From First Year to Final Defense with Dr. Angi Bourgeois

In this episode of UnchartED State, host Susan Seal sits down with Dr. Angi Bourgeois, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School at Mississippi State University, to explore the evolving role of general and graduate education in today’s rapidly changing landscape.

From the value of general education courses to the growing complexity of graduate pathways, Dr. Bourgeois shares insights on how higher education can better prepare students not just for their first job, but for long-term success in an unpredictable world. The conversation challenges the idea of education as purely transactional and instead highlights its role in developing critical thinking, adaptability, and lifelong learning.

Together, they discuss how institutions can balance workforce demands with broader educational goals, why general education remains a vital foundation, and how graduate programs are adapting to meet the needs of both students and employers.

As higher education continues to evolve, this episode underscores the importance of preparing students for more than a career—but for a lifetime of growth and impact.

In This Episode:

• The role and relevance of general education in today’s colleges and universities
• How graduate education is evolving to meet changing workforce needs
• Balancing job preparation with critical thinking and lifelong learning
• Rethinking education as more than a transactional experience
• Preparing students for long-term success in a rapidly changing world

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So this pressure of outcomes is really a detriment to the broader picture of what we're doing, which is having to stay true to preparing individuals to be able to master their world. That is on a life basis and that is on a career basis. At the end of the day, what Gen Ed really is meant to do is to develop a set of skills that will become activated, certainly activated in their major, in their careers, but also in navigating an incredibly quickly changing world.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Uncharted State. I am your host, Susan Seal, and I'm flying solo today as the host. Maddie is out and about doing the things that Maddie does for our College of Professional and Continuing Studies. But I'm very excited about our conversation today. We're kind of looking at both ends of the academic spectrum that don't often share the conversation, that general education on one end and then graduate education on the other. My guest today is Dr. Angie Bourjois. Welcome, Angie. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Dr. Bourgeois is the senior vice provost and dean of the graduate school at Mississippi. And uh it's a combination that puts her at the intersection of undergraduate curriculum reform and the future of advanced scholarship. She was uh previously dean of the College of Art, Architecture, and Design and is a proud art historian.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yes, I am. Yes, I am. And just so we don't cause a riot, I will say the College of Architecture, Art and Design.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Oh, I got it backwards, didn't I? Architecture feelings. I got you. Yeah, yes, yes. Absolutely. Let's get that right. You're juggling the undergraduate core curriculum conversation. And we've had a lot of conversations about um general education, and we'll get into that. But also the future of graduate education from the first year Gen Ed requirements to doctoral programs. How did you end up working with both ends of that? And uh what might they have in common that we don't think about?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, I I mean it's it was not on my horizon. So for Gen Ed, it makes sense. As an art historian, I came to Mississippi State to teach foundational understanding of the history of a discipline for the art department. So there were a bunch of artists and designers there. Art history plays an important role in their curriculum, also to serve the Gen Ed. So that they're there, that was the vital function that I came to Mississippi State to do teaching how important it is for us to understand how humans have engaged with their world, um, how they have developed systems to understand society, culture, to navigate life, death, and the afterlife. All of those things are things that play a big role in the function of Genet. And so I've I've lived m all of my academic career in the Genet. So that makes sense. And I I care deeply about our students really developing a set of tools for them to navigate the world today. A lot of those tools can be best developed by understanding systems in the past. And so that's what I believe Gen Ed really can do. When it comes to graduate education, I think in some ways I came to that role as somebody who is not deeply mired in graduate education. So I have not taught in graduate education. Um we don't have an undergraduate degree in art history, much less a graduate degree, but as a part of the enterprise of education and all of the systems from being a department head to being a dean to navigating a lot of the pressures, being able to walk in and as a little bit of an outsider into that and to be able to navigate the realities that we are about to face. I think that outside piece has been valuable. Um, so because we're gonna have to do things differently. I think that's true of all education. But with graduate education, we are seeing a rise of interest in what we would call non-traditional graduate education, because we tend to think about replicating ourselves in graduate education. So I think that connection in the depth of belief that I have in the value of education across that spectrum, I've seen it work in my own life. And coming out of a of the background I have, I think it really is the the underpinning that I have. From the beginning, the first days our students walk on campus, every piece of it builds them into be able to navigate their world and their future careers.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Some of your service roles with the university has probably also helped too, right? Being chair of our university committee on courses and curricula and other Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

So I actually I would it many times I think about that experience, seven years on the committee from a junior faculty role, early days at the foundation of the College of Architecture, Art and Design, and then three years leading that committee and all of the things that being on that committee connected me to, because that is the intersection of all forms of education in Mississippi State. And so being able to work with departments across every college at every level, that really gave me a greater insight in the complexity of how to build strong curricula, how to respond to a changing world through our curricula, and then navigate some of the, you know, the challenges that we have within the structures that we have.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

So let's start with general education. That seems like a good place to start, right? Start with the gen eds. Uh there's always been a at least some debate on gen eds. I mean, I remember when I was in college, which has been a few years ago, why do I have to take this course? At that point, they just said, because you want to graduate, right? And so I took the course. Turns out those things have been very beneficial. I was a business major, but my favorite courses were sociology and probably have served me every bit as well as the courses in my discipline.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah. I think that is, you know, you point to a little bit to sort of generational differences in a way. Right. I I actually think that's a big piece of what we often are missing. So I, you know, I'm proud Gen Xer, um, where we might kind of rebel, like we would rebel against the authority. At the end of the day, we were going to accept that they were the authority.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

They knew we got to push a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

We're gonna push, yeah, we're gonna complain, we're not gonna be that happy about it. But we tended to give them the respect that they understood what was good for us and therefore comply, right? We we might not like it, but we would comply. One of the things I've seen remaining in the classroom up until a lot of a couple of years ago, noticing that what our students were coming to us with was less of that automatic acceptance of our knowing best as an institution, as individual faculty member, as a generation. But if we could explain it to them, if we could help them understand the why, that they could get on board and would. You know, they would work, they would, they would see that, but they did need to know. So I actually I think it's really uh interesting that a big piece of of the Gen Ed picture is not assuming that everybody is on the same page with us, but saying, you know, we know, and most of us have lived through to have exactly that experience that you talk about. Man, that class that I took that I didn't even it was not a part of my major, I just had to take it. Somewhere down the line, that relevance kicks in and you're like, that's why.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Or it's even a thread through that you right, or you're not realize it.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

What I've I've heard a million people tell me, oh my gosh, my art history class or art appreciation, that that somewhere down the line, it kind of comes together for them working in the background often. And so I think um, I don't think we do a great job marketing, Jeanette. Yeah. I mean, it's actually even in the name.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Well, I've said I've said that we should do a continuing education art appreciation because at 18 and 19, I didn't appreciate how I I might actually enjoy that. So it is the student questioning, is that part of what's creating the conversation and the urgency, or is it budgets and legislators and all the different aspects of it?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, I think it's all of that. I think they're all a piece of the same pie. So I think, you know, overarchingly, the pressures that we feel in higher ed, I think I mean, I know you you we've all talked about it, is an increasing pressure to have a transactional education. You take these courses to prepare you for this job. And and I'm quite honestly, that has not been the history of higher education until I would say the last 25, 30 years. You know, people were going to become an educated person. And that major was a part of that. It wasn't the sole function of that. Um and now I think our students, but their students are are are shaped by their the their culture and their families' needs and desires. Um, the broad that is plays part of the broader society. So this pressure of outcomes is really um a detriment to the broader picture of what we're doing, which is having to stay true to preparing individuals to be able to master their world. That is on a life basis and that is on a career basis. Um, and I think at the end of the day, what Gen Ed really is meant to do is to develop a set of skills that will become activated, certainly activated in their major, in their careers, but also in navigating an incredibly uh quickly changing world.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

And so I think it is at odds with the desire that we'd like to see is a concrete education preparing for a concrete, successful career. But as our students move out, and as we have seen, everything about the world is changing so rapidly. And so if they're not prepared to be able to complexly think from a quantitative methodology, a scientific methodology, we all live through a major pandemic and how valuable being able to interact with information, scientific information in a thoughtful and grounded way. And then we all are humans at the end of the day, and social sciences, humanities, and the arts are really all ways for us to be able to better understand how humans do things. How, why do we respond in the way we do? I love telling students all the time, like humans respond in predictable ways to external stimuli. Well, that's true in art appreciation, right? We don't like something because we just do. We like something because we are a prone. There's reasons behind. There's scientific reasons behind. Optical science is a piece of it, and um, just the realities that certain forms and shapes and colors cause humans to react in fairly predictable ways. And so the more we know, the more we can get engage our world thoughtfully. We can avoid being manipulated.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

And I saw something the other day, and I've had conversations with people where they're like, well, you know, young people, they graduate with a degree, and that's not even what they're getting their job in, or whether it's initially, and I said, to me, that's an argument for the reason they can get another job in a different discipline is because of the general education and the other things they learn. It's not just, and we've talked a lot in this podcast about workforce and how things have shifted to just learning the skills that you need for this job, um, which is that's part of education. I mean, that's great. Yeah, but that's not the complete thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Right. I mean, I think that that's the the reality is if we lived in a vacuum where we were just doing the discipline-specific work, but the reality is we never do that. And we're not just our work. Right. And so so much of that, I I I I really uh I'll be honest, I bristled when people like, oh, art, you know, that's a nice addition. You know, that's I I've always enjoyed it as an extra. I was like, well, if humans have never existed without creating this thing that does not sustain life, it it must be vital to our to our existence. So being able to understand whether, and I I'm speaking from art, but the same is true by having not necessarily the deepest understanding, but a complex understanding to say, oh, there's something to this. Let me ask more questions. I actually think that's probably the most important thing we do in higher ed is teach kids to ask more questions. If it looks different, there's probably something going on. Look a little deeper, ask some questions of it. And those are the students. I mean, to me, those are the people who continue to ask questions, who will become leaders, who will thrive, who will invent uh and innovate. And that's, you know, I think that's what we're really trying to do. Often we get uh focused or or families, and believe me, I came off the farm. So my dad was worried about that first job. Um but the first job is is not our goal, right? The the at the end of the day, it is a lifelong success that we're looking at. And and we're looking at it from all the outcomes. Obviously, earnings is one piece of that, but career success. And as you say, it is a commonplace for people, you know, back when we were talking about our families, probably our parents' generation, they were typically going to work for the firm, you know, we wouldn't get that job, and then they were gonna retire after 35 years, get the gold watch. They may progress within that, but they stayed fairly tight within a similar field. Um, and now that's really we're all over the place today. Yeah, that's not true at all.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

So we're Mississippi State is looking at general education, making changes. Yeah. What should general education be? What what should Gen Eds as we're looking at making those changes and adapting? I mean, this this whole podcast, what we talk about all the time, is all the changes that are taking place. Some of them are difficult, but some of them are good. They're pushing us to where we should be. What should it be?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Well, I think number one, I think it it some piece of general education needs to be protected from being overly programmed, meaning, and this is the effort we're we're working on right now. So many of our disciplines, because we have a lot of really densely packed, you know, educational needs in our programs, so they will use the Gen Ed as foundational content courses. And that really is at odds with the goal of Gen Ed. And so one of the things we are hoping to do is to protect a number of hours, and that exactly how many that will be is unknown. And you mentioned that, you know, we we we've talked about transfer students, for example. So a student takes general education um courses at a community college, transfers in, they may take them dual enrollment high school, transfer them in, but the major they choose, they're not going to count. Well, in true gen ed that they would count, right? And so we would we are trying to work with our programs to try to separate foundational knowledge-based courses for the discipline from a Gen Ed and protect some level of those 30 hours of Gen Ed to do that, meaning that any student across any major could take these series of advantage courses. That's how we're we're branding our Gen Ed approach, that those courses would serve every single major and be accepted to fulfill Gen Ed in every single major. And they're truly general. And they're truly general. They're not tied to a discipline. They are meant to give our students a breadth and a complexity. Um, and then prepare them for those foundational classes so that they can come at them in a deeper manner. So they build the depth as they move up the curriculum, but they need to start complexly thinking, learning these tools, say uh critical thinking schools by domain. Um, and so that's one of the things. The the other thing we're really, I think, doing with that doesn't really change a whole lot is we're trying to develop a campaign of education about general education. So trying to help balance that idea that I don't need these courses or they're unimportant, I just have to take them. It's a checkbox to try to get students to understand the relevance and how this will go on. Because we do believe this generation of students, if they understand that, they'll be much more attuned to caring about them. And when they care about them, they engage with it and they get more out of it. So we need to teach different, we need to think, you know, package this content in a way that makes sense, that excites them, you know, moving away from intro to approaches to Gen Ed to um, you know, the problems of the world today, you know, really and the different approaches. And the different approaches to thinking about some of these major they they they call them wicked problem courses. Those are really exciting opportunities in Gen Ed that I think our students would respond well to and then take those away in a deeper fashion than they currently do.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Maddie and Sean talked about the book range in a previous uh episode. And one of the things he talks about is the the value of of having range and and being able to do a lot of different things. And the approach to problem solving, one of the things that uh they talk about is the people who have such a only know that their discipline. Well, they're gonna come at solving that problem only from that way, and they get stuck. But it's the people who have a broader range who have done some other things can actually solve. I mean, it's it's kind of the thing if if you're a hammer, everything's a nail.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Right. Well, and I think if people ask me, you know, I'm as I'm an art historian and I've moved into administrative roles, or like, do you ever use your art history anymore? I was like, every day, because it's problem solving. And learning to, first of all, you learn observation. If you're an art historian, you're gonna look at things very carefully. But one of the most important things that I learned was keep turning the problem around. Take yourself out of yourself. Every historian has to take their modern biases out of the equation. And so when you're dealing with interpersonal conflict in the office place, you know, you can't take one side over the other without really a fullness of understanding. I I I treat it very similar to an art object in the middle. You know, the conflict becomes the art object, and you've got to look at it from all sides and turn it around, question what you're seeing. So I think having those sets of skills and having our students, this is the different piece of where we are today, having them understand that this is what this is giving to you is a big piece of what I think will will create more success. So focus on relevance, having us teach in a way that communicates very openly about, hey, this is what you're gonna get out of this class. I I have taught art appreciation over the last several years. You know, it could be anything. It doesn't have to be art. Art's gonna be the tool that we use to break down how we the we are being manipulated by the world around us. Visual communication is designed very purposefully to engage results out of us. The more you know, the smarter you are. You can understand why do you get happy, you know, happy and excited when you see the big yellow M. You know, why do you get hungry when you see that M? Um, those are tools that then they can apply either. In their life environment because they're surrounded by visual imagery, or and the same is true whether it is scientific. You know, like I said, we go back to that pandemic. But being able to break down that information and separate facts from commentary. That's one of the great things that I think that a strong general education can do and needed more and more in today's world.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

You mentioned um transfer students. Uh Mississippi has a great community college network, but we also accept students from many states. How difficult is it going to be moving forward with what we're trying to do with Gen Eds to get everybody on the same page? And also, you know, with the high school, dual credit, those kind of things. Or does it make it easier? Because, like you were saying, it's general and so it should count. So how does that work with trying to get all the different levels on the same page?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

I do think that where we are at Mississippi State right now, we are focused on what we provide in terms of changing the content or the not even necessarily fully content, but the delivery, the focus, that engagement, um, relevance into the teaching. But the other piece that we've really been working on, like I said, on the one hand, our transfer students, that that's not going to change. You know, we're going to accept the articulated courses we have always accepted. That's that is an important relationship that we would never want to damage. I think that we will certainly offer intriguing courses so that students who need to pick up one or two who are transfer students and maybe they need to fill out a social science or humanities or that they will have options that will give them that piece. The other piece that we're we're really been uh spending some time talking about is actually partnership with the community college. And so um Gulf Coast Community College, Jonathan Woodward, has been a great partner. He himself in their institution really thinking about what their students need as the core skills of Gen Ed. Um, and that opened up a great conversation to say, well, we don't ever want to work against our community college, such a great relationship. We need to be in step with them. So I I would say on the one hand, everything we're doing should actually help our transfer students because if we do open up the Gen Ed so that any course that counts for Gen Ed can apply to a student within a certain number of their Gen Ed hours. Um, meaning if if they've taken a social science and their major already defines two different social sciences, we're trying to protect some of that away from having to replicate Gen Ed. But in the end, everything is being very carefully done so that the ultimate goal would be that we build a culture in which this is important again. That these are key. And that helps everybody. Yeah. And then it flows through, you know, back through the community college, even into the high school systems. So we kind of move away from checking boxes in education.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Well, and we and Jonathan's been a guest on our podcast as well. He's great. Um we've been having conversations about the 90-hour degree, which is another aspect that will affect general education. And what you're seeing, you know, some universities are just saying, okay, fine, we'll just we're going from 120 hours to 90 hours, we'll just cut gen eds. That doesn't seem to be a a great solution, but but one of the things we're talking about is we're in some ways they're trying to model some of the other international programs, but our systems aren't the same. So there there's there's so many different moving parts in in how we approach things.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Right. I mean, I think that it it it all makes sense until you dig a little deeper, right? I mean, uh that European institutions have three-year degrees with no genets. That's great. We you think, okay, that we should maybe we should do that. But then you don't look at their secondary education system, which is different, significantly different from ours, that includes that type of deep cultural, social science, natural education. It's just before you push it. In fact, my experience in Italy in particular, they have a uh an additional year. So they don't start college at 18. You know, their high school system goes a little bit longer and includes a lot of that stuff. So you can't really transplant. We can learn from them and pull, I think, important pieces together. But it yeah, until you re you've got to look at the whole system. Can't just duplicate something that is a completely different. And I would argue that that that's a piece of what we get from Gen Ed, right? Is if you you know you can't just isolate one piece, it's a part of a much broader complex system.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah. Okay, let's switch gears a little bit. Let's go from Gen Ed's to the other end. Yeah. Uh with the with the graduate uh just as complex. Just as complex. And in some areas, we're seeing uh enrollment decline. We had conversation yesterday in Dean's meeting about all the different aspects of the international and the impact that that's having. Um so what is happening from a general sense with graduate education? What programs are growing? Because we have some that are that are growing as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

What's interesting is watching, and of course, this is this is the end of my second year, really looking carefully at these questions. One of the things here at Mississippi State and at most of our peer research one institutions is we are still seeing a large demand on PhDs. So that that's important to us, obviously, with the creation of new knowledge and the process of educating the next scholars, um, the next innovators through a PhD program. We were up in PhD students significantly last year, and that's really what we want to see. Now, international students, as you say, go across all disciplines. And um, right now, we it it is a crisis for international recruitment. It's just very difficult. It it really doesn't matter where you're coming from because the process is complex right now, but obviously there are some places where it's just impossible. So we are looking at a significant decline in international graduate students next year. And good, you know, what we are seeing also is the growth of different types of graduate education or different areas. We've seen a lot of new graduate master's programs develop over the last two years and targeting really diverse audiences. You know, programs that you you in this College of uh Professional and Continuing Studies is focused on is bringing up is filling a gap where we have traditionally had graduate programs that are preparing one in research fields, masters and PhDs programs for a long, long time were really focused on greater and greater depth and and narrowing and narrowing the area of somebody's study around the creation of new knowledge or innovation within that discipline. And in the reality, we have great demands for new different audiences who need other things. And so, as you've talked about professional education, those people who are within a sector of the environment, but need to grow certain skills, deepen their knowledge in other areas. Um, so we're seeing a good amount of innovative uh master's programs come online. Um, we are up in graduate students, uh enrolled graduate students, which is the key number that they're not just admitted, but they have actually enrolled for the fall, which is is really good. I think our masters, the growth of master's programs over the last two years rolling out for this fall is a big part of that. And um, trying to balance the the distinction between what most of us in in the world of higher education think about for grad education and realizing that there is a broad audience of potential students who would be well served by looking at what brings value at the graduate level to them, their careers, and where they're trying to go. So that's I think one of the things we're trying to negotiate is because, you know, change is hard.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Well, and for years, and I've heard this many times, people say the role of a PhD is to create more PhDs. Yeah. Um, and so it's just this cycle and that's not really that's changing.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

I mean, well, maybe that's it. And I don't know that's changing. It's I don't know that it ever was really true. I'm gonna be really honest. What so I was able to go to a workshop at the NSF um this past year. And one of the things it was a it was a shocking um statistic, but something like 70 plus percent of all PhDs today are not going to go into academia. And but the mindset within those, those of us who have entered academia, I do think that is it, that is our bias, is that we're, and I don't mean that negatively a bias, that's what we think of because it happened to us. Right. Right. And so we we pursued a PhD learning from our faculty who taught people to become themselves. It it just doesn't seem that that bears out in reality that most PhDs do not enter academia. And the more I think we realize that, we can broaden our view and like who can we bring value to with this education? And to be sure, that workshop was looking at partnerships between industry and PhD programs and and trying to, and and it was interesting to see the challenge of the academic side and the industry side trying to find out a way to meet.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Well, and that's a lot of what we we're doing here in our last conversation with uh Scott Waller. Uh, we we really talked about a lot about that. But you know, what we kind of focus on in our sweet spot are our our professors, PhDs, uh, who have been in industry as well. Uh so we're we're we're kind of building on that. But we have a lot of people in this building that have gotten an EDD, and which is different, but I I've immediately started to see how they think differently. I I I use one example, uh, one of our faculty now, uh then she was an advisor, was had started her program, and we were talking about student success. And we talked about student success. I mean, just in general. And the first time I heard her say, okay, but first we need to define what we mean by student success. And she starts going to all these different things, and it just made me smile because she was approaching the questions and the problems and the things that we were trying to solve in a much deeper way. Right. Um, and it was very helpful. And so that just in how we approach the things that we do every day, uh, I've seen changes in our our staff.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Yeah. Obviously, I love school. You know, I never left. I I I used to joke, there's never been in August that I didn't start a semester since I was five. Um, but I do think having the different voices within academia, people who are coming from a different background or who are bringing industry experience in, or who are looking at it because they're actively involved themselves in their own, you know, inquiry, whatever that might be, uh, you know, we are facing a really complex world and there is no singular solution. So the more complexly we can answer the needs of the public, um I I believe that education is is part of the answer of for where we are. But only if we uh position ourselves to be um open to who they are and where they are. You know, we talk about meeting the students where they are. That's true for graduate education too. Not everybody is looking or needs, or or quite honestly, do we need more PhDs in certain fields, right? And I'm not against anything, but we want to make sure we're providing a comp a broad variety of ways for people to engage more deeply uh in learning.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

So we're an R1 institution. How does that fit with the need to continue to do the research? And we we mentioned here before that um for every dollar spent Mississippi State, we all we provide $25 of investment uh for the state. And a lot of that comes from the research, but it also comes from the service and and from our extension system. Um, but the changes in graduate and and maybe be more applied in some areas, does that positively or negatively affect the research component of what we've kind of thought of in the past is that you know hardcore uh research?

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Pure science, basic science, what they call basic science. Well, I guess my feeling or my what I'm seeing is at an institution like Mississippi State, because we actually do have our our our powerhouse PhD programs in ag and engineering, those in in many ways are inherently applied. They are going to translate to um their respective industries and their the populations that are served by them. And I think that that does insulate us to some degree from some of the stressors that we're seeing culturally, um the pushback against um certain areas of education, you know, and I'll just, you know, the humanities of social science are getting kind of beat up a little bit because of their relevance. This is where I, you know, or people's understanding of their relevance. 100%. I'm not gonna be clear, is that they are very relevant. But um, but in this moment um when external forces are looking at education, I do think Mississippi State in our PhD programs is is still thriving. I I really do, because our greatest strengths in PhD programs are very visibly in areas that help the world, right? That help us advance, um whether it's in engineering or an ag, and of course, uh being able to spend time globally in Italy, um, seeing our relationship with food security and the role that we play and the precision agriculture and uh sustainable food sources, those areas um protect our PhD mission in many ways. And and and that's kind of true uh across all of our disciplines because the institution has a strong reputation and value external, externally seen as a valuable place for PhD studies. I I I worry more about institutions that are much more focused in the humanities and social sciences for their PhDs without those um science, you know, the STEM fields being very strong because I think, you know, I just think that they're struggling to justify the value of that study. It's very, very valuable, but in today's culture, you know, it's just it's harder to see.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

I I took um I did a study abroad in China a few years ago. And we were visiting some of their universities there, and I asked, because uh with an extension background, so how do you get the research that you're doing out to the people? They've looked at me like they had no idea why I was asking that or what I was even asking. For the most part, they were doing research for the sake of research. And I think that's a real value to particularly land grant universities, um, not limited to Mississippi State, but they're, you know, across the nation, that the research informs uh in uh what we teach outside, how we take it out to the the people.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Well, and I I think in many ways we we could and we uh draw a line from the investments that we are placing into advanced study and PhDs, for example, to an impact to citizens within the state. And that's the work that we do. We were able to show that. And so I, you know, I listen, I went to a small liberal arts school for college. I worry about those institutions because right now it's a tough sell. I'm an art history undergrad major and and then went on to graduate work in that field. It's it's harder, I think, for those institutions to weather the the current state of pressures on higher education to have a one-to-one relationship between the education and the career. So, you know, I can believe, and and and I think data bears it out that a strong liberal arts undergraduate education leads to great career outcomes and higher earnings at mid-career. But that's not visible right now. It's a tough sell. And so I I I don't have as much of an anxiety about comprehensive public land grant institutions um being able to make the argument for um advanced graduate studies because we do a great job communicating the positive impact back to people.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

But both of our alma maters have struggled a little bit with that.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Yeah. I mean, when Birmingham Southern closed their doors after 150 years, that was a hard hit to me to see that happen and realize it can.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Yeah. So we've talked about general education, we've talked about graduate education, talked a little bit about your work in Italy, but but not a lot. With all of those very different things, what is your strategic focus?

SPEAKER_00 41:20

That's a really good question because it's a big transition in my career. I was a faculty member, loved it. That's what was my plan for my whole career is to be a faculty member, uh, do my research, teach uh my classes, and be a part of the community of learners that we have here. Then I moved into administration where I had a role as a department head, you know, to basically create an environment for success for our students and our staff and our our faculty, moved into a dean of a college where I was doing that. Now this transition, I'm a I'm I'm I think I'm a um utility player in many ways. Is is I uh we have a great graduate school, we have great staff of of folks who serve our academic unit, serve our students, navigate a lot of the invisible processes. So, what does a grad school need um from a dean of the graduate school? It's a little different than a dean of a a college. And so one of the things is is standing at a at a point to be able to see what's coming. Graduate education is is weathering a storm, particularly right now surrounding international students, the limitations on stay, that's uh how long they can stay and do and do their work, how hard it is for them to get in the country. But more broadly, we're having to demonstrate more than ever the value of of what we're doing. So I think being able to see that and and talk with my peers, the other deans, and trying to to because they're balancing and juggling all the juggling a variety of things, to be able to keep those questions, those considerations, those discussion points as a part of the major conversation is is one of the things for me. And then the rest of it is all a part of this holistic picture that I believe in so much. You know, yeah, I'm working on um Gen Ed, of course, I'm supporting a great committee of faculty who are really doing the work. Again, kind of providing them insights of from the perspective that I can see, um, pushing them to think in that complex way, um, answering a lot of questions about that. And then global studies, again, these are all things that if we really got down to it, are were the most fun little things about my life. Is uh probably the most important thing I ever did in college was study abroad. It it changed who I was as a person. Um, and so the opportunity to help MSU um grow that, particularly in the place where I did all of my research, which is in Rome. Um, MSU has such strong connections from a graduate research perspective, as well as a uh, you know, just the pure benefit of being able to study basically every time period in the history of the world in that, you know, that microcosm of Rome. Um, being able to be a part of that and seeing our students who are also coming from a similar rural background, many of them first gen, I was a Pell eligible student, um only went to school because of federal aid. Seeing them have growing opportunities to do that is what excites me. And so a lot of, you know, I'm uh instead of being in charge of one thing and sort of ushering all the complexity of that one thing, I'm I'm kind of excited right now that I'm focusing my attention on what I would say is very important. You're showing your range. Yeah. Are you having fun? I am having fun. It's, you know, it's a it's a big puzzle, and I love puzzles. And I think problem solving at its best is, you know, I'm an optimistic person by nature. And so these are a lot of challenges and it can get you down, but to realize that, you know, this life is not happening to us, we have an active role to play, and that the more we take control of w how we respond and and and look for ways to to you know serve our students. That's what we're really here to do. Help our faculty be successful and serve our students. I think that's what excites me. And some of that is hard. And that's the part that I didn't think when I went into administration I would like, but that hard part is where the excitement is.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah that's great. The hard part is where the excitement is. Well, thank you for being this has been fun this morning. So thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate it for all the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Yeah, and we and then I prepared a small three-hour conversation about Italian Rhizom. Next up. Next up. No, appreciate it. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

Thank you for joining us on Uncharted State. We hope today's conversation sparked some new ideas about the future of higher education. You never know what uncharted territory we'll explore next.