate in the core value summit. After those 50 individuals did the work of the planning, we then opened it up to the entire campus through a town hall session where we presented the core values and everyone from around campus was able to provide feedback on those core values that had been developed before we finalized. So I go back to collaboration and communication is key in creating that culture so that we are ready to pivot the institution in a direction for the future.
Joe Gottlieb:That's Emily Messer, President of Texas Wesleyan University, emphasizing the importance of culture, collaboration, and communication as she describes the process to confront a COVID hangover, rally around core values, and prepare the institution for a pivot that will position it to better serve the rapidly growing community in Fort Worth, Texas. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Joe Gottlieb:Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast focused on the new whys, the new whats, and the new hows in higher ed. In each episode, you will experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process and technology. It's all on the menu because that's what's required to truly transform.
Joe Gottlieb:Hello, welcome, and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, President and CTO of Higher Digital, and today I am joined by Dr. Emily Messer, President of Texas Wesleyan University. Emily, welcome to TRANSFORMED.
Dr. Emily Messer:Hi, Joe. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Joe Gottlieb:I thought today we would talk about establishing core values and revitalized culture to drive an institutional pivot, since that's what you've been up to at Texas Wesleyan. But before we jump into that, I'd love to hear a bit about your background and your personal journey and how you got connected into the work of higher ed.
Dr. Emily Messer:Well, thank you for asking. I'm very passionate about my work in higher education. Just a brief story. I was very involved as an undergraduate student at Jacksonville State University in Northeast Alabama. I was in a sorority. I was in every leadership organization possible and ended up being student government association president. And in that role, I had a very close relationship with the university president at the time, who has now been a longtime mentor of mine. And it was during my junior year of college when I had the realization that I wanted to work in higher education and had the goal and aspirations to becoming university president one day. So it's been quite a journey. I started my career in student affairs, I think because of my involvement as an undergraduate student, transitioned to enrollment management, was a vice president for enrollment management at a small private university in North Georgia, and then transitioned to university advancement. So I had some fundraising experience, most previously was the vice president for advancement and enrollment management at Jacksonville State University in Alabama which was my alma mater, and then had the wonderful opportunity to venture out to Fort Worth, Texas to become the president of Texas Wesleyan University. And it has been quite a privilege to serve in this capacity and just a wonderful experience. July 1st will be my two-year anniversary here at the university.
Joe Gottlieb:Well, happy anniversary. And that's a great starting point for this conversation. So tell me what you knew about Texas Wesleyan from the interview process and your diligence on the opportunity to become its president?
Dr. Emily Messer:Well, I had to do a lot of research on Texas Wesleyan. I was not that familiar with the university when I was approached about this position. And the more I looked into the university, I truly felt like it was a fit for me. I'm very passionate as a first-generation college graduate myself to support first-generation college students. And at Texas Wesleyan, about half of our student body are first-generation college students. a unique demographic background. We have about 60% of our students are students of color. We are identified as a Hispanic-serving institution, just over 2,500 students total. That's undergraduates, masters, and doctoral programs. As I looked into Texas Wesleyan, I saw that the institution was financially stable, which is an added bonus when you're looking for a new position, right? But as I came into this position, I was charged by the Board of Trustees that making sure that our institution has a sustainable future in a world of higher education, many small private universities are experiencing some struggles and we want to make sure that many years down the line, Texas Wesleyan is not in that situation. And I don't think we will be because we are positioned in a very unique environment being in the DFW market, being located in Fort Worth specifically is the fastest growing large city in the nation. We actually just exceeded a million citizens of Fort Worth and are now the 11th largest city in the nation as well. So we-
Joe Gottlieb:Fort Worth.
Dr. Emily Messer:Yes, Fort Worth, 7% growth last year in the city of Fort Worth alone. So very optimistic future with where we're positioned here at the university.
Joe Gottlieb:Sounds exciting. All right, so you get the job as Texas Wesleyan's 21st president and you start work in July of 2023. So first off, I'd love for you to describe your first 100 days. What did you do? What did you learn? And what maybe differed from what you learned during diligence as you got deeper into it?
Dr. Emily Messer:That's a great question. Starting out as a first-time president in a new state, in a new city, at a new institution, there was a lot of learning. I really took my time to sit back and listen and learn from our campus community, the business leaders of Fort Worth. I got the question quite often, and if there are other first-time presidents out there, get ready for it. If you haven't already experienced, what is your vision? What is your vision for the institution? People were asking me that before I even started here. And I was hesitant to share a vision until I learned more about the institution and what the vision needed to be for the institution. So I really took my time. I kind of live by the philosophy of sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. And so I took my time to really slow down so that now in the position we're in now, we're ready to speed up.
Joe Gottlieb:Love that reference. And talk a little bit about, if you don't mind, about the effects of COVID, which the time of your starting was, well, they were probably finally starting to diminish, although we still have some of that albatross on our back. So how did COVID impact what was going on there?
Dr. Emily Messer:That was something I noticed pretty immediately, is that I felt like the institution was somewhat in a COVID hangover. Many of our teams on campus or committees were still meeting virtually, even though we were in offices right across from each other. And so really having to shift the culture that was in place at that time so that we were working more collaboratively together, more face-to-face meetings. I saw that there was some burnout and there were some morale issues, and I think those were carryovers from COVID. So I felt like it was the opportunistic time for me to really focus on the culture of the institution.
Joe Gottlieb:Makes sense. So once you had identified a need to bring the campus together with a refreshed, let's call it a post-COVID culture, how did you go about acting on that instinct?
Dr. Emily Messer:You know, as I mentioned, I kind of took my time to assess the institution. I reflected on my previous experiences in higher ed. I mentioned that I previously worked at a mid-sized public regional institution. Prior to that, a small private institution. And my experiences from both of those experiences were that the culture was key. So I had to make sure that we had the appropriate culture to be able to advance the institution. Probably first and foremost, I realized that the university did not have defined core values. And that's a must when looking at future planning, visioning, and culture in general. So we were finishing up the Engage 2025 strategic plan, which we still are. So it was a perfect time for us to really reflect on who we were as an institution and where we wanted to be. and then how we're going to get there. So we began the strategic planning process with identifying what the core values of the institution were. And I was very adamant that that was going to be collaborative approach from all across campus. So that's faculty, staff, and students. So in September of just this past academic year, we held a value summit to where we brought together about 50 individuals from all across campus to identify what the university's core values were. Was it something we needed to start from? It was something we needed to start from scratch, but really defining those university-wide was very important to us.
Joe Gottlieb:So you start with values as an important... prerequisite step towards building your new strategic plan. And you took an inclusive approach. I think you've told me in prior conversations that maybe in the past, smaller groups were involved, but you knew from instinct that getting more of an inclusive approach would enroll more parts of the organization. Is that correct?
Dr. Emily Messer:Yes, yes. The Engage 2025 plan, which was implemented in 2015, 2020 was just a very small committee of about 12 individuals. And so I'm primarily taking a complete opposite approach. So our core values included about 50 individuals. But as we're launching the strategic planning process, anyone and everyone from the entire campus was invited. We hosted a faculty staff community day where we invited all 300 of our faculty and staff to come participate. And we had around 165 individuals voluntarily come and participate in a three-hour community day listening session. We also hosted the same events for students so that all of our students could be involved in this collaborative strategic planning process. So that all took place this past spring semester, and now this summer, actually as of today, we're launching the strategic planning team to begin doing the work on our next strategic plan.
Joe Gottlieb:Well, I know that takes extra effort, and I know it opens the aperture to a lot of possibilities that can sometimes our instinct is to master these possibilities for fear that it could run out of control and not you know stay in a form that we know how to lead, know how to advance, know how to find the synergies of operations, right but so that's a that's a bold move but I can hear in your voice you knew it was necessary to get people connected and aligned I know that you You also, along the way, won a Title III grant, at least one. And I'm wondering how you leveraged the Title III grant opportunistically in this process to drive some of this change.
Dr. Emily Messer:Yes, and we were very fortunate to receive this Title III grant, which we have titled From Backpack to Briefcase. And so our focus on that has essentially been student success and making sure our students are graduating on time and with great outcomes. And so how we're doing that is focusing on career internships, service learning. We've been able to hire a director of career internships who has really focused on getting into the classroom and teaching our students and preparing them for internships. In the DFW area, there's an alarming statistic that only 30% of adults have a bachelor's degree. And so how can we as a higher education institution support the increase of that? So workforce development is extremely important for us. And we have the motto, smaller, smarter. We're the smaller, smarter university here at Texas Wesleyan, where everything in Texas is big, we provide a small, close-knit opportunity to pursue college education. But the smaller portion of that is we're small, as I mentioned. The smarter portion is that we want to make sure our students, once they graduate with a degree from Texas Wesleyan, are prepared for the future, providing great ROI for our students, connecting them to careers while they're in college. One of the areas that we're focusing on is an area we recently developed called the Engage Studio, where students come in and they are learning power skills or soft skills, as you may call them. So they're working on speeches and communication and interview skills. It's an exciting opportunity. Essentially, it's a writing lab, but it's a communication lab or communication. So in addition to that, through the Title III grant, we've been very fortunate to be able to launch an employer advisory board where we have brought in many different employers from our DFW markets, Fortune 500 companies, so that we're learning from them the skills that our students need when they graduate. That's crucial to make sure they're prepared for the next step. It's been a great opportunity. And as we're finishing out the Engage 2025 strategic plan, and we've worked on refreshing our Texas Wesleyan culture on campus, this is providing an outstanding opportunity for our us to look at our visioning and strategic planning for the future to promote the student success, thankfully, because of the Title III funding that we've received.
Joe Gottlieb:So it sounds like a lot of things have come into place at just the right time, right? You were able to spend enough time to listen, knowing that you had at least a year before the new strategic planning effort would have to really get rolling in earnest, but that's where we are now, right? So now you've been able to have that listening time. You've established the core values as a foundation for really, you know, pivoting the institution. And so I want to, you know, speak to that part, right, a little bit about as you look forward into that process, talk a little bit about what's driving the pivot and how you see the pivot being a good thing for Texas Wesleyan.
Dr. Emily Messer:Focusing on the culture is crucial within any organization, and specifically higher education. Higher education is a complex organization with faculty, staff, students. And so making sure that we took the time to create a culture that was conducive to success was extremely important to me. Creating that trust and buy-in from the different constituents on campus was crucial as we start looking at the next strategic plan. And that's why I go back to focusing on the collaboration that I mentioned earlier including all parties, faculty, staff, and students in the strategic planning process and even in the core values planning that we did. I mentioned that we had 50 individuals participate in the core values summit, but I failed to mention that after those 50 individuals did the work of the planning, we then opened it up to the entire campus through a town hall session where we presented the core values and everyone from around campus was able to provide feedback on those core values that had been developed before we finalized them. So I go back to collaboration and communication is key in creating that culture so that we are ready to pivot that institution in a direction for the future. So
Joe Gottlieb:in your mind, the pivot is at least about the now being more specific about what the core values are, which allows you to have some guardrails on how you go about, you know, being a part of this institution. And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me that where you exist in the Dallas-Fort Worth marketplace, there's an opportunity, right? There's an opportunity in terms of increasing that level of the citizenry that has a degree. There's an opportunity with your Backpack to Briefcase effort. Part of that is efficiency and retention and completion, right? But then these employer partnerships getting more involved such that you're actually producing students that have a greater likelihood to wind up with jobs, right? Which at the end of the day is what we need in the local area.
Dr. Emily Messer:Yeah. Yeah. And making sure that we're being creative and innovative with our student success strategies. And then through the Title III funding, we've been able to do some of that. But continuing to stay abreast of the trends and how things are changing in education, especially with ed tech and AI, making sure that our students are prepared for the workplace. The ROI is extremely important to me for our students. We want to make sure that they know they're investing in their education. And data still proves that a college degree attainment provides increased earnings over a lifetime, but we want to make sure our students are ready for the workforce.
Joe Gottlieb:All right. So what is your outlook for what lies ahead?
Dr. Emily Messer:Well, we are excited that we're doing that strategic planning. A kickoff meeting was today. So long-term planning is really motivated by our new strategic plan. We have identified our destination statement and two themes that run in parallel to our destination statement. And then, of course, with any organization identifying the goals and outcomes of the new strategic plan. But in addition to that, the shift in culture that we've seen on our campus has created such enthusiasm, excitement, and great forward momentum for our university because of that buy-in that we've seen from our faculty, staff, students, and even community here in the Fort Worth business community.
Joe Gottlieb:So you want to retain that momentum going into the strategic plan. That makes a lot of sense.
Dr. Emily Messer:And capitalize on that. So, you know, going back to the refreshed culture, though, has paid off by immediate dividends for our institution as we reflected on this post-COVID rhythms that we've been looking at. We're truly on the cusp of making transformational changes in our programs and approach and being innovative and course offerings, really rethinking higher education and the liberal arts education. We want to hold true to that liberal arts education that we provide, but making sure we're promoting the workforce development that is needed for our community in North Texas in general. We've got a great group of faculty and staff who are focused primarily on student success and we've been very fortunate to receive the Title III funding in addition to some private foundation funding to support those student success efforts. And I truly believe we have the right people on the bus and in the right seats to lead these initiatives.
Joe Gottlieb:Sounds like you're well on your way. So in summary, what three takeaways can we offer our listeners on the topic of establishing core values and revitalize culture to drive an institutional pivot?
Dr. Emily Messer:Well, I go back and focus on culture, but creating a positive campus culture of collaboration to lead a valued center visioning is critical in an organization. Committing to the effort required to gather real data to guide that student success that I was referring to earlier and And then combining culture and data confidence to drive the trust, which is essential in pivoting the institution.
Joe Gottlieb:Great summary. Emily, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Emily Messer:Thank you so much for having me.
Joe Gottlieb:And thanks to our listeners for joining us as well. I hope you have a great day, and I look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED. Hey, listeners of TRANSFORMED. I hope you enjoyed that episode. And whether you did or not, I hope that made you stop and think about the role that you were playing in your organization's ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode. I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at info@ higher.digital or joe@higher.digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them. As you and they can easily find, TRANSFORMED is available wherever you get your podcasts.
