HigherEd Series: From the Brink of Closure to Reinventing Paul Quinn College with Michael Sorrell

Dr. Michael J. Sorrell is the longest-serving President in Paul Quinn College’s 154-year history. A nationally recognized higher education leader, he has been named one of Fortune’s 50 Greatest Leaders and received numerous awards for his innovative leadership and commitment to students and communities.

Hosted by Matthew Rascoff
This episode is part of the Edtech Insiders HigherEd Podcast Series, featuring conversations with leaders shaping the future of higher education.

💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. How Paul Quinn College went from the brink of closure to a model of innovation.
2. Why economic mobility is central to the college’s mission. 
3. How the work-college model helps students gain real-world experience. 
4. Why entrepreneurship is built into every student’s education at Paul Quinn. 
5. How Paul Quinn is preparing students for an AI-driven economy.  

✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:02:15] Michael J. Sorrell on the turnaround of Paul Quinn College.
[00:07:37] Addressing poverty and improving students’ economic outcomes.
[00:18:23] The work-college model and creating greater opportunity for students.
[00:21:51] Moving from “lifelong learning” to “lifelong earning.”
[00:34:14] AI, entrepreneurship, and preparing students for the future of work.
[00:37:55] Teaching students to recognize opportunities and build businesses around them.
[00:39:17] Staying curious, learning from students, and responding to real-world needs.

😎 Stay updated with Edtech Insiders! 

Follow us on our podcast, newsletter & LinkedIn here.

🎉 Presenting Sponsor/s:

Tuck Advisors was founded by entrepreneurs who built and sold their own companies, frustrated by other m and a firms, they created the one they wished they could have hired but couldn't find. One who understands what matters to founders and whose North Star KPI is the percentage of deals closed. If you're thinking of selling your ed tech company or buying one contact Tuck advisors now.

Every year, K-12 districts and higher ed institutions spend over half a trillion dollars—but most sales teams miss the signals. Starbridge tracks early signs like board minutes, budget drafts, and strategic plans, then helps you turn them into personalized outreach—fast. Win the deal before it hits the RFP stage. That’s how top edtech teams stay ahead.

This season of Edtech Insiders is brought to you by Cooley LLP. Cooley is the go-to law firm for education and edtech innovators, offering industry-informed counsel across the 'pre-K to gray' spectrum. With a multidisciplinary approach and a powerful edtech ecosystem, Cooley helps shape the future of education.

Innovation in preK to gray learning is powered by exceptional people. For over 15 years, EdTech companies of all sizes and stages have trusted HireEducation to find the talent that drives impact. When specific skills and experiences are mission-critical, HireEducation is a partner that delivers. Offering permanent, fractional, and executive recruitment, HireEducation knows the go-to-market talent you need. Learn more at HireEdu.com.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

[00:00:00] Alex Sarlin: Tuck Advisors was founded by entrepreneurs who built and sold their own companies. Frustrated by other M&A firms, they created the one they wished they could have hired but couldn't find. One who understands what matters to founders and whose North Star KPI is the percentage of deals closed. If you're thinking of selling your Edtech company or buying one, contact Tuck Advisors now.

[00:00:24] Michael J. Sorrell: In the history of mankind, there are no examples of where the king overthrew himself. 

[00:00:29] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh. 

[00:00:30] Michael J. Sorrell: It's like, that's not how it works. Revolutions start from below with disenchanted, disaffected masses that want better and demand better and are frustrated with the failure of the king to respond to their cries.

[00:00:45] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:00:46] Michael J. Sorrell: So expecting Stanford or expecting the Ivy Leagues or expecting flagship state schools to hold up their hands and say- 

[00:00:56] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah ... 

[00:00:57] Michael J. Sorrell: there needs to be a different model, there needs to be a better way of, of caring for students from under-resourced communities- Right ... that is unrealistic.

[00:01:10] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to Edtech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry. From funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood, K-12, higher ed and work, you'll find it all here at Edtech Insiders. 

[00:01:26] Ben Kornell: Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter and also our event calendar.

And to go deeper, check out Edtech Insiders Plus, where you can get premium content, access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod

[00:01:50] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to the Edtech Insiders Higher Education Series hosted by Matthew Rascoff. Matthew is an education innovation leader, a Stanford lecturer, and a regular guest on our podcast, whose work focuses on expanding access to knowledge and opportunity through digital learning. In this series, he speaks with leaders shaping the future of higher education.

We hope you enjoy the conversations 

[00:02:15] Matthew Rascoff: Welcome everybody. This is Matthew Rascoff with another episode of Edtech Insiders and our special miniseries focused on higher education and innovation. We have a wonderful leader with us today, President Michael Sorrell of Paul Quinn College. Thanks so much for being with us.

[00:02:33] Michael J. Sorrell: No, it's an honor to be here, Matthew. Thank you for the invitation. 

[00:02:36] Matthew Rascoff: We're gonna talk a little bit about Paul Quinn, the turnaround story there, which I know has been inspiring for so many folks in the field. I've been hearing about it, I think maybe for fifteen years myself from, I think, some of the investors, Daniel Pianko- Right

you know, big fans of yours have been talking you up. And, you know, I think it may have been also at Duke University, which is one of your alma maters, and I was working there at the time. But you've achieved quite a bit of renown in Dallas and Texas and nationwide for taking a college that was not thriving in two thousand and seven and making it one of the most vibrant sources of inspiration and innovation in the sector.

So maybe you could just start by like telling us that story for those who have not heard it before. 

[00:03:22] Michael J. Sorrell: Sure. We are a story about what's possible. When I was recruited to take the job in two thousand and seven, we were told by Boston Consulting Group that we had eighteen to twenty-four months before we would have to close our doors.

And you know, I tell people the story and everyone now thinks it's funny and it's a joke, but I was literally the last choice for this job. And I know I was the last choice because I was on the board, and I saw all- Mm-hmm ... the people who turned us down, right? Mm-hmm. Like, so we were a failing institution.

Every metric that you use to determine success pointed in the opposite direction for us. And you know, I always tell people this now, even though that was the case, we still produced some really wonderful alums, but it was akin to growing roses from the concrete. And roses shouldn't grow from the concrete, and we made it too hard for people to be successful.

You know, our institution, we're a historically Black college and university, and we were founded to educate the progeny of freed slaves. And the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is our founding denomination, really built the institution with this belief that people should have an opportunity to go to school and to go on and live great lives.

So my alums are some of the very best people that you will ever meet. But what the institution never really did was talk to people about the accumulation of wealth. 

[00:04:58] Matthew Rascoff: And 

[00:04:58] Michael J. Sorrell: the importance of accumulating wealth. Yeah. So, you know, at a place like my alma maters at Duke or Penn or Oberlin, you've got tons of people who are millionaires and who have done these extraordinary things.

[00:05:11] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:05:12] Michael J. Sorrell: And that wasn't our case. So we moved to Dallas in 1990 from Waco, and the school in its last years of Waco had been struggling, and moved to Dallas because they thought that it would represent access to more capital, to a larger group of students. Mm-hmm. It was just sort of seen as the promised land.

And when you don't solve your root issues- 

[00:05:37] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:05:38] Michael J. Sorrell: moving doesn't fix them. 

[00:05:40] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:05:41] Michael J. Sorrell: It just moves your dysfunctionality and underperformance to a new venue. And we were struggling. And by the time you get to 2005, 2006, 2007, we pretty much reached the end of the rope. And so I get a call from the new chair of our board, Bishop Gregory Ingram, says, "Hey, how would you like to be president of Paul Quinn?"

And I was like, "I'm part of a group. We're buying a basketball team. I'm gonna get to be president of the franchise. I'm moving to Memphis. I wish you well. I'm gonna go to run an NBA franchise. I have no idea what you're gonna pay me, but I'm positive they're gonna pay more," right? 

[00:06:24] Matthew Rascoff: And 

[00:06:25] Michael J. Sorrell: he says, "Well, you can do both."

And you know, we laughed about it. I was like, "You can't do both. You can't run a basketball team in Memphis and a college in Dallas. And by the way, you're a bishop in the AME Church, you can't just run around lying to people like that." And so he and I talk about it some more, and I say, "You know what? I'll give you 90 days," because that's how long it was gonna take for David Stern to rule on our bid.

And 20 years later, here I am, right? And what we did was we realized, one, we were very, very honest with ourselves. We weren't good enough, plain and simple. And we asked ourselves, if we were to create a version of a college and university for this era of American- Mm-hmm ... society, what would that look like?

What would it do? What would it accomplish? And the only way you could really answer that question was by talking to your actual students. And so all the changes, all the developments, really the root of them have come from the fact that I asked my students about what their lives are like. What's important to you?

[00:07:36] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:37] Michael J. Sorrell: And the common denominator of everything was poverty. Our students lived lives of scarcity. They didn't have the resources to do what they wanted to do. They lived lives where their possibilities had always been defined by what they didn't have. And so we set about trying to create some type of remedy for poverty.

And, you know, people always talk about, "Oh, education cures poverty. Education cures poverty." You know, with all due respect, money cures poverty. Mm-hmm. So we knew we had to find a way to improve the economic outcomes of our students. Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:16] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:16] Michael J. Sorrell: And in the process of doing so, we wound up having to take on pretty much everything.

[00:08:21] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. We 

[00:08:22] Michael J. Sorrell: took on accrediting bodies. Mm-hmm. We took on the traditional higher ed. We took... I mean, because higher ed worked really well for a lot of people. 

[00:08:33] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah. 

[00:08:33] Michael J. Sorrell: So there was no real incentive for them to do anything radical. I mean, listen, in the history of mankind, there are no examples of where the king overthrew him- 

[00:08:43] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh.

[00:08:44] Michael J. Sorrell: It's like that's not how it works. Revolutions start from below with disenchanted, disaffected masses that want- Yeah ... better and demand better, and are frustrated with the failure of the king to respond to their cries. 

[00:08:59] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:00] Michael J. Sorrell: So expecting Stanford or expecting the Ivy Leagues or expecting flagship state schools to hold up their hands and say- 

[00:09:10] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah

[00:09:11] Michael J. Sorrell: "There needs to be a different model, there needs to be a better way of, of caring for students from under-resourced communities"- Right ... that is unrealistic. 

[00:09:20] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah. So 

[00:09:20] Michael J. Sorrell: we took up that mantle, and something that I had to learn, there are way more students from under-resourced communities than there are middle class and affluent students.

[00:09:31] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:32] Michael J. Sorrell: And I probably should have known that- Mm-hmm ... but as someone from an upper middle class affluent family- Mm-hmm ... who went to affluent schools- 

[00:09:40] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah ... 

[00:09:40] Michael J. Sorrell: I can't tell you that I fully appreciated that there were more people like my students at Paul Quinn- 

[00:09:47] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm ... who 

[00:09:48] Michael J. Sorrell: were like the students at Duke. 

[00:09:50] Matthew Rascoff: Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your own education, and I wonder, just as Moses grew up in the court of Pharaoh and had to see directly what the king's rule looked like, did your own education in some ways radicalize you and open your eyes?

Or was it more conservatizing for you, and it blinded you to some of these challenges in higher education that you had to uncover- Yeah ... later in life? 

[00:10:14] Michael J. Sorrell: I don't think the answer to that question is a straight one, right? I mean, my parents had a philosophy. It really was my mother. My father gave full freedom to my mother to make the educational decisions, which in hindsight, given that my father didn't go to college, isn't shocking.

My mother went to college and went to graduate school. Her mother went to college and went to graduate school. On my father's side, I'm first college graduate, 

[00:10:43] Alex Sarlin: right? 

[00:10:44] Michael J. Sorrell: Which had no bearing on my life until I got to Paul Quinn. Like, it never occurred to me it was a thing at all. My father was this extraordinarily successful restaurateur and entrepreneur, so the idea that my dad didn't go to college, there was nothing there for me to think- 

[00:11:01] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm

[00:11:02] Michael J. Sorrell: anything was unusual about that or that it would somehow be limiting. 

[00:11:06] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:11:07] Michael J. Sorrell: So my father ran the restaurant. My mother ran a social work agency for the aged in Illinois, uh, Lutheran Welfare Services, and that was the planting of the seed for the fact that you must be able to walk in two worlds. My mother used to tell me, "Money can't be your master, but it must be your friend."

And both my parents grew up poor. My father grew up in rural poverty in a single-parent home in New Orleans. My mother grew up in rural poverty in northern Louisiana. But they were very clear, and my mother was very clear that I had an obligation because of my gifts and because of where I went to school- 

[00:11:51] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm

[00:11:52] Michael J. Sorrell: always be an advocate for others. You know, I went to law school not because I thought it'd be cool to be just a traditional lawyer, but because I idolized Thurgood Marshall- Mm-hmm ... and Charles Hamilton Houston, and I wanted to use the law to affect great social change. 

[00:12:10] Matthew Rascoff: And did Duke nourish that in you or did it drive it out and send you, like, you worked for a law firm afterwards, didn't 

[00:12:16] Michael J. Sorrell: you?

So- No. You, you know what happened. I w- so Oberlin taught me to be entrepreneurial. Like, even though I grew up in an entrepreneurial family, Oberlin taught me, "If you don't like what's around you, change it." 

[00:12:29] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:30] Michael J. Sorrell: So I, you know, look, I went to Oberlin because my mother made me go to Oberlin. She forged 

[00:12:36] Matthew Rascoff: my- And you turned down basketball to do it, right?

[00:12:38] Michael J. Sorrell: No, I, I 

[00:12:40] Matthew Rascoff: played basketball. You played the- you played basketball. She forged my signature. But you were recruited elsewhere. You chose Oberlin. 

[00:12:44] Michael J. Sorrell: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just- Like, she forged my signature on stuff. She, you know- ... and literally casually told me over dinner one night, she said, "Oh, by the way, I signed all your paperwork to go to Oberlin."

And I said, "But I'm not going to Oberlin." She said, "You're going to Oberlin now." Right? And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" Wow. I was like, "We had this conversation." And she said, "It's done." What did you 

[00:13:06] Matthew Rascoff: wanna do? 

[00:13:08] Michael J. Sorrell: Not go to Oberlin. 

[00:13:11] Matthew Rascoff: Go to a basketball powerhouse, like a- No, 

[00:13:13] Michael J. Sorrell: I- ... a 

[00:13:13] Matthew Rascoff: flagship? 

[00:13:14] Michael J. Sorrell: No, I mean, listen, it wasn't as if I turned down Duke to go to Oberlin, right?

Like, I mean, I, I had some options, but my mother was very, very clear that she thought that I could only go to the best academic institution that- 

[00:13:32] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:13:32] Michael J. Sorrell: recruited me. And if the schools weren't good enough, she said, "You'll just go to school." 

[00:13:36] Matthew Rascoff: Mm. 

[00:13:36] Michael J. Sorrell: And my parents did really well financially, so they were sort of like, "If it's not a good enough school, you don't have to take a basketball scholarship."

Mm-hmm. 

[00:13:45] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:13:46] Michael J. Sorrell: And so what Oberlin taught me, so if there was a radicalizing, maybe Oberlin provided that, but in a non-traditional way, right? I was always going to be someone that fought for justice. That was embedded in me by my family, by the Jesuits at St. Ignatius, by the fact that I grew up in Chicago, and even when we lived in the suburbs, I went to school in the city.

So I saw projects, right? Like, I saw, like, I'd take the train in from, you know, my really nice suburban lifestyle- Mm-hmm ... and pass by, you know, the projects along- Mm-hmm ... Lake Shore. And across the school at that time at Ignatius, across the street were projects. 

[00:14:33] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh. 

[00:14:33] Michael J. Sorrell: Right? So I saw all this, and I knew it wasn't right, but what Oberlin taught me was, if you don't like something, your obligation is to fix it.

[00:14:45] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:45] Michael J. Sorrell: Not to be, you know, it's very much like Roosevelt's man in the arena, right? Not to be someone who sits on the sidelines complaining about how the men in the arena or the women in the arena are actually doing something. And so at Duke, at the law school and at the public policy school, what I realized that the year between public policy school and law school was I grew up thinking the fight for justice was in the courts.

What that year in between where I worked and negotiated agreements between community development corporations and banks was the fight was an economic fight. 

[00:15:23] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:24] Michael J. Sorrell: That if you control resources, if you c- help people find ways to feed themselves, live out their dreams, all of those things, then you're in a completely different space.

[00:15:38] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:39] Michael J. Sorrell: That when I got here, and the law school taught me just the value of wealth in terms of accomplishing your goals. 

[00:15:52] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh. 

[00:15:52] Michael J. Sorrell: I went off to create a life where wealth was gonna be central to it, right? Uh-huh. And knowing that I was going to get back to doing something else. But when I got here, I got pissed, right?

Because all of a sudden, people looked down on me because I was president of this school. Mm-hmm. And I sat there, I said, "Wait a minute. I'm the exact same guy who has two Duke degrees- Right ... a law degree, worked in the White House, has done all these interesting things. I chose to be here." 

[00:16:27] Matthew Rascoff: Right. "

[00:16:28] Michael J. Sorrell: How dare you think that I'm here because there's nowhere else for me to be?"

[00:16:34] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:34] Michael J. Sorrell: And that's when I began to see just completely how full of crap people in higher ed were. 

[00:16:41] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah. 

[00:16:42] Michael J. Sorrell: You know? Like people- Yeah ... sitting on a high horse and- 

[00:16:45] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah ... 

[00:16:45] Michael J. Sorrell: look down on these other schools, and I'm like, "Listen- Right ... I could be the president of Stanford. Stanford's president couldn't be the president of Auburn."

Right? Like, and not disparaging your employer. My point is, institutions with tremendous resources, it's hard to do a bad job. 

[00:17:05] Matthew Rascoff: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you led a turnaround there that is not in the tool set of most higher education leaders, and doing it in a way that wasn't just a financial turnaround, but a moral turnaround, a philosophical one.

I mean, imbuing this idea of empowering people with capital and with skills and with work, like, that's more than just cutting costs, right? So to me, like, I think cutting the football program, turning the football field into a farm has become symbolic of the changes that you made. Yeah. But as I read it from the outside, the work college concept is actually, I think, more deeply connected to the ideas that you're talking about now.

Like, the idea that work and learning could be intertwined, that they don't need to be s- we don't need to be-- think of education as, like, a monastic separation from work. We should embrace capitalism and work and bring it into the educational experience and be more okay with that. That idea, I think, has gained a lot of traction in this current moment, but I think it was much more radical when you promoted it 15 years ago.

Like, what, what was that like? Like, what was the reception of that among the faculty, let's say? Or even among the alumni. What did the Christian alumni say about that? 

[00:18:23] Michael J. Sorrell: Yeah. Listen, it's amazing how much cooler I seem now to people- ... than I was back then, right? 

[00:18:34] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh. 

[00:18:35] Michael J. Sorrell: I mean, people laughed at me. Uh-huh. Told me I was nuts, that my ideas were ridiculous.

And look, you stay in the game long enough, okay? 

[00:18:46] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah. 

[00:18:46] Michael J. Sorrell: And what I understood that I don't think other people did is just simply this: there's a time limit on how long you get to philosophize and not do anything. 

[00:19:01] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:02] Michael J. Sorrell: People were tired of folks talking about change and- 

[00:19:06] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh ... 

[00:19:07] Michael J. Sorrell: about concepts. They wanted people who could actually create change.

And so, you know, the farm, the farm was, to me, always an entrepreneurial venture. It was always about teaching people, no matter what it is that folks say about you. Because what happened was there was a bank that insulted us and told me that our land was worthless, and that- Hmm ... they would buy it for a discount as if I was an idiot, you know?

And I was like, "I'm gonna show you what worthless looks like." 

[00:19:42] Ben Kornell: Hmm. 

[00:19:42] Michael J. Sorrell: And the farm was this idea of as long as you have something, you have everything, and that we're not going to beg people to see us- Mm-hmm ... differently. We're going to demand it by delivering for others. 

[00:19:58] Alex Sarlin: Hmm. 

[00:19:58] Michael J. Sorrell: And by the time we got to the work college concept, that was, one, I don't think my students and their families should spend their lives apologizing for what they don't have.

[00:20:12] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:13] Michael J. Sorrell: I think that we redefined the game. We redefined it in a way where we help them live up to the dreams that they should have had- 

[00:20:23] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:20:24] Michael J. Sorrell: hadn't had individuals try to talk them out of big dreams, right? Because what happens when you are under-resourced is people tell you to dream in black and white- Mm-hmm

not in color. Right. Mm-hmm. Color might not happen. Color is hard. Mm-hmm. Color is scary. No one told me to dream in black and white. 

[00:20:43] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:44] Michael J. Sorrell: No one told me that it would be impossible for me to accomplish crazy things. Mm-hmm. So why would you tell someone else's child that? 

[00:20:52] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:53] Michael J. Sorrell: Right? So what the work program does is it evens the playing field And it teaches people your dreams can exist in color.

[00:21:04] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:04] Michael J. Sorrell: And when we started it, people weren't doing that. I remember having a conversation with the head of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board years ago when he-- I was in Austin in his meeting room, and he wanted to talk about the workforce and skill development idea, the work college. And I remember very clearly him asking me, "Do you think that could work in other places?"

I was like, "Absolutely." I was like, "I don't see how schools don't start doing this." Mm-hmm. Because middle-class families and families who are under-resourced, they want to know how is this going to help them improve their lives? How is education going to deliver upon that promise? 

[00:21:50] Matthew Rascoff: Right. 

[00:21:51] Michael J. Sorrell: You can have a lifelong learning conversation with families that are affluent.

They will look at that differently. 

[00:22:00] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:01] Michael J. Sorrell: Everyone else, you need to have a lifelong earning- Mm-hmm ... conversation. 

[00:22:05] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:05] Michael J. Sorrell: Don't be so arrogant to think- Mm-hmm ... that what people don't really care about is the ability to provide for their family 

[00:22:13] Matthew Rascoff: Was Berea College the inspiration? Was Northeastern the inspiration?

Like, who were you looking to in that moment for ideas? Now- Well- ... you know, I think the co-op model at Waterloo, Northeastern, like that sort of a model of work that has taken off among the technological class. Yeah. Yeah. And where did you look for ideas when you were trying to develop it? No. 

[00:22:38] Michael J. Sorrell: It came from the Cristo Rey network of high schools.

Ah, 

[00:22:42] Matthew Rascoff: interesting. So the- The charter school network. 

[00:22:44] Michael J. Sorrell: Yeah. I was in Detroit. So back in 2011, 2010, we were at low tide, and we were having trouble recruiting talented students, we were having trouble with donors. We were starting to find the corner, to go around the corner, to turn the corner, but we still hadn't really gotten there yet.

I am frustrated with our recruiting efforts and, um, I think I was like, "Where would we be attractive? Where might understand our story?" I'm tired of going into Dallas high schools and people bringing up the past. 

[00:23:24] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:24] Michael J. Sorrell: I'm not going to Dallas high schools, right? Mm-hmm. In this moment. I need to find places in the country where we would be attractive.

What's our competitive advantage? Warm weather, strong economy. 

[00:23:37] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:38] Michael J. Sorrell: By the way, were things that convinced me to move here when I was at Duke, right? So I said, "Okay. Who would that be appealing to?" Well, cold weather places, and places in the midst of an economic shock. 

[00:23:51] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:52] Michael J. Sorrell: Detroit. Right. Right? That's Detroit.

So I hop on a plane, I go to Detroit, and I pitch to the Detroit Public Schools a partnership. And I, I went two or three times, and it wasn't taking hold. There was a lot of turnover there. Mm-hmm. And the straw that broke the camel's back was I got there and I meet with folks, they have a great meeting, and they tell me, "We're all getting fired tomorrow."

So I was like, "Well, wait a minute. What's the point of me being here if you all aren't gonna be here?" So I was angry, called my office. I said, "Find me a Catholic school to go visit." Because I went to Catholic schools from fifth through 12th grade. Mm-hmm. Uh, I can sell a Catholic school on this idea. 

[00:24:35] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:36] Michael J. Sorrell: They send me to Detroit Cristo Rey. I go into Detroit Cristo Rey, I sit down with their president, and he explains it to me, and it is literally as if the sun starts shining on my head, and I was like, "Wait a minute. Why wouldn't this model work in higher education?" 

[00:24:56] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. And 

[00:24:57] Michael J. Sorrell: they said, "Well, because they're the work colleges."

I was like, "No, no, no, no, no." Mm-hmm. "The work colleges are in rural places." Mm-hmm. "The kids live on campus." I said, "I- I'm talking about why wouldn't I take advantage of the business community that I have access to?" And he said, "No one's ever tried that." 

[00:25:16] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:17] Michael J. Sorrell: Music to my ears. Yeah. And we went back, we researched it, and here we are.

[00:25:24] Matthew Rascoff: So it sounds like there was a kind of Christian connection there. I mean, with the Catholic schools that you attended and then kind of bringing this to the Catholic charter world. It's interesting, in my interview with Paul LeBlanc, he said he thought faith-based institutions were gonna be the ones that survived.

He thought they were the ones that had values, they had a moral foundation, shared, you know, vocabulary, and, you know, he thought the military academies and the faith-based institutions, those were the ones that were protected. Was that connection there about leaning into that and making that? But I mean, I don't think of the Catholic school system as like being so oriented towards capitalism and work.

Like I, I don't know. I don't know. No. No. I didn't go to one myself. I did go to religious schools, though, and I do think it has served me well and has informed my own, you know, value system in ways- Ooh ... that are, you know, deep unconscious ways. 

[00:26:18] Michael J. Sorrell: I mean, listen, I tell people all the time, Jesus is a Quinnite, right?

I mean, and we are deeply steeped in our beliefs and our faith. 

[00:26:31] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:31] Michael J. Sorrell: We don't bang you over the head in it- 

[00:26:33] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:26:34] Michael J. Sorrell: way that becomes exhausting or makes you feel as if we're on our high horse. 

[00:26:39] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:40] Michael J. Sorrell: But we are people of incredible faith. Mm-hmm. And the successes that we've had here have come in large part, we think, because of our faith.

[00:26:51] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:52] Michael J. Sorrell: And that's important. It doesn't make you a bad person to believe, but you can't, you cannot ignore that one of the things that the faith-based institutions have is an appreciation that there is something on the other side of hard times. There really, really is. I mean, a lot of institutions get lost in the hard.

[00:27:19] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:19] Michael J. Sorrell: The struggle. We understand you struggle through- 

[00:27:22] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:27:23] Michael J. Sorrell: get to a better place. 

[00:27:24] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. Can you bring us up to date? Like, what is Paul Quinn like today? I know you have many more students, and I saw you put out a message to recruit faculty in African American history. I read that the other day. Looking for disaffected folks from other institutions who might want to join you, I guess.

I didn't know exactly how to read that. But I mean, are you still on the growth trajectory? You've also said you want to stay small, and you put out the message recently that you want to be the best small college athletic program in the country and have done some recruiting in basketball and that domain.

I saw the Kyrie Irving partnership as well. So can you just like, what's the story of Paul Quinn in 2026- Yeah ... and where are you headed? 

[00:28:07] Michael J. Sorrell: Yeah. So we are still revolutionaries. We took a different path. So Up until, let's call it the pandemic, we were getting white hot, right? No pandemic, we would have had campuses in many cities around the country already.

All right? Pandemic takes place, and it tested our values in a very different way. So I did not feel as if in good conscience, knowing that we were going to go online, 'cause we closed the school for 18 months and just did remote education. So when it came time to recruit two classes, you know, I thought, I said, "Listen, what experience are we gonna vouch for?

What are we telling people? We don't even know how to deliver online education 

[00:28:57] Matthew Rascoff: yet." Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:58] Michael J. Sorrell: Like, I mean, we did-- It's not as if we're an expert at this. So we turned down our recruiting. 

[00:29:05] Matthew Rascoff: I see. '

[00:29:06] Michael J. Sorrell: Cause it was the most honest thing that we could do. And when we came out of the pandemic, I mean, we didn't have to lay anyone off, we didn't have to get people to take pay cuts, we kept people healthy and safe.

We did food drives, right? So twice a week, we gave out food to families that needed it. We did COVID testing. We remodeled every building on campus, at least some portion of it got remodeled during that break. Mm-hmm. We finished the first new buildings in over 40 years. So we did all these things, but what I realized was we had some deficiencies that needed to be addressed And so we took a couple steps back and dove into addressing our deficiency.

Now, we are ready to reemerge. So what you're seeing is the reemergence. You know, we do wanna have the best small college athletic program in the country, and that went along really, really well. We are expanding our academic offerings. And look, I think this is a really unique time to be a safe space institution, right?

An institution that sees value in all of us, not just some of us. 

[00:30:25] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:26] Michael J. Sorrell: And we're not gonna apologize for marketing that fact to highly- Mm-hmm ... to educators who may be tired of watching- Mm-hmm ... institutions sell them out- 

[00:30:37] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah ... from, 

[00:30:38] Michael J. Sorrell: you know, and pull the rug out from underneath them. Because why won't people stand up?

I mean, you have all the resources in the world. 

[00:30:48] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah. 

[00:30:49] Michael J. Sorrell: Why not stand up for what you believe in? 

[00:30:52] Matthew Rascoff: Did you see the piece by Ian Bogost in The Atlantic arguing that, you know, small liberal arts colleges were actually the best defended because they don't have grad students, they don't have federal grants, they don't have labs to maintain.

They're actually the ones that are situated to provide education and to do so independently. I know, you know, minority serving institutions are federally funded. Like, have the cuts affected your bottom line? Like, what is the financial picture right now? 

[00:31:18] Michael J. Sorrell: I think they affect everyone's bottom line differently, right?

But for our institutions, because so many students have been sold out, we become a viable alternative. It's forcing some folks to take a look at us in ways that they've never done before. 

[00:31:36] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:37] Michael J. Sorrell: But if the idea is you want everyone treated equally, okay. I mean, I, I think that's quaint, but I think, all right, intellectually, I can get to that space, but then you gotta leave me alone to do it the way I think it should- 

[00:31:54] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:55] Michael J. Sorrell: Right. And that I think is important. But we're gonna keep being an institution that just does common sense things. 

[00:32:05] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:06] Michael J. Sorrell: You know? Like, if, if I need talent, why wouldn't I go recruit talent from people who don't appreciate their talent? That's not controversial. 

[00:32:17] Matthew Rascoff: Have you had a response to that among scholars?

[00:32:20] Michael J. Sorrell: Like what- An enormous response. I, I, I am working hard to respond- Yeah ... to all the emails. 

[00:32:26] Matthew Rascoff: Okay. Well, I look forward to tracking that because I do think you're making the case for kind of a competitive labor market, and it-- I think it's in keeping with your general acceptance of markets, right? And capitalism.

Ooh. And like, yeah, it's a free country. People can work for the employer that they wish to. And maybe, you know, rather than trying to argue with those institutions, maybe the best approach is to just poach their talent and let them see the results of the spinelessness and lack of leadership in- Listen ... in the sector, right?

[00:32:59] Michael J. Sorrell: My life has been shaped by the fact that I was an athlete from the time I was six years old My son is one of the best young basketball players in high school, right, in the country. My house is a competitive house. 

[00:33:15] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:16] Michael J. Sorrell: I have a beautiful, incredibly talented and successful wife. If I'm not a good husband to her, I open up some unpleasant possibilities.

Right? So I need to know that-- And my wife needs to know I appreciate her- Uh-huh. Yeah ... and I value her, right? Yeah. So, you know, I don't know what- Yeah ... people are out here thinking that- 

[00:33:44] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah ... 

[00:33:44] Michael J. Sorrell: you know, if you don't value your staff, if you think it's okay to treat them as if kindness doesn't matter or- Yeah

if you think it's okay to be indifferent to them- 

[00:34:00] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:34:01] Michael J. Sorrell: you know, it, it's like those old songs. You, you know, love the one you're with. 

[00:34:06] Matthew Rascoff: The way I see it, at least from my perch at Stanford, is that many of the top researchers are actually going to industry right now. 

[00:34:13] Michael J. Sorrell: Yeah. 

[00:34:14] Matthew Rascoff: Same thing- So, you know, our business school just lost our top economist to go to Anthropic.

And, you know, I think that to me feels like a possible competitive outcome of this current moment when they have the compute, they have the data, they have the financial resources and amazing, brilliant people that you get to work with. That is a very strong offering that might outbid Stanford even. Even tenured faculty at Stanford are, are taking that.

And I wonder if you have a perspective to share on AI in particular, just, just given that this moment, you know, is-- it's challenging entry-level work in the kinds of jobs that historically Paul Quinn has placed- Yeah ... your graduates in. You know, I'm thinking of Southwest, Toyota, FedEx, JP Morgan. Those were the big employers for your recent graduates, and I think several, maybe all of them have pulled back on the lowest rungs of the hiring ladder as a result of this AI moment.

So, so how are you thinking about protecting your students' economic future and- Great ... and preparing them for what they're coming in for or they're coming into? Great 

[00:35:23] Michael J. Sorrell: question, and I'm gonna answer this twofold, right? The first thing I'm gonna say, the way that AI has been implemented is completely irresponsible.

We have shirked our responsibility to provide guidelines, guardrails. We have no idea what it's fully capable of. In fact, we are watching it run outside of its parameters in ways that is frankly terrifying Right? But that's a public policy case, right? On a very narrow sense answering your question, we have four pillars of a Paul Quinn education.

One is subject matter expertise, and that's just what you major in, nothing special there. The second is experiential learning. That's the work program, which we've already talked about. Mm-hmm. The third, PQCX, which is just PQC extra, right? Extra courses. So our students take industry-recognized courses, and they get credentials, certificates, so that they can pick up other areas that they're interested in.

But the fourth is really our direct response to this, and it's that we created a program, a pillar called Every Quinnite Is an Entrepreneur. So every Paul Quinn student, in addition to those other three, now every Paul Quinn student must create a business before they graduate from college. So our students either graduate with a job or creating jobs.

And what we're saying is the one guarantee that is going to come out of this era is the need for nimbleness, right? You've got to be intellectually nimble, you have to be emotionally nimble, and you have to be professionally nimble. So fifteen years ago, nobody was a podcaster. 

[00:37:14] Matthew Rascoff: Now everybody is. 

[00:37:15] Michael J. Sorrell: Now everybody is.

Everybody's got a podcast. And because there's real economic opportunity in being a podcaster, so- ... why not give students the tools- 

[00:37:29] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh ... 

[00:37:29] Michael J. Sorrell: to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves? Because I don't need you to necessarily have a great high-tech idea. 

[00:37:43] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. I 

[00:37:43] Michael J. Sorrell: need you to always be thinking.

[00:37:45] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:46] Michael J. Sorrell: And to always be looking at the world around you as if it presents this untold amount of possibilities. 

[00:37:54] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:55] Michael J. Sorrell: That is how you begin to address the displacement of AI. You teach people to be opportunists on the back of AI. Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:03] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. And are you tracking that? Like, employment outcomes are easier to track for a career office.

Is there an entrepreneurial metric that you look for? Either an early indicator or some like- Yeah ... capital raise, like? 

[00:38:17] Michael J. Sorrell: Absolutely. I mean, one of the things we're trying to do now is just teach students how to recognize opportunities. 

[00:38:23] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:24] Michael J. Sorrell: Where are the possibilities? Okay, now design a business to take advantage of that.

We've got another project which I won't disclose here because I don't wanna lose my competitive advantage with it, but it will absolutely be a game changer. Just like the farm was a game changer, just like the work program was 

[00:38:47] Matthew Rascoff: a game- Ooh. You may 

[00:38:51] Michael J. Sorrell: have to come back on when you're ready to announce that.

I will be happy to do that. Okay. But I am promising you it is, will be historically significant. 

[00:38:57] Matthew Rascoff: You talked about agility and change, like your, your own ability to change, and I wonder if you could speak to like your own learning strategy. Like what are your sources? What podcast do you listen to? What do you read?

Where do you get your ideas? Before we got on, you mentioned also that you teach every summer, and I wonder if that's part of your own strategy for agility and intellectual growth. 

[00:39:17] Michael J. Sorrell: Absolutely. I mean, listen, the students today are far different than they were 19 and a half years ago when I started. But I wouldn't know that as much if every summer I weren't sitting in class with them three hours a day, four days a week for six weeks.

[00:39:34] Matthew Rascoff: That's 

[00:39:34] Michael J. Sorrell: a lot 

[00:39:35] Matthew Rascoff: of class. 

[00:39:35] Michael J. Sorrell: Oh, it's a lot of class time. It's a beat down, right? It, it is. Let's be clear, it was all fun and games and it was cool. Oh, your college president will be your first professor when we started the Bridge program. Now I'm trapped, okay? Now, now I wanna take summers off. I wanna do the stuff successful presidents do.

I'd like to go to Martha's Vineyard, right? Yes. I don't get to do any of that stuff, right? Like I am in class teaching. I love it, right? I love it, but it does not come without sacrifice. But here's the thing. I think for all of us, we have to stay hungry And you have to stay looking over your shoulder a bit- 

[00:40:18] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm

[00:40:18] Michael J. Sorrell: wondering what's next. I am a- Mm-hmm ... voracious reader. I mean, everywhere in my house there are books. I have a library, right? I, I, I mean, one of my favorite books is Why Nations Fail. Mm-hmm. You know, which talks about the economic models that lead to success and that lead to failure. I've got, you know, you can't see it here, but I have stacks of books in my office that I give students as I'm trying to teach them to develop a love of learning.

I love Malcolm Gladwell, right? Just because I think he looks at things from a really interesting perspective. And I know that- The 

[00:40:53] Matthew Rascoff: podcast or the writing? What are you- Both. 

[00:40:55] Michael J. Sorrell: What kind 

[00:40:55] Matthew Rascoff: of Malcolm? Both? 

[00:40:56] Michael J. Sorrell: Both. Yeah, both. I mean, I just finished listening to Reconstruction with he and Barack Obama, and on my Sunday bike rides, I would just listen to the podcast while I was riding.

I listen to the New York Time daily podcast. 

[00:41:12] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:12] Michael J. Sorrell: I, I love that one. I am, at my core, a sports junkie, so I've got basketball podcasts- Okay ... 

[00:41:20] Matthew Rascoff: that I listen to. 

[00:41:21] Michael J. Sorrell: I read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post daily. You know, every morning I get up and, you know, I do scan Twitter, and I, I do that because I get a lot of interesting articles- 

[00:41:37] Matthew Rascoff: Mm-hmm

[00:41:37] Michael J. Sorrell: like from doing that, from just, you know, the list that I've of people that I've curated. One thing leads to another. You know, I've been reading, there's a great book that I'm reading right now called Loot, which talks about how Great Britain and France pillaged the Benin dynasty, which is modern-day Nigeria.

Mm-hmm. Stole the artifacts and had them in the museums You know, which is, which is incredible. And when you think about the impact of colonizing, you know, the country. So I just love learning. 

[00:42:13] Matthew Rascoff: You didn't mention any education like content, though. It sounds like most of your learning is lateral. Like you're bringing in ideas from colonial history, political science, why nations fail, that's like an economic history- 

[00:42:27] Michael J. Sorrell: Yeah

[00:42:27] Matthew Rascoff: book, and trying to apply that to- 

[00:42:30] Michael J. Sorrell: Oh, yeah. No, I, 

[00:42:31] Matthew Rascoff: I- ... a sector or to your life It's 

[00:42:32] Michael J. Sorrell: funny you mention that. I don't read... I mean, maybe that's a bad thing. I, I don't read books about education. Not to say, I mean, you know, look, I mean, I've read Grit, right? I've read some of the other things that- Uh-huh ... you know, like, uh, Seligman's book, what was it called?

Uh- 

[00:42:50] Matthew Rascoff: Positive Psychology. 

[00:42:51] Michael J. Sorrell: Positive Psychology. Mm. Right? Like, I mean, I mean, I'm well-versed on scarcity mindset and- 

[00:42:56] Matthew Rascoff: Uh-huh. 

[00:42:57] Michael J. Sorrell: When I wrote my dissertation at Penn, I read everything that I could about higher ed- Was he 

[00:43:04] Matthew Rascoff: your advisor, Seligman? 

[00:43:05] Michael J. Sorrell: No, no. Mary Beth Gasman was my advisor. Okay. And so I, you know, I mean, I, I did all that and, but since that time, I've not really been reading education stuff because my philosophy on this is very much like my philosophy on politics.

And I had a wonderful friend, Hampton Dellinger, extraordinary man. His father, Walter Dellinger, was the solicitor general under Clinton, right? And I was his TA in law school. Hampton and I are good friends. Hampton's his oldest son. And I will never forget when I was working in the White House, Hampton told me something that I hold dear to this day, and he said, "Never forget and lose sight of the fact that Washington is not the real world.

The real world is what happens outside of Washington, DC." 

[00:43:55] Ben Kornell: Mm-hmm. "

[00:43:55] Michael J. Sorrell: So if you lose the ability to understand the language of the common man- Mm-hmm ... you've lost the ability to create policies to impact the life of the common man." 

[00:44:05] Matthew Rascoff: And 

[00:44:05] Michael J. Sorrell: he didn't say common man, but that was the sentiment. 

[00:44:08] Matthew Rascoff: Yeah. 

[00:44:09] Michael J. Sorrell: You know. That is how I view education and higher education.

So I wanna spend my time out in the field

parents care about, what students care about, that our society cares about. I have no desire to be a public intellectual who sits at conferences debating these minutia, right? I, I want to go make people's lives better. Yeah. I want to speak to it in most plainspoken terms that they have, and I want them to know at all times, if there's no one else out here listening to them, I am listening to them.

[00:44:47] Matthew Rascoff: Well, I could not imagine a better note to close on, so thank you so much, President Michael Sorrell. This was a fantastic conversation. I am truly grateful for the chance to learn from you and listen to you, and I learned many new things about you. I thought I had done my research, but there were many gems in there, and I'm excited to share them with our audience.

[00:45:08] Michael J. Sorrell: So thank you again. Well, and thank you for the opportunity. It had been too long, so I'm glad to see you again. 

[00:45:14] Matthew Rascoff: Likewise. Take care. 

[00:45:17] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of Edtech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the Edtech community. For those who want even more Edtech Insider, subscribe to the free Edtech Insiders newsletter on Substack.

Innovation in pre-K to grade learning is powered by exceptional people. For over 15 years, Edtech companies of all sizes and stages have trusted Higher Education to find the talent that drives impact. When specific skills and experiences are mission critical, Higher Education is a partner that delivers.

Offering permanent, fractional, and executive recruitment, Higher Education knows the go-to-market talent you need. Learn more at higheredu.com. That's H-I-R-E-E-D-U.com