the uplift
elevating and amplifying women's voices and issues in higher ed.
the uplift
Summer session with Jill Arensdorf
For our summer session we’re running a fan favorite playlist: a combination of the most-listened-to episodes as well as listener favorites. Our Summer Session gives you a chance to revisit episodes you may not have heard in a while or even to listen to episodes you might have missed.
Today we're replaying Episode 21, Democracy is a Creative Act, featuring my interview with Jill Arensdorf, Provost and Professor of Leadership at Ft. Hayes State University. Here's your link to the episode's original show notes.
If you're enjoying the podcast, enter a chance to win a free book! Head over to Apple podcasts (or your fave platform) and leave a review on the uplift page. Once a month I'll randomly select one of that month's reviewers to receive a $20 gift certificate to bookshop.org. You get more summer reading, and I get to help you build your library! It's a win for us both.
So grab a nice tall glass of your favorite summer beverage, pull up your favorite outdoor chair or grab your hammock, and enjoy a few moments of summer, on me. I’ll be somewhere doing the same. 😎
Let's connect! Come find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.
I also coach women leaders (individually and in groups) and facilitate campus workshops. Learn more at the website.
Have a question about whether I can help you? Just ask! I actually love getting emails from listeners. 🧡
Hey there, welcome to Summer at The Uplift. For our summer session, we're running a fan favorite playlist: a combination of listened-to most episodes as well as listener requests. Our summer session gives you a chance to revisit episodes you may not have heard in a while, or maybe even to listen to episodes you might have missed. You'll notice, at the end of each episode I tell you how you can be entered in a monthly drawing for a $20 gift certificate to bookshoporg. That's for real and that wasn't part of any of these original episodes. I added this giveaway because I was thinking what would summer be without a good reading list? So grab a nice tall glass of your favorite summer beverage, pull up your favorite outdoor chair, or even grab your hammock and enjoy a few moments of summer on me. I promise you I'm somewhere doing the same. Hey there, welcome to the Uplift podcast, where we talk all things leadership for women in higher ed Carole Chabries and I want to help make your leadership path a little easier, a bit brighter, and a helluva helluva lot more fun. Here at The Uplift we mash up real stories, real feelings, real theory and *effbombs bombs, all to help you become the kind of bleeping awesome leader you would love to follow. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump in! Hello and welcome to episode 21.
Carole Chabries:One of the greatest gifts I've been given as a newbie podcaster is that folks send me all sorts of podcasts to listen to, and, oh my word, can I just say my life is so much better for it. In a way I'm totally a reluctant podcaster. For years now Shannon has been a podcast fan, and every time he tells me there's a new one I should listen to, I've only responded by feeling stressed out. L ike how in the world am I going to add yet another thing to my life? I've never really felt like I had time to listen to podcasts at all. And, honestly, five months ago I had no idea how to even uh podcast. But now I listen to other people's podcasts all the freaking time and I have learned so much and it is all so wonderful. Oh, quick side note then, let me reiterate my earlier shout out from my prior episode to my colleague, Sue DeBaco, who recommended the podcast Dolly Parton's America. Seriously, if you have not listened to that yet, turn me off and go listen to that podcast right now. It expanded my mind and heart in ways beyond what I imagined was possible. Okay, back on point.
Carole Chabries:One of my happy recent discoveries listening to all these new podcasts well, new to me podcasts is a podcast called Phronesis. It's the official podcast of the International Leadership Association and I love two things about it. The first is that the host, Scott Allen, has invited his grade-school-age twin daughters to create the intro and outro, and oh, they are just so damn charming. The second is that I've had the chance to hear all kinds of leaders around the country who are passionate about articulating and practicing leadership, talk about leadership in ways that are specific to their institutional contexts, while also staying grounded in foundational principles of value space leadership. I was listening one day when I heard Scott interview Dr. Jill Arensdorf. It didn't take me long to know I wanted to interview her here on the uplift.
Carole Chabries:Jill is currently the provost at Fort Hayes State University in Kansas, where she has served for an enviable tenure of 21 years not all as provost, but she's been at Fort Hayes State 21 years. I absolutely love it when folks stay at an institution long enough to build a legacy, to carry institutional memory forward and to see the institution through various evolutionary phases. I also love it when provosts or, honestly, anyone in a position of power at a college is self-aware about how leadership operates. Jill is savvy and sensitive and deeply grounded in leadership studies. She's also a leader with a good heart, which, as you know, is of paramount importance to me. Okay, so before I bring her to the show, let me share her bio.
Carole Chabries:Dr Jill Arensdorf is a professor in the Department of Leadership Studies at Fort Hays State University and currently serves as the Fort Hays State University provost and vice president for academic affairs. Before serving as provost, she chaired the Department of Leadership Studies for eight years. Her research interests include civic engagement and leadership, leadership behavior and skill development and the transfer of learning. She has published numerous articles on the effects of service learning on the development of leadership skills, as well as the transfer of leadership skills to the workplace. She has been active in civic engagement efforts at Fort Hayes State University, co-writing the university's civic investment plan. Dr. Arensdorf has received both a prestigious navigator and pilot awards at Fort Hays State University for her exceptional advising and teaching. She completed her PhD in curriculum and instruction at Kansas State University. I am just tickled to welcome Dr. Jill Arensdorf to The Uplift. I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Jill Arensdorf to the show today. Welcome, Jill.
Jill Arensdorf:Well, thank you so much for having me.
Carole Chabries:My pleasure. I heard you on the podcast for the International Leadership Association and I was immediately taken with the piece of your path that's about being in a research orientation with leadership sort of researching and teaching leadership and then getting to a point in your life where you were both in that mix still of understanding how leadership operates and leading as a provost at the campus. So I wonder if we could just start with that little bit of path of yours how you got to where you are and what leadership has meant to you in that transition from teacher and scholar to practitioner.
Jill Arensdorf:Sure.
Jill Arensdorf:Thank you, Carole. I'm happy to talk about that. So again, thanks so much for having me on your podcast and allowing us to have a conversation about things I think that we both are passionate about and think are important. My path to this role started well. I've been in this role. Now I'm in my fourth year as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Fort Hayes State University.
Jill Arensdorf:It's probably been the most challenging and most energizing four years of my career, because I've been able to take the leadership theories and behaviors and scholarship that I have experienced and studied for many, many years and now am daily putting it into practice.
Jill Arensdorf:One of the things that, as I moved into this role, I had to shift my mind to thinking about was how will I develop people in this new role?
Jill Arensdorf:Because one of the things that I loved about being a full-time faculty member and department chair prior to stepping into the provost position at Fort Hayes State University was that I was developing people every day and most of the time I was working with undergraduate students, and so that development process was most of the time in the classroom and engaging with them and teaching leadership, and then, in my scholarship and service, studying and researching leadership and then putting those things into practice through my service.
Jill Arensdorf:And so, when I stepped into the provost role, while I had been using leadership theories and skills and behaviors for many years in the classroom and in my civic life outside of the university, I'm practicing them on a whole new level here, and that's been really challenging but also very rewarding, because the impact that I think I have the ability to make is much different And the people that I'm working to develop and collaborate with are not in the classroom but at the university every day. I don't know if that makes sense, Carole, but my path here has been full of leadership along the way, but I'm practicing in a different way now.
Carole Chabries:No, that makes perfect sense And I feel like, especially from the chair of the provost, from the provost seat, that development and mentoring of the folks around you, who are the backbone of the institution right, whether it's faculty or staff, that is, from my perspective, is one of the key roles, as one of the most valuable contributions a provost can make.
Jill Arensdorf:Yes, I think so, And I do recognize that I am in what you would call an authority role. I don't see leadership that way. I mean, I believe it's a process and it's a process of engaging others And while at times I might be the leader in that process, there are other times where I'm certainly and should be, the follower or another stakeholder in the process. And I hope that daily, that I'm living that out by my example in this role, and that people I hope people feel a part of a collaborative process, because that's what I'm striving to do here at the university is engage multiple people, multiple voices, in a leadership process.
Carole Chabries:That's a really nice setup and nicely done. Thank you for the segue.
Jill Arensdorf:It's unintentional, but sometimes it's the best.
Carole Chabries:I'd love to hear you unpack a little bit what you just described is that kind of collaborative process where all voices matter, and have you unpack that in terms of both, and I'll let you take this.
Carole Chabries:However, you want both civic engagement, which I know is a research interest of yours and a teaching interest of yours, but also sounds like an approach of yours - a nd also your students, because it sounds like you've got an approach as provost that can foster democratic principles, which, for me at least, are all about a multiplicity of voices coming together to make shared decisions about how to move forward, and to do that in a way where dissent is an option and shared decision making happens. If you're doing that as provost with the folks you're working with, there's, I'm assuming, kind of a mirror of what that looked like with your students, and so I'll let you take that where you want to go, with either students or staff or with both, but I'm interested in hearing you unpack that relationship between the way you work and its connection to democratic principles and what that looks like on your campus.
Jill Arensdorf:Sure. So the first part of your comment and question there you talked about that I said that leadership is a collaborative process, and I believe that deeply. I also believe that leadership is situational, and so it's important for people engaged in the process to be able to look at the situation and understand the context of that situation, to deploy the appropriate process or skills or behaviors or whatever it might be in the moment. And so that's what I think is powerful about leadership at this university as a process is that I, in my role, am constantly looking at the context and the situation and the people and all of the myriad of factors and factions that come into a decision or a process or a challenge, an adaptive challenge, hinting to Ron Heifetz's work. I think that mirrors civic life as well, and as we think about civic engagement and democracy and getting people involved in that work, whether that be at a local level or a state level or a national level or even a global level, those principles still hold true. The situation and the context matter so much. What I hope, that I have done with students, and I think I've done with students and hope I'm doing now is engaging factions, bringing people to the conversation that perhaps don't always have their voices heard, and engaging in dialogue to better understand someone else's perspective and context as we make decisions together. Now that sounds very ideal.
Jill Arensdorf:I have a colleague here that always kind of teases me and I'm fine with it but says oh, Jill, you live in this utopian world sometimes. And I have a lot of hope and faith in people and in this process of leadership. And so, yes, perhaps I do live in a utopian world from time to time, but I've seen it work. It's hard, it's messy, it's not there's risk involved. There's sometimes loss, not loss of lives necessarily, but just loss of people in terms of keeping them involved in the process. And so those are hard things. And so doing leadership, whether that be at the university or in our civic lives, which I think should connect very closely that work is important. So I'm not sure if I answered your question, but I unpacked it how I was thinking about it. And I'm happy to follow up on anything if you'd like to delve a little deeper into my comments.
Carole Chabries:No, that's perfect. And I would like to delve into the piece about the students, and I think part of what you said that struck me about working with students is how much collaboration is about a little bit of loss. You have to be willing to give things up, you have to compromise things, and that's how a whole can move forward. Yes, and so I would love to hear about what your students at the university, what they experience in terms of civic engagement. And this could be you could talk broadly about the programs that the university offers, you could talk about classes, but kind of paint a picture for us of what an undergraduate at Fort Hayes State University experiences in terms of civic engagement.
Jill Arensdorf:Thank you, for that question, Carole. So I've been at the university, for I'm in my 21st year here at Fort Hayes State University, and so.
Carole Chabries:That's awesome. Like that's kind of unprecedented.
Jill Arensdorf:Jill Arensdorf Guest Well, thank you. Thank you so much. So I have been very lucky to be a part of our evolution as an institution with regard to how we engage our students in civic engagement and citizenship activities. Our former provost here at Fort Hays was very passionate about this work And he brought I don't know if you're familiar with the American Association of State Universities. ASCUE has been engaging in a project called the American Democracy Project for many, many years And I don't want to give the number of years because I'm sure I would get it wrong, but Fort Hayes State was an early adopter of the American Democracy Project And I was fortunate to be a part of that early work. And so, in a bit of a serendipitous way, i knew how important and had been involved throughout my life in civic activities and service activities as a youth, as a college student, but I didn't fully understand how important it was for the university to be a hub or a ground for that until I started working as a faculty member, I just hadn't made those connections. And so when the American Democracy Project came to Fort Hayes and we adopted that program and that still continues, by the way and began to understand how important a university was to a student and a faculty member and the communities developed as civically engaged leaders, and so I have been fortunate to teach classes and teach service learning classes where students are working on projects, deep, daunting challenges in the community. I and I have also been involved in the American Democracy Project, where we're engaging in conversations about issues and having dialogue and around civic issues.
Jill Arensdorf:Fort Hayes State University students are, we've got a unique student body. So our undergraduates we have about 4,000 students on campus here, but then we have a large population of our campus that are online, fully online students. Many of them are in Kansas, but many of them are spread all over the nation and, quite frankly, all over the world, and then we have a large group of students in China, and so when we say, how do our undergraduates participate at Fort Hayes, that looks a little different depending on the modality that the students are engaging with us in. So in 2014, we had an opportunity. We became engaged in the Crucible Moment. I don't know if you're familiar with that work.
Jill Arensdorf:In the mid-2010s, the Crucible Moment came out and it was really a call for institutions to be re-engaging students in civic work, and so I was part of a team that wrote a civic investment plan for the institution And from that point have been very deliberate to have civic engagement thrust into our strategic plan in a positive way. And so the university, and it's part of our university's mission to develop global citizen leaders, and so we are infusing civic engagement work very well in our on-campus population. We're still struggling with how to engage our online students in that beyond a course, and we're experimenting with some things. And then with our partners in China that looks different because the structure of the government is different, the culture is different, and so civic engagement there looks more like service. And how do we engage in service toward our community and toward our colleagues and toward our country? And so our students at Fort Hayes are participating in civic engagement work, but it just looks a little different.
Jill Arensdorf:I realize I just kind of rambled on and on, Carole, but I wanted to give a full picture of what we're doing at Fort Hayes and how I've been so fortunate to be involved in that since really early on in my career here at Fort Hayes State, and I feel like every institution, higher education in general, has a responsibility to educate our citizenry, and I think Fort Hayes has been really thoughtful about how do we make sure that our graduates are not only leaving the university with a degree that they can use for, hopefully, a career or a career advancement and workforce skills, but also how can they translate those skills and knowledge that they've learned at the university to their civic life as well. How can they be better neighbors, how can they be better community members, how can they be involved in the citizenry wherever they might live? And I think we're doing that relatively well and are putting emphasis on that because it's in our strategic plan.
Carole Chabries:I can hear in everything you've said that echoes of your earlier point about situation and context mattering. Most, i'm struck by the ways the university is ensuring that students in China are still connected to your strategy and connected to your heart, but in a situationally and contextually appropriate way. That's right, that's fascinating. Would you mind telling us a little bit more about this civic investment plan? I've never heard anyone talk about that and I'd love to know a little bit more. Sure.
Jill Arensdorf:So I am and I'm happy to share as much as you'd like. So the civic investment plan. So we wrote this in 2014,. So, gosh, i don't know if you'd call it old yet, but it's certainly brand new and not hot off the shelf. But a colleague of mine, who has since retired, and I worked on this project with students, with other faculty, with other staff across the campus to really re-engage what does civic engagement look like and feel like at Fort Hayes State University? And so we took concepts from the crucible moment and came up with eight strategies that we recommended for change at our institution, and I have those in front of me and I'll just quickly run through them so that folks that are listening to this podcast can get a better sense of where we said we were going to be more intentional in our focus. So promoting the development of the engaged scholar. So making sure that our faculty you know scholarship guidelines and things really had that boyer model of scholarship, in that we were developing engaged scholars and teacher scholars at Fort Hayes were able to make connections between their teaching, their research and their service. Promoting an academic focus for civic learning and engagement. Really making sure that we were intentional as an institution about how we were even something as simple, which is not simple, but something as simple as how do we document that a course has civic learning engagement principles in it, providing a comprehensive and cohesive approach to civic learning and engagement. And this really dovetails into what I said earlier about being intentional about involving our online and our all of our populations of students, because not only are we serving students here in Hayes, Kansas, we're serving students all over the world. Being really intentional about reciprocal partnerships with our communities, that they're not just one way of Fort Hayes or students going in to serve in those communities, but how does the community relationship back to the university matter and how do we engage in that more?
Jill Arensdorf:And the last three maybe taking a little bit too much time just reading through these, but really thinking about a framework that educates for full citizenship. And so one of your questions that you'd ask me to think about was you know what's something that we can do to prepare engaged citizens? and you know the first step is learning and then perhaps it's voting, but there are there's more to the continuum of being a fully engaged citizen and so helping students find their way and find ways for them to develop along that full continuum of citizenship, whether that be encouraging to them to vote in a midterm election or to perhaps participating in a protest or getting involved in a larger movement. That continuum is pretty widespread and you know, our students are coming in from lots of different places, because we're getting students in from all over the world. And then just really thinking about how do we promote a campus culture that models civic learning and engagement? So we, how do we engage with one another in a way that serves as that example to our students and to our community, so that we can engage our diverse student population which, as I've said multiple times, is all over the world? So those were intentional items that we recommended for change.
Jill Arensdorf:We do have a dedicated structure at Fort Hayes by way of a center that coordinates a lot of this work, but that center is work, is constantly working to permeate it across all aspects of campus, not just that one center. What's that center called? Well, the center is used to be called the Center for Civic Leadership and the name change just occurred and but it's Civic Learning and Engagement.
Carole Chabries:Great. Is your civic investment plan on your website anywhere?
Jill Arensdorf:I think it is Carole, but I'm happy to get you a copy of it and send you a link, if there is one up on the website.
Carole Chabries:Yeah, if there is a link, I'd love to drop that in the show notes so that people who are curious can see what this might look like. And I love I mean I love that it's a plan that's independent, it's an entity unto itself, and then I really like hearing that it's infused and informed your whole institutional strategy. So I can imagine that being interesting for folks to be able to look at and kind of see how that works.
Jill Arensdorf:Sure, sure, happy to share that with you. I'm a little embarrassed. I don't know that if it's online.
Carole Chabries:But I've always used my favorite copy. I mean it's old right, It's eight years old by now, So I know websites often get redesigned in a shorter time frame than every year.
Jill Arensdorf:Yes, that is right.
Carole Chabries:That is right. So I'm listening to, as I listen to the stories you're describing in the ways your campus has infused this. I'm wondering, for let's just take your Kansas undergrads, because they might be the most kind of daily visible to you. Do you have a sense that they understand all of this work that's about civic engagement as being connected explicitly to democracies? Like I'm kind of getting at that question about you know what is what's preparing your students for, not only engagement with democratic principles, some of which we've talked about with your behavioral and communal, but preparing them to vote, and do they see that connection between their civic engagement life on your campus and their ability to make a difference at the polls, their ability to talk to legislators? What does that look like, Do you think, for your local undergrads?
Jill Arensdorf:Oh gosh, I wish I could have you talk to multiple people at the university about this because of course I'm going to share my perspective, which may be very different from others at the university, and that's the beauty of these conversations You get to hear lots of perspectives. I think that our student population on campus, which is a very traditional population for our on campus students you know the 18 to 22 year olds were a rural campus. So many of our students, I think I could probably safely say most of our students are coming from rural communities, because they're coming from more rural communities. I think many of our students have been, i know and I think I know many of our students have been highly involved in civic activities through their K through 12 experience. I don't know that they are making that connection necessarily to the civic continuum and those democratic principles that not only govern us but hopefully serve as a fabric for our work and all that we do. I don't know that students are necessarily making that connection from their civic life to democratic principles.
Jill Arensdorf:I think that the work we're doing here Fort Hayes on campus is allowing them to explore those notions. I think that there are pockets of the university and programs curricular and co-curricular programs that are probably doing that more intentionally, and then others are. You know, other students in other programs are just kind of perhaps figuring out on their own. That's one thing that we're exploring right now is how do we meet students where they are and then take them to that next level on that civic spectrum, because I don't know that we can expect every student to leave for Hayes, you know, ready to sign on to some type of movement that they're passionate about. But if we can meet them where they are, when they come, and then move them along that continuum and as they leave the university they're more engaged in that, i think that's a proper goal for us to have, rather than for us to assume or have the goal, the stretch goal perhaps, of having every student leave here as a fully engaged citizen in these large, massive movements.
Carole Chabries:I love that idea of kind of recognizing that people are going to take this where they take it right. That's part of the principle of democracy.
Jill Arensdorf:We can't force you to vote.
Carole Chabries:That's actually anti-democratic! And I'm listening to you thinking also, your colleague who thinks you're too utopian might be happy to hear this kind of realist perspective of your goals for students. So that's a nice combination of the ideal and the practical there.
Jill Arensdorf:Yeah, as we were working through the Civic Investment Plan and I know that and I mentioned we worked with students. We had a class that we actually dedicated to writing this plan together, and so my colleague and I led that class And so fun to just talk with students about this. And what we realized through those conversations is these students are coming to us from obviously different physical locations, but they're also coming in with different understanding about how their civic life has connected to the bigger work of democracy in action. And so I recall some of those conversations being just so engaging And so I opening for me because I could see my journey in some of those students and they were having it much earlier than I did And I didn't realize some of these things until I was into my career a few years with these were college students that were seeing these connections And it was quite beautiful. So thanks for taking me back to that. I can't believe it's been eight years ago.
Carole Chabries:It's interesting. You're not the first person I've talked to who's talked about not really having any personal experience with service learning and being a young professional before that idea was even in front of them, and so I really appreciate the way that your path has, in turn, accelerated your students paths, because you know more, you've learned more as a teacher, and so you're able to bring them to that point of learning faster and earlier than they might otherwise.
Jill Arensdorf:That's right. Yeah, one of the books that we used during this work that we did back a few years ago was educating for democracy, and I have that book open in front of me and I have written all over it. And one of the things I have written here is that this seems, this work seems unattainable, but it is real and part of our everyday lives And we've got to constantly think about democracy as a creative work and that it is our responsibility collectively, not just those at a state house or in Washington or perhaps at another government level. So really taking ownership of this as a university, seeing my role in that work, obviously that was a pivotal point for me as we wrote that civic investment plan I love democracy as a creative work.
Carole Chabries:That's just a beautiful phrase. So I'm going to ask you one more question, and we may end up cutting it because in a way, you've answered it, but I am really curious to know for you personally how much you think about this work with intersectionality in mind. So this question that I'm kind of pursuing broadly came to me when I was a dean at a women's college and I felt like what I saw there in the election season of 2016 really taught me And I don't think everybody agrees with me, but it really taught me that women have an important role in educating for democracy, and I would say not only women, but I would say anybody who inhabits any kind of non privileged position. That is just that much more important that we model and teach and practice with our students and with our colleagues the same principles on a campus that we want to see in a democratic world, and so I recognize that.
Carole Chabries:That's me. That's me being idiosyncratic, but I'm curious to know if other women see that as well And, if so, if they see it through any gender lens and you may or you may not. So I open that question in case you want to ruminate on it And if you want to skip it, we can skip it entirely.
Jill Arensdorf:No, that's okay, I may not. I may not get to the core of your question, but I may. I agree with you. I am teaching a class this semester, maybe against my better judgment, but I decided it was time for me to get back in the classroom so that I could pour into students again, and the class that I chose to teach was Women in Leadership, and so this semester we are I'm working with all she her, identified females, and it has been such a delightful experience, and we've talked about the suffrage movement And that has really re-empowered me, just getting back into the history and learning and talking with students about it and seeing their eyes open about, wow, we as women haven't always had this right, even though all of us in the room have always had that right.
Jill Arensdorf:Not very long ago, just a little over a hundred years ago, women didn't have the right to vote, and so we've had some really powerful conversations about intersectionality and about how important it is for us to, as women, be really intentional and engaged in this work, and that we have a skill set as women that lends itself so well to not only civic engagement work but leadership, and that we have to exercise those muscles more than we do and that we have to own those muscles that we have more than we do and explore ways to engage others in the work of democracy. And so I am. I am getting to do that right now with a group of students and it has been just absolutely delightful. The intersectionality piece as we educate for democracy has been present and relevant in that course and hopefully eye opening for those students as they move through their academic career and into their full-time community careers, wherever they lead.
Carole Chabries:I still want to be a fly on the wall in that classroom. It sounds fascinating. So let me ask you, by way of closing, what I think is maybe a hard question to answer. The midterms are around the corner, the presidential elections are, at least a little further out. But, given what you know about civic engagement and the way students encounter it and work through it and are changed by it, do you have any short-term, immediate like in the next minutes, right, because that November 8th is almost upon us any recommendations for helping students see or maybe take control of their power for that election? and then maybe a little bit longer term where faculty and administration might have an opportunity to design curriculum or launch a program or do something that takes a little more time before the presidential elections? Do you have any advice or directions you would send folks in if they were looking to make an immediate short-term impact and then a slightly longer-term impact looking ahead to 2024?
Jill Arensdorf:Yeah, thank you, Carole. So I think, immediate one of the approaches that I would encourage people to take is just have these conversations and take opportunities where you're engaging with students or anyone for that matter. I know our context here is students today and we're talking mostly about undergrads but using our role as leaders to help them understand the importance, and I think a lot of that can be engaging in dialogue. I really believe in dialogue and perhaps that's my bias, because that's how I learned best is by engaging in dialogue and engaging in conversations with others. So I think those are really low-hanging fruit items and helping students see how it connects to them. I talk a lot about here when I have the opportunity to do so, about higher education and the connection to our state legislature and appointed officials on our Kansas Board of Regents and how interconnected all of those are to the democracy And just helping students understand. Back to my earlier comments, the situation in the context. I think that's important. So that would be my maybe short-term thing.
Jill Arensdorf:Longer term, the American Democracy Project has some great materials and initiatives around voting. They've engaged with their partners on voting drives and education opportunities for students around voting and we've deployed quite a bit of that here at Fort Hayes. We don't do maybe as much as we should around midterm elections, but certainly around presidential election time, and so having watch parties to watch debates and engaging students with other students, because we do have students that come into the university very passionate already and have a good understanding of democracy. Of course, we're always learning as citizens, but we've got students that are already fairly engaged and understand that work And so they do a nice job of engaging other students. So and a lot of that comes from that ADP work So I would encourage folks to take a look at that, the ASCUE material around the American Democracy Project. And there are lots of resources there that could be used to prepare for that next gosh 2024 election, which will be here before we know it, Carole.
Carole Chabries:I know. Well, that's kind of fingers crossed we survive the next two years, right? Yes, we will, i'm sure we will. I will drop links to the American Democracy Project materials too in the show notes. I think that seems definitely like something people might want to follow up on. So, Jill, I know we're running up on time, but I do want to give you the chance to say anything. If there's something you really wanted to say or something you wanted to share about your students or your university that I didn't ask, that you haven't had a chance to talk about.
Jill Arensdorf:This is one thing that I think we're doing exceptionally well. And we can always be better, but I'm so thankful that our leadership prior to me stepping into this role as provost and saw the value and importance of democracy and civic engagement being thread into a student's higher education experience I know that's not a new idea, because higher ed has that. Part of our mission in higher ed is to do that, but to take ownership of that. At Fort Hayes we had administration and leadership prior to me and to see and to put value in that, and so I'm thankful for that, and I think the sky is the limit in terms of what we can do to engage our students in this work and engage one another. And I'm just really proud of our university for making this a strategic priority in our strategic plan and for continually making students a priority and connecting students with civic engagement opportunities.
Carole Chabries:You know you're right that it's the mission of higher ed and it's something about citizenship is in nearly every institution's mission, but not every institution can point to such deep level of work that you can point to it at Fort Hayes. So congratulations and commend you on all you're doing. Thank you.
Jill Arensdorf:Carole, thank you so much And thank you for the opportunity to visit today.
Carole Chabries:My pleasure. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Uplift Summer Session. I am picturing you listening while swinging in a hammock in the shade with your favorite book nearby, and speaking of books, can I buy you one? Here's the deal I'll make you I'll enter you in a monthly drawing for a $20 gift certificate at bookshop. org If you will head over to your podcast platform and leave me a review. Once a month, I'll choose a winner at random And if your name is chosen, I'll thank you on air and send you your gift certificate. This way, you get some great summer reading and I get to help you build your library. After all, I'll i'm the granddaughter of a librarian, so sharing books with people is one of my great joys. So head on over to your podcast platform or even Apple Podcasts, where it might be easier scroll to the bottom of the page for the Uplift and leave your review, and I want to send you a book.