3: Agricultural Leadership and We Love West Texas w/ Dr. Jason Headrick

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Our guest for today is Dr. Jason Hedrick, an assistant professor of ag leadership and community development in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communications in the Davis College. Dr. Hedrick has a great depth of knowledge in communications and leadership and community development from his experience at Kentucky, in Nebraska, and then here at Texas Tech. He has a powerful and impactful program called We Love West Texas that explores development and health and betterment of rural communities. Today's episode was an exciting and wide-ranging conversation about everything from developing students in the classroom to developing stronger, healthier communities. I think you're really going to enjoy hearing from Dr. Hedrick. I know I learned a lot from him talking to him, and I think you're really going to enjoy getting his perspective on how community works and how to make it stronger. So join us, stick around for today's episode and learn more about growing deep roots into agriculture. Jason, it is great to have you here today. We're so excited to have you be part of Deep Roots and just to hear more about your story. So just to kick us off, tell us a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself, what's your position here at Texas Tech, and what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Great question. Thanks for having me, first of all. Yeah, Jason Hedrick. I'm an assistant professor of leadership and community development in the Department of Agriculture Education and Communications. I'm in the agriculture leadership discipline, which we get a lot of questions about, but essentially, you know, my students say we're learning about ag leadership. What's the theory of ag leadership? And there's not a theory of ag leadership. We're more contextual. And we know that across the ag and natural resources industry, we need leaders and we need people who understand how to work with people, how to motivate people, how to influence people. And so that's sort of where we find our students and how they find us. We're definitely a thinking major. And I say that because we ask students a lot to apply it to apply the content to their own life and go and try out listening, go and try out asking difficult questions, going to try these things out in a more applied way. And I think that's sort of what ag leadership is.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Okay. What kinds of, I'm curious, what kinds of careers come out of that? Where do your students go?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah. We've been having this discussion quite a bit. And I think that one of the main places that our students go is anywhere in the public sector. I mean, in terms of working with people. We have people who work in government and policy. We have students or graduates who work in human resources, some work in consulting in different facets. And so I think that we try to prepare our students for careers that allows them to basically work with people. And that may sound silly, but I've met a lot of animal science students who only want to work with animals. And so I think that with ag leadership, we're preparing our students to take on some of these larger challenges across agriculture and natural resources, whether that be food disparity, hunger, or things like environmental concerns. You know, there's a lot with AI and technology that's bringing on a lot of environmental concerns. And what I'm telling my students, and I know that what we're trying to teach in our courses in ag leadership is critical thinking is important. And we need people who are going to not single-handedly solve the world challenges, but who can at least lead the conversation and get the right people to the table.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

That's and that's really important. And I think, you know, you mentioned that majors interact with different things differently, right? Like maybe an animal science major wants to spend most of their time with horses, or an NRM major likes to be out in a field chasing frogs. And I say that because I have a good friend that graduated with a degree in chasing frogs. Okay. And she was great at it. But regardless of what field we're in, I think you've really hit on something important that we're going to be expected to communicate effectively and deal with interpersonal issues and, like you said, bring the right people to the table. And so that's just such good, I don't know, training, problem-solving abilities that all of our students need. Everyone needs.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Absolutely. Yeah, and it doesn't stop with just students. It's a lot of people who have worked in the ag industry their entire life, you know, when they're faced with new challenges, sometimes they don't know exactly what to do, and that's okay. I think sometimes asking the questions and making sure, especially in rural communities, I do quite a bit of work in rural communities and knowing that you can't and don't have all the answers, and that's okay. There are absolutely people within the bounds of your community that you can bring in to help address some of these challenges and situations. And I think one of the things too that we find is that sometimes we get so used to doing things a certain way that it feels uncomfortable to bring new people in and new ideas in. And I think that that's definitely something that we can and should do because that's when communities tend to grow, is when they really kind of look around and say, who are our experts? Who do we have that can uniquely be ready to help solve these challenges? Us to take a look at it a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah, and that's yeah, really important. You know, we're training leaders, we're training the next generation of the people that are gonna run the world. And I think the way that we train them and the way that we teach them is so important with compassion and empathy and to teach them to interact well. And that's it's awesome that you do what you do. But in that, you know, in this season of deep roots, we're gonna be talking to a lot of field scientists, lab scientists, you know, looking at mitochondrial power generation up to, you know, the I don't know, application of different types of natural latex. There's all kinds of things we're looking at. But your research is a little bit different. And I would love to hear more about that. Could you talk just about what does your research look like? What kinds of projects are you taking and what are the bigger implications of that?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Life is my laboratory.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

That's a pretty good answer.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

And I could just walk away right now, but I won't. I'll keep going. I think that my research really, I'm trained as a leadership studies PhD. And one of the things in that I'm using my unique experiences within agriculture growing up in the industry, uh, and what I've learned along the way to couple with what how I'm trained as a leadership scholar. And so leadership studies, how we use leadership in rural communities across the ag and natural resources industry, how we again, how we're working and involving people is part of my research. The other part is I grew up in a rural community in Kentucky. And one of the things that I know is that rural places are near and dear to my heart and are a real passion for what I do and try to put together. And there's some unique challenges in rural communities, but I think that more than that, we have to look at the strengths. What's going well in rural communities and how can we leverage that to be a place of growth and pride? People in small towns and small rural areas, they typically love being from those spaces and places. And I think that's a real, that's a real selling point for a lot of these communities. But we just have to find ways to help them leverage some of these other challenges that they encounter. And so we have a project right now, we love West Texas. We're looking at 41 counties across the South Plains and Panhandle of Texas. And we're going in and asking community members, what do you like about your community? What are the challenges? We're asking questions about healthcare. We're asking questions about mental health. We're asking questions about the ag industry. We know that the price of doing agriculture has increased over the past few years. And so we're trying to get a better picture so that one, we have just some base data that we can communicate and share across Davis College. But the other survey that we're doing is focused on community leadership and how we're developing and what does leadership look like in these role spaces. And it's been really fascinating to learn. Admitted, I'm not a Texan. And so learning a lot about Texas through this project has been really interesting and fascinating. And I see a lot of parallels from when I lived in Nebraska and when I've also, when I grew up in Kentucky and what I know is going around on in that state around rural challenges and rural vitality.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

That's really interesting too. And I think there are times, I want to explore that just a little bit more. Because I think there are times that people look at Ag Country, the South, as sort of a monolith. And it's very much not. It's such a, these are such dynamic communities. So you said there are a lot of parallels between what you saw in, you know, your previous institutions and Nebraska and from home and everything else. Are there things that you found in West Texas that are sort of specific to life here? Are there challenges that are unique to our people?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

I think that one thing, water is something that's talked about quite often here. And I feel like over the past year has really become a talking point in a lot of areas. Water is, I'm not gonna say that people from the East Coast take water for granted. It does rain pretty regularly. There's snow, there's those sort of things. And coming to a place like Lubbock that only gets a small percentage of rainfall each year, that that's been something that I think that I've been more keen on and listening to is the experience of others around water. And so I do believe, though, that water is a challenge that we keep hearing about on with our We Love West Texas project. Healthcare is something else that is unique. One of the questions that we ask in our survey was how what's the distance that you drive to see a primary care physician? And I think the average right now among our responses is 34 minutes. Wow. And some of them, two was I think the lowest number that we have, but four hours is the other, the opposite end. And when you get into more like specialty care around cancer screenings, heart disease, even veterinarian. We ask about veterinarian care. And for many of our respondents so far, that's about 35 to 40 minutes just for veterinarian care. And you know, this gives us some big challenges about access in rural areas. Texas is a vast country. And especially in this part of the state, it feels like sometimes like I'm, you know, I'm just driving a lot. And where am I going? And but I think that again, this gets back to that idea that people in rural areas really enjoy being from these rural areas because a lot of times it's where they were raised. It's they have tremendous pride for these spaces and places. But I think that that one of the things that we're finding with the survey and where we hope to go with it next is that, you know, we're going to share this data with economic development coordinators and elected officials in these counties because we want them to have specific data that they can use for grants and even for talking points of where do we need to go from here. And but in looking at that, I think that we have some unique opportunities to kind of celebrate parts and people. I think people are at the end of the day are always the parts of community that you can celebrate, is the people and what makes that community unique. And so I think that's that's going to be one of our kind of talking points as we move forward with data collection and then putting some of this together. It's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

And I think, you know, talking about the impacts of our work, I think it's pretty clear actually, from what you do, the greater societal partnership impacts you have, right? Like dealing with water, dealing with healthcare, and even just letting people be heard in their struggles. Like those are big community impacts. But specifically, I'm curious, in the students you've worked with, how how do you think this work and this research has impacted them being part of studies like this and going out and meeting people and those kinds of things?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I think one of the things, when I have a student from West Texas right now, I can talk about specific data points like here's some things from your community and what I'm learning, and what's your reaction to that? And these are things that often our college students have never been asked to take on or to consider or to think about. And so I think it challenges them in new ways and personalizes some of these challenges, these grand challenges a little bit more for them. And so getting their take on what it is that we can do and how we move forward, I think is important. I teach a civic leadership course. And civic leadership is people hear that term and they often think, you know, that's voting. I vote. Does that make me a civic leader? Well, by and large, we find that a lot of people aren't voting and they don't have a voice in their communities. And civic leadership is more about it's being involved and engaged in even small ways, but it's also about asking, what can I do to make an impact in my community? And that doesn't mean you have to run for a public office, but it might mean that you serve at a local nonprofit, or there's lots of things you can do. But in this course, we're teaching students about how communities work. We've done some work with the Lubbock City Council, and you and I are working on a project right now with the city and doing some things there to teach behaviors. It's you can give knowledge, but I think that often in leadership courses, we're teaching behaviors. And these behaviors are things that you can take with you to your own community. It doesn't have to be Lubbock, it can be any community that you can take with you. And so I think in the civic leadership course, that's one of the things we're trying to do is to get students informed about what communities are and how they work, and then how to ask the bigger questions. How to this week we're doing assessments and surveys. And so they're going out and actually doing these surveys, kind of hitting the ground. And I think that's a education. I think to take on the challenges of tomorrow, we have to be out and engaged today. And I think that in doing that, we're teaching students some new skill sets, but also maybe making them think about things in a way they never have and challenging what they know, but also encouraging them to be creative and encouraging them to take ownership of their knowledge and how are they going to apply that moving forward?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

It's really interesting. And I so you brought up partnering with different organizations, economic development associations, city councils, and things like that. So you this is the type of work that you cannot do without partnerships, right? Like you have to have sort of in the community, the ear of the community. How do you go about finding and building those? What kind of impacts does that have, again, on you and on your students and on the research as a whole?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, I think one person at a time is the answer. I mean, you build a network slowly. And and I think that, you know, working in these communities, you just have to be willing to pick up the phone and call and talk to someone. And maybe it they're not the right person, but hopefully they'll get you in contact with the people that you need to. And I think that that's been one of the greater challenges of our project is finding good community partners who are willing to trust because maybe they've been burned on projects before, and they're not quite sure what are you doing exactly? And I think that that those questions have led to some really great connections and partnerships, but it's taken time. Yeah, and that's the thing. A lot of the work when you work with people, it's not quick. It's it does take time and it takes investment. Yeah. And people are something you invest in.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, that's awesome. And you know, you actually answered my next question already. So that's awesome. I was gonna ask about challenges, but I think, yeah, like you said, the time, the commitment, just working with working with complex organisms is hard enough. And then, you know, then you start working with us complex organisms that have careers and ambitions and a specific filter with which we view the world, and it does complicate things. So thinking forward a little bit, you know, you're unless correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're wrapping up the We Love West Texas program.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah. That funding goes until this summer, okay, 26. We're exploring some different options to keep the work going, but it's definitely given us, I think, some launch points for some projects moving forward with it.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

So yeah, and thinking, you know, for it's hard, right? We, you know, there's so many things in science that are we'll see what the funding looks like, we'll see what all that. But forecasting out five years, whatever. What kinds of work do you want to be in? More of the same? Are there new avenues you want to explore? That's a really great question. You've brought silence. You know, as an interviewer, that's fun sometimes. It's maybe not compelling television, but I think in five years, I I really want to I want to continue to talk about how we're engaging in our communities.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

What does that mean in rural places? What are we, how are we honestly taking a look at our communities and how are we moving the needle? And is there something, is there a blueprint that I can help develop and create so that a town in North Dakota can pick it up and be able to move with that versus a town in California or Kentucky or here in Texas? And so I think it's important to we can't generalize and say this one blueprint will change every community. Yeah. Because every community is so different, the people are so different. And I but I think that there are absolutely things that we can begin to develop that serve as resources for people to use in the moment when they're ready. And I hope that's some of the work that I'm continuing on the leadership side. I think that critical thinking is so important and how we encourage and motivate my students, how I do that in my classroom, I know is important. And I'm one of the other things right now is reading. Yeah. And if you're listening to this, you may be an avid reader, and that's a great skill to have. But one of the things that I find is that skill set does not exist with my students. So I have to find new ways to to engage them and tap into them reading and and really being prepared to have the discussions that we have. And I don't think this is an ag leadership problem. I hear this as a generational problem right now. And so I think that reading as a skill is honestly something that I don't know that I'll solely take it on, but I I actually just this week heard of some other faculty members, other institutions that are beginning to have these same conversations. So I may have just found myself a collaborative team. I don't know. But but I think that we have to look at the level of preparedness for this generation and future generations to take on these big problems. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

So as we wrap up, and it's just again, I think I could talk about this all day because I think it's so fascinating. I think it's such an important piece of our ag research space or ag space in general is the data is good, the hard science is good, but gosh, how do the people work? What is what is compelling about the people in the industry? I think that's super fascinating. But from our conversation, from what you do in general, again, we have a wide variety of people who listen to the show, from bench scientists to students to just the general public. What do you wish they would take away with them? What thing do you wish that they would capture and just hold on to coming out of this, listening to this episode?

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, great question. I think that in agriculture and natural resources, we as an industry, we're very passionate about what we do. We're passionate about the impacts that we can have and do have across society and across the world, not just our own communities, but what we do in agriculture can absolutely impact others across the world. And so I think that one, we take ownership of that power, but also, as we learned from Superman, with great power comes great responsibility. And I think that we have to be willing to take that responsibility and to understand. Understand how to do that. And so I think that's why it doesn't matter what sector of the industry you're in. If you're a farmer, rancher, producer, you're someone who works more on the technical side, someone who is a lab scientist. I think that we all have a part to play, but we have to take ownership of the leadership responsibilities around that and really leading the industry in ways that it's not been led in before. And so be willing to take chances. And I think that's that's what I hope people take away, is that leadership is always something you can work on. And if you have questions, we're absolutely glad to help in any way that we can.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Which is a fantastic segue into how can people contact you? Where can they find more about your research and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, they can look at my faculty bio page on the website. I think another place at TTU Ag Leadership on Instagram is a good place. We try to post up things that our students are doing, and you can learn more about the major and the degree and things like that. But yeah, the I mean, and just good old-fashioned email. It's not old-fashioned, I guess, but it feels like it. It feels old-fashioned at this point. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, just just getting a hold of us in any way that you can, but engaging with us. We also we're people, people. So we like to do that as well. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Jason, thanks so much for your time. This was super interesting, and I just it's always exciting to hear more about what you do and what we do in the college.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Thanks for having me.