Ep. 12 - Life in Education: Dr. Bobby New’s Legacy

A Fayetteville superintendent who also spent 26 years flying helicopters and airplanes as an Army and National Guard aviator has a different way of talking about leadership: calm, practical, and shaped by responsibility that never really shuts off. We’re joined by Dr. Bobby New, UCA class of 1971, to walk through the moments that formed his view of Arkansas public education and the people who make schools work.

We start with Conway, football, and arriving at what was then State College of Arkansas, where coaches and instructors provided the kind of hands-on guidance that sticks for decades. From there, Bobby’s path takes a sharp turn into ROTC, active duty, and flight school, before circling back to UCA as a graduate assistant. That decision launches a career that spans teaching, administration, statewide work at the Arkansas Department of Education, and ultimately district leadership including 13 years as superintendent of Fayetteville Public Schools.

Along the way we get into what the public often misses about the superintendent job, why evenings and weekends belong to students as much as administrators, and how extracurriculars like band and athletics can become a powerful engine for student engagement. Bobby also shares advice for new teachers, what has changed in classrooms, and what never changes about reaching kids with empathy and clear expectations.

If you care about school leadership, teacher development, Arkansas education, or the real behind-the-scenes work of running a district, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with an educator you respect, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome To Central To NWA

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This is Central to NWA, a UCA podcast. I'm your host, Paul Gatling, and we are bringing the University of Central Arkansas to Northwest Arkansas. Each episode, we will talk with leaders, alumni, and innovators driving this region forward. People who are shaping industries and defining what is next for our state. Let's get started.

Meet Dr. Bobby New

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hey everyone, welcome back to another edition of Central to NWA. I'm Paul Gatling with the University of Central Arkansas, and today's guest is Dr. Bobby New, UCA class of 1971, technically December 1970, graduation for Dr. New, former superintendent of Fable Public Schools. And Bobby, I've got to tell you, from the time you and I met a couple of weeks ago, um, I've been looking forward to this one. I've been looking forward to having you. We could tell some stories. You could tell some stories. Maybe not, right? Here. Yeah, I've got to be. Some of those were called me. Yeah. Keep those to no, I'm teasing they're good stories.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Good stories. So solid memories. Yeah. Well, well, most of my guests are still in the middle of their career, but your perspective, and today we get to talk about that, a life full in education. Um, you got the chance to look back on your career and give me that perspective and talk about some of those things. So uh it feels a little like sitting down with somebody who's seen a lot and done a lot. Uh so uh I'm looking forward to this. I think our listeners are going to enjoy it. I know I will. So uh, first of all, welcome. Really appreciate you being here. Thank you, Paul. Glad to be here. So, yeah, Dr. New, as we mentioned, spent decades as a teacher and a coach and uh school administrator across Arkansas and wrapped up his career in 20, 2009. 2009. Yeah, 2009, 13 years as a superintendent at Fayville Public Schools. He also served 26 years in the Army and National Guard as an aviator, flying both helicopters and airplanes, and retired with the rank of colonel. So we're gonna get into all of that. Then we're gonna talk about UCA in the late 60s and early 70s and a lifetime in education.

Growing Up In Conway

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Bobby, let's start here. You're from Conway. You grew up in Conway, graduated in 1965, I believe is the day. What do you remember about growing up in Conway?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Uh, just an absolutely quintessential, uh perfect uh little community uh for an imperfect uh teenager and young guy growing up. But it was just absolutely wonderful. My my uh uh school and education career uh was just uh trim tremendous.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

What's what's that wampus cat cheer with the five legs or two for fighting, two for something like that? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Maybe it's a hybrid of a hog call, but I'm not sure about they may have started that after I left Conway. So yeah, but Conway uh uh was itself uh it wasn't even a bedroom community at that point. Uh it was just Conway. Right. Uh and we went to the big city when we needed to shop or mother and dad needed to uh take us to uh a Christmas event or something like that in Little Rock. But Conway was uh pretty isolated, really, we thought at that time. 32 miles.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Well, and kind of like you know, the way Northwest Arkansas has evolved. We now we're northwest Arkansas, but every town used to be, you know, there used to be, you know, Bittonville, and then you would go some ways and go to Rogers, and you'd go aways and go to Fayetteville, and now it's just all kind of grown together, and now Conway has kind of evolved that way uh with Little Rock. Did you were you always someone who um played a lot of sports? Did you play? I know you played football. Bobby New, member of the 1964 undefeated Conway and done your home football team. I believe in being prepared, Dr. Stu. Thank you very much. Did you grow up playing baseball, football, basketball?

SPEAKER_01 3:44

All the above. And then as the pyramid uh got uh I got older and the pyramid got tighter, I ended up uh deciding just to do football. And so yeah, I gave up basketball, track, bait. At the time, we only had uh little league baseball and then pony league and and so, but no, somewhere uh in that 14 to 16 age group, uh, I think my dad said, You've got a choice. You can either go to work or you have no gas money. So uh yeah, so I found jobs, uh we found jobs around Conway doing bailing hay or doing odd stuff, and yeah, so it was it was great. When he put it to you like that, that decision real easy. Dad wasn't real subtle.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Uh, you know, it was in fact a real dry sense of humor.

Campus Life At State College

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Right. So all right, so graduated 1965 Conway High School, um, coming to a college campus UCA had a really interesting time in in our history, 1965. What do you remember about uh campus life and just uh UCA? Of course, not called UCA at that time. Uh I think it's actually SCA. Yeah, State College of Arkansas.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

State College of Arkansas and What do you remember about c campus life then when you arrived? Well, I I I thought, you know, I'm I'm from Conway. It's going to be sort of odd being in college instead of off somewhere. Yeah. But yet it was still isolated in a sense. And so uh even though uh we had a small enrollment at the time as compared to today, yes, uh, it was just uh really nice little uh three or four blocks from my home, but had no idea that home was three or four blocks away. We just had a great uh college career.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

So the university obviously compared to today, I mean, just physically, you know, much smaller, probably a lower steward student body enrollment. Uh did you live on campus for most of your time there? I mean, I don't know if living off campus was something. I did.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

I lived in a dorm uh for the first year, and then several of us got apartments and as we do today. And so, yeah, lived off dorm, off campus.

Playing UCA Football In The AIC

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah, and you also played football. Right. I did. Right. What do you remember about that time and and your and your football experience for players?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Perfectly average career is hard to remember a lot about it, but we had great coaches. Um, Coach Raymond Bryant was the head coach, Rex Lovell, Bill Stevens, uh Bill Nutter, who unfortunately I just passed away uh a week or so ago. Uh he moved over uh into tracks solely or exclusively at some point in time, but they were Vance Strange. Vance was uh one of our uh coaches, and so uh great, great atmosphere, and we had a uh really good uh the if you rem Paul, if you remember it was called the AIC conference. Oh, miss uh I remember the a lot of people miss that. Yeah, do uh but it was uh relatively short trips, it was uh rivalries with uh tech and and other AIC schools. Yeah, all those tech purchase teaching Washtaw. Washtag Hendricks at that time, and uh but uh yeah it was uh we just didn't realize how really sort of neat and and uh uh I guess uh just uh a way of of uh of playing football and not leaving the state.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Right, right. And geographically. Yeah, and that part is fun, but also just um not worrying about all the things that college athletics has to worry about these days as well. I mean, none of that existed. Uh no. You went and played football.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

That's correct. And it was all amateur sports. Um we would play a a game or two outside the state, Troy, or um uh another Alabama-Oklahom team, but yeah, by and large, when you had that many in the AIC, most of them were conference games, uh-huh. Most of them were in-state, most of them uh were were close games, and and we set a great uh great episode. What position did you play? I was defensive back, uh, and the uh coach Stevens uh had uh at that time a monster man and and roamed around, and I was sort of a a third linebacker, inside linebacker of sorts. Right? Yeah, AIC championship teams? You know, uh uh we I think finished second and third the years I was there, um, although I was uh uh a freshman when Bobby Tyner was a senior, and they may have won the championship then, but I was uh not on the team at that.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Senior year. Yeah, the legendary Bobby Tyner. Bobby Tyner. Right, one of the great uh quarterbacks in Arkansas college football history. History. Really, yeah. He was fantastic. Um what kind of and when you mentioned you were rattling off a lot of uh big name coaches there, not just at um State Teachers College uh but in Arkansas college history. What kind of impact when you look back on the guys that were there and mentors you had played for you? Uh what kind of impact did they have on you as a you know a young um uh 18, 19-year-old college kid?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Well, I was fortunate to have uh Coach Lovell from the time I was uh in the ninth grade all the way through our graduation because he moved essentially from Conway High School head coach to uh UCA offensive coordinator line coach, I believe. He was on the offensive side of the ball. I know that for sure. And and then uh we had uh uh Coach Stevens and and I mentioned Coach Bright. And a lot of folks see Coach Bright as a football coach that don't know he was actually a track coach prior to becoming uh the head football coach. He was just a great that those were years when UCA was unbeatable at track. Yeah. Just great athletes.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, all the AIC schools um you know had track. Right. Um, I went to Henderson, we did, I think Henderson is restarting their track program now, and so track I think is making kind of a comeback, but it was a it was a big sport for all the AIC schools, and now it's just kind of hit or miss. Right. Yeah. Right.

ROTC To Army Flight School

SPEAKER_00 10:06

So you spent after after graduation, December 1970 is when you were a midterm graduate. Um, what was your first job? Was was education and coaching and teaching? Is that something that was uh on your radar immediately? Tell me where you landed after UCA first. Uh no.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Um my first uh bus stop after uh after finishing my degree in December was uh Fort Knox, uh, Kentucky. So I was uh on active duty, uh had an ROTC commission from UCA and then immediately went on active duty. Well, I say that March uh maybe 15th. So I had a couple three months before I went on active duty, but uh from from uh uh the classroom to another classroom. Um at the time, uh we were I was at officer basic training and at Fort Knox as a tanker. Okay. Uh and then from there, uh three months after that, I found myself at a place called Fort Walters, Texas, in flight school. But and went uh five or six months at Walters and then down to a place called Fort Rucker, Alabama, which is uh South Alabama, down around Dothan. And uh finished flight school down there and from flight school graduation over to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and spent a couple years there before I came back to UCA. Yeah. Came back home.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

What brought you back to to UCA, to Arkansas?

SPEAKER_01 11:35

You know, Paul, we were talking a little bit about this. I had a couple three offers uh in outside of education, and it was a it was a hard call, and and I I look back now and think I made the right decision. But at the time, um a little organization that was run by a fellow by the name of Ross Perot uh offered me a job uh with his company, and um as as God would have it, I was home on leave, and if I recall then uh the uh the occurrence, well I ran into Bill Stevens, Coach Stevens, who was doing track, and uh in Conway and and we were talking, and he said, No, I really need a graduate assistant to come back and and help me, and you don't have anything else to do. As uh he put it, and I thought, well, maybe I don't, Coach. He still had a lot of influence over me. Coaches do, you know. But anyway, I I took a detour, and that detour worked out real well for me. And and uh maybe the corporate life would have been uh exciting also, but I I can't look back and and uh think I made a bad decision. Coach Stevens offered me a graduate assistantship.

Returning To UCA And Teaching

SPEAKER_01 12:50

I came back and and off of active duty and finished my master's and then I started teaching.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah, and then that and the way you went, teaching and and school administration, and that was uh that was your career. Um started in Conway. Did you ever imagine um where your career would go as a GA football coach for the UCA Bears? I mean, did you what was coaching like? I mean, you were still so young. I mean, um, what was coaching like compared to you know playing football, coaching guys that were not that far from your age?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

It was a natural transition. Yeah. Um uh the and then so I'll I'll back up and digress just a minute, Paul. So uh as I was uh working as graduate assistant GA for Coach Stevens, uh Bill Stevens, uh then I also parallel uh I took a job flying helicopters in the National Guard on the weekends. So as old uh country preachers used to call it, I was somewhat bivocational from that point to uh on to almost 30 years later. And so but it was uh uh it was a great time and and I enjoyed uh the GA year. Uh Coach Stevens really helped me better understand the process of coaching kids in track. It's a different sport. Uh it's uh a lot more laid back and and but yet a pretty fundamentally difficult sport because you have to train almost uh by yourself in many cases. So as a as compared to a team sport.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah. So as a teacher and coach, your your career then got into administration? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Um so um I started at the junior high level and then uh went from there to the high school. Uh uh high school principal at the time was a fellow by the name of James Clark, who was also one of my coaches earlier in the year. And I should have uh early in my career in high school, I should have mentioned Coach Clark, but he offered me a position as assistant principal to high school, and then I stayed there four years, four great years, and he he was probably one of the best building administrators I've ever been around. He was pretty tough, but at the same time fair, and taught me a lot of process procedures, how to deal with parents, uh, how to deal with uh uh kids who were struggling either uh emotionally or academically or whatever, but generally speaking had had problems and then uh but he he gave me some really good assignments as far as uh after school stuff and and things like that. So um Mr. Carl Stewart was superintendent, and I probably couldn't have had a better mentor. But at some point in time, uh Paul, after about four years at the high school level, uh I was offered another graduate assistantship in at the university uh for graduate school. And I had already uh gone to nine classes and picked up what uh educators called a specialist degree. It was a uh intermediate almost close to a terminal degree. Then you but it was also very easy then to move from the specialist into the doctoral program. Then they wanted you to have a year on campus, a residency, they used to call it. So I I asked for a leave of absence in Conway and and was granted a leave of absence, came up here and worked on my graduate degree, terminal degree.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

What did you uh what'd you go back to Central Arkansas for? What what job awaited you after you finished?

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I went back to Conway uh and stayed in Conway uh maybe another three to four years, total of seven years in Conway, and then was offered a job at the Department of Education working for uh the department as uh the Tyler was director of secondary education state, which was kind of ominous, but it was uh

State DOE And Career Climb

SPEAKER_01 16:50

a really, really good learning job. Stayed there six years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Um moved from that job to uh superintendency, first superintendency was uh in Greenbrier. Yeah. So I stayed there five years, great years. I enjoyed uh rural uh Arkansas and and uh people at Greenbrier would write to me and and we just had a great situation. Um I was offered a job back down in the city, North Little Rock, as an assistant superintendent, stayed there a couple of years and then moved up here.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, Greenbrier and um and Fayetteville are are two pretty different communities.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Yes, uh, but I love the flavor. Yep. I mean, you know, I don't just drink uh regular coffee. You gotta have a cappuccino every now and then, you know. And so uh no, that was the great thing about uh education, at least in in my uh 30 plus years, is that it was it was there was always uh uh another mountain time, another uh job that had a lot of interest for one reason or another. The Department of Education job, I got to see the state of Arkansas as as education, and which really broadened my uh knowledge where I would visit schools, we would do accreditation studies, I had uh opportunities to uh see what was going on in Pine Bluff and at the same time benchmark uh uh what was happening there as compared to what I might could do in Greenbrier. And so it was a a a great uh vantage point uh those six years. I traveled the state a lot. Yeah. Got to see a lot of really fine educators, and we had a great education, public education program in Arkansas.

The Real Hours Of Superintendents

SPEAKER_00 18:33

You know, one thing I've always wanted to ask superintendents is you know, what is something the public does not realize about your job, or maybe it's something they don't appreciate the job of a public school superintendent.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Oh wow, Paul. Well, uh I you know, I mean it it I don't I'm sure any there's any empirical evidence, what I'm about to tell you, but I found that uh it was fairly routine uh from eight until about three thirty, but the fun started uh after after that four o'clock and and activities there all the time. I think what I saw is thir is is thirteen years up here um and five more years as a superintendent, not counting the uh assistant's jobs and all. Uh that the administrator is almost always on duty. Uh you know, you think you have the weekends off, but no the phone rings and something's happened or or uh it just i it's just not predictable as far as the weekend is concerned. But uh yeah, I would say a lot of folks don't realize that uh school administrators, principals, superintendents, assistants they really go pretty much ten to twelve hours a day. Uh if if uh we're in a state championship and it's a state championship uh time i at Hot Springs, then you're down hot springs watching the watching the team play. Or you know, you've got uh to travel to uh a Monticello big baseball team is is uh uh baseball games going on. So yeah, it it's just uh uh a job that moves constantly.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Right. And those are just two examples of two sports, not just the entire width and breadth of all the extracurricular activities. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

And and we did, and I'd be amiss not to mention our our band programs, everything uh from A

Band Trips And Big Responsibilities

SPEAKER_01 20:30

to Z. Um and I was fortunate. We had a great band director, and and so I I was able to go to uh the Rose Bowl with our band. Um my wife and I did uh went to uh Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. So really a lot of benefits uh with the extracurricular activities, but also uh responsibilities as it year goes along.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

I I can't help but chuckle of the comparison between a road assignment to Monticello and a road assignment to Pasadena. Well different, a little different.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

You know, uh uh this this uh we don't have enough time in the week, uh Paul, for all those stories, but we went to the Rose Bowl. Yeah. Just uh we had a kind of surprise. Uh the the way they do that is they they keep it, they the Rose Bowl committee keeps the band selections quiet until the very end that I didn't know about until maybe a day or two before the announcement. But anyway, it was just absolutely an unbelievable experience. And all those years you see it on television, and uh I grew up watching the Rose Bowl parade and then the Rose Bowl itself, you know, after the Cotton Bowl uh and all of that. But uh unfortunately, and I don't remember if this is how accurate this is, maybe a little embellished, but almost a hundred years prior to the year that we were there and it rained the entire time. The entire time. But it was a our our band did great. We we marched the entire route. uh we're a little soaked up at the time. Those of us in the in the bleachers were a little bit wet. But anyway, it was a great story and a great time.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

I remember I've been to the Rose Bowl game one time. Yeah. And it was um a few years back when Auburn played Florida State uh the BCS championship game and it rained that morning and it rained on the parade, which they talked about same as you like that never happens. It has never happened. But the rain eventually cleared out and the football game was dry but um that's a beautiful place beautiful stadium.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Absolutely it was historical and and I our kids did well and I'm so proud of uh the parents we had a separate bus for the parents it was just a great time

Military Leadership In School Leadership

SPEAKER_01 22:40

yeah I want to go back to your um your military chapter your military experience and that that's a fascinating um uh mixture of of that experience and how maybe you used that or that that impacted your leadership experience in in public school was that the case did you did you find that that um one of those influenced the other yes it was almost seamless uh now the the way the army is structured uh I mean as an officer you're always in a leadership position however um the jobs change and as the jobs as I moved up in rank then I moved up more into more defined leadership position continued to fly but I was a company commander or I was a battalion commander or whatever it might have been so uh yeah I would go from uh Sunday drill back to Monday morning uh leadership and and so uh yeah it it was constantly and and I was I was blessed with great subordinate leaders I just uh in both sides of the uh of the occupation uh careers uh had had great support staff and and so yes uh but uh Monday morning didn't look a lot different than Sunday morning some weekends because of of uh the responsibility of leadership and uh what I had uh in front of yeah you've got to have um great assistance I'm sure you had great assistance oh I did I was blessed everywhere and and I would back to the the aviation side Paul one of the things that was also uh very therapeutic uh because if I were just flying uh then it was just almost like mindlessness and that sounds but to get away from uh the activities and the and the issues that I was facing either on Monday morning or that I left on Friday afternoon was just absolutely therapeutic. And I the guys I flew with uh was uh many of them were the same people for 13 years and we're just dear friends uh even today. Do you still fly? No. Um when's the last time I don't think it I don't think it's a part-time hobby. Yeah oh I want it to be a part-time hobby. You know you can do golf or you can fish part-time but I just never found it uh was a good idea to do it part-time okay um when was the last time uh I I flew uh Judy and I rented a plane I got uh current and we ran a plane flew around the state uh probably oh uh 12 or 13, 2013 2014 something like that. Right. Okay. Yeah. So we had just she and I and and she really enjoyed it and and uh it was good to get back into the air but now we let American Airlines or one of the others do

Retirement And Writing Your Own Job

SPEAKER_01 25:34

it of course.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Well let's talk about uh hobbies you mentioned hobbies there um and you retired in 2009 17 years ago um you know we're obviously a big razorback baseball fan big Dave Van Horn fan we'll find you in Baum Stadium pretty much every time they open the gates try to be yeah so what's retirement been like for you the past 17 years after spending your whole career working with with students in schools and um how how how has it been the last 17 years?

SPEAKER_01 26:03

You know, Paul I I uh don't now as often as I did but used to get calls from people who would retire after me and say hey how are you liking it? Or uh well first of all uh the Arkansas teacher retirement system is fabulous. Uh it it really provides a good good um um parachute for teachers and administrators as they as we retire and able then uh to go off and and do something well what what I I tell younger people is the great thing is you get to write your own job description. First time in your life you don't have to be a principal or a a math teacher or a third grade uh elementary teacher you get to write your own uh uh job description and uh God would just really bless Judy and me and we were with grandkids and uh then I did uh uh not as much now but I did I tried to stay active and so road biking uh tried golf and and and I was just not uh I was just not a golfer yeah but uh tried several uh uh some trout fishing and that sort of thing so it but it's just uh a variety of of uh things and then there are obligations as you get uh grandkids and you end up in my case uh going to Wichita or Kansas City or Panama City with traveling teams and it was just blessed bless time that we really enjoyed those kids are uh are now up in uh high school and and uh college and uh but it yeah they they and when I say write job description I guess when you have grandkids they write they help you write the job description and their parents certainly do.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

We need to get you back out on the golf course. You just had your LAC surgery and you bet you maybe may open up a whole new world right well I'm not sure it was the eyes were the problem.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

You know I think Coach Van Horn you mentioned him maybe he he's able to say yeah this this player needs go get better eyes. I'm not sure better eyes help help my golf game. In addition to people that call you um you know retired asking how do you like it do you ever get calls from um current administrators or current superintendents that want some advice or not just from Fayetteville but just at large people giving you just coincidental apologies our our conversation today um and I'm gonna guess it was four or five months ago I had an opportunity to have lunch with uh Tim Hudson, the board current board president and uh the current Fayetteville superintendent we had a great time and uh discussed uh issues of uh years ago and how we operated as a school district as compared to some of the issues that they're facing today, which is a lot of it's just when uh you're in a leadership position and you have an opportunity to intermingle and and work with uh people uh then that doesn't change. Um maybe the the uh tools of uh that are into a box for educators have changed some but by and large it's still a a people uh profession and so uh uh the superintendent and uh Tim and I had a had a great conversation and I loved listening to his vision and I think he's just doing a fabulous job.

What Changes And What Stays

SPEAKER_00 29:22

So from that perspective and then just from your perspective of s of keeping up with Arkansas public education at large and I know you've been retired for 17 years. How different uh were Arkansas schools then compared to today to when you started?

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Well I I I I think the the the goal is still the same that is develop young people for a changing world. And uh it as you start with that broad vision then you hone it down into what is the um what are the subsets for educators. Uh whether it is uh uh education uh for uh higher ed uh development or is it career development or whatever you try to break uh the the elephant down into smaller pieces to buy it and and it then you hope that you have really good teachers and you've got good a good program that's disciplined and one that has uh great leadership from the school board level but that doesn't change that's fundamental education whether you're talking about using AI and technology today or uh then as as uh the uh technology was just emerging into uh education still uh johnny and and jane uh have to be presented the best education process best opportunities yeah it sounds like you um you never really retire from education i mean it's still with you i mean i could tell you're you still fake about it and you're still as as uh thoughtful and passionate about it as you were when you were in it well i i think Paul I'll go back to the grandkid uh uh grandkid stories uh it's real interesting to see uh from an educator slash grandparent yeah uh perspective uh how uh those kids matriculated up and what kind of problems did they have and looking at it from this side of the desk and not your side of the desk uh but as a parent I would see things that uh I I say well I wish I'd known to do this would have been a better situation for the kids than what I did there. So I was able to compare education as with the grandkids if we as we got older.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Right.

What Great Teachers Do First

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Sure. What do you um when you're looking back on your career, what do you hope that you know the students seem to be very important to you? What do you hope your students and your colleagues remember about you when they say uh Dr. Bobby New, yeah that was my superintendent at Fed or what do you want people to to remember about you?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah I I think the values that uh had at the time uh were were extremely important and and I I pray that uh that was the perspective that both both the the community the board and and the teachers uh knew about uh about me that I was I was gonna be as honest as possible. I was going to uh make sure that we had uh uh the best of of uh education opportunities for the kids. I was always passionate about education and I always enjoyed um helping kids and seeing them succeed and I think that was one of the things that uh I enjoyed uh about being in Fayetteville because it's an education community and we were really hitched up uh I thought it was a uh in my opinion it was a good a good match from uh North Rock up here and but but I guess looking back on it Paul the the thing that uh I want to make sure that I did was that the kids had the best opportunity possible through leadership. All right what what makes a good leader in the classroom what makes a good teacher what what would you define that as well you know uh I didn't teach that much uh I went from the classroom to um administration pretty quickly uh and I always thought my primary job was supporting the classroom teacher. That information that it is exchanged in the classroom is absolutely essential. And a teacher who is who has that transmission communication skill is just unbeatable any other profession uh in America.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

And so uh yeah administrator is wise to to make sure the teachers understand that uh he or she is there to support them and what ta takes place in Flash yeah and that kind of um you know UCA continues to prepare and graduate more teachers than any college in Arkansas Arkansas State teachers that's right DNA that's right that's where my mother graduated retired high school uh English teacher freshman English teacher so um just when you think about young teachers starting today you know we'll graduate more teachers here in just a few weeks at UCA um you know what advice would you give them about you know maybe landing their first job or choosing between different options for your first term but just kind of what advice would you give them to start their career?

SPEAKER_01 34:34

You know, Paul the the the thing I I always believed fundamental to any job do you love kids? Do you love being around kids? Do you enjoy seeing them succeed? Are you able to anticipate a problem, a discipline problem? Uh uh can you separate um your feelings about a child and try to understand have empathy for and compassion for where the child has been that day, that morning uh what kind of of uh obstacles did the child face. I think that's that's undercurrent what goes on in any education system. You asked me earlier about uh what has changed. Well the the obvious things have been uh technology and teaching tools but the fundamental issue of getting inside that youngster's head and trying to understand what really is uh important uh for him to learn, for her to learn is critical. And you've got to have that passion for teachers got to have that passion for that particular aspect of teaching or she's just not going to be very uh happy with her job. Uh uh a nurse that doesn't enjoy uh being in a room with a sick person seeing that person progress into uh wellness.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Right right now that's that's great perspective in a person who doesn't you've got to enjoy flying right you've got to enjoy being up in the air and being in control of the airplane and I mean the same thing no matter what your industry um that's something that you've that you've

Why School Is Mostly Social

SPEAKER_00 36:08

got to consider. Here's something I like to ask all of my guests who are UCA alums thinking back to your your time on campus and as a student what did you what does UCA, what did UCA mean to you personally, just as a student, as a young person?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Well um Paul I have to admit that and it sound sounds almost uh like an oxymoron but I wasn't a serious classroom student. And um no it it was it was about activities. There was a book in the late 70s uh that was written that really was maybe mid to late 70s not long after I got into profession that I thought was just great. It's called um a place called school it's written by a fellow by the name of John Goodlad who was I believe he was Washington State or Washington and that book uh made a huge huge impact on on my outlook about school essentially I'll come back to my personal opportunities but essentially what he did through years and years of research what uh Dr. Goodland did uh was look at at the uh almost an autopsy of of education at secondary level uh and after years of research and and uh uh empirical evidence it appears that the kids go to school really for one primary reason is that's because other kids are there. You know uh the the uh student that uh gets up in the morning wants to see his friends, wants to see her friends. And uh so as you began to develop a culture or an environment for educators, you've got to look at what does that picture look like as it relates to the social system of education rather than just the cognitive aspect of education. And so it it made a difference as to how I approached um helping uh young leaders, principals, um how it helped uh me unders better understand uh the lunch period which is is just a great opportunity for learning. How does that work? Well then you put bulletin boards up where kids will I mean there's just all sort of subtle things that you you can do to help kids better understand uh that their friends are there and and we're gonna be a a friend friendly uh environment. Right.

Extracurriculars And The Wrestling Push

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Uh whether it's extracurricular. I remember as uh uh I was on the Arkansas Activity Association Board of Directors Paul and we had a a person in the state that uh uh was uh financially secure and he was real this this uh he was non-eductor uh he was real interested in beginning starting wrestling in the state of Arkansas pretty foreign to us we we don't have it in college even till today right but he came uh this person came and and presented to the board of directors um his vision for a more uh inclusive uh sports program meaning wrestling it happens in all of our contiguous states I'm not sure about Louisiana but anyway so we began one summer met the board met three or four times a year but this so happened during the summer is the longer maybe week long board meeting and he came in so we talked about it at breakout sessions we talked about at dinner the triple A is made up of superintendents and system superintendents um from all sides of school from um Fayetteville to Greenbrier or and and and that's a great it's a it's it's great makeup because you get perspective of what happens in rural education as well as uh suburban city education. Yeah. Anyway we all had different views and a lot of the smaller school schools saw it as a burden, a financial burden and what was it really going to do. This this particular um uh supporter wrestling supporter uh then agreed uh to buy the equipment for all schools that would participate so not to get into the weeds let me get on down the road where I was going to tell you so I I my belief was and and I think we had evidence to to support what I'm about to say if if a child is around a coach, if a child's around an extracurricular band director, choir director, I'll leave somebody out and you always get in trouble when you do that. Extracurricular extracurricular there you go there's a better chance that that that student is then going back to a place called school the book that is going to make friends and there won't be negative influences as much as if a child doesn't have that opportunity. Anyway I think that year the boat failed I I'm not I'm not sure about the history of this but I that that year it it failed. I think there were the rural educators were just they just weren't interested and I understand that. When you have a graduation class of 600 versus 60 sure and there there's really not that that that gap's pretty large. Anyway, but I appreciated their position. Well we were able to uh bring it back the next sum bring that request back the next summer and it passed but I was somewhat passionate about it and the reason I had no idea I hadn't I I the only time I ever wrestled was in offseason. Yeah that happened to be coach one of Coach Bright's favorite offseason yeah we wouldn't saw four and sport you're not familiar with wrestling. But the fundamental issue is that it was going to um open another career opportunity for kids who maybe were 116 pounds and they couldn't play football. They couldn't play basketball but by gosh they could be a wrestler and it kept them after school it kept them engaged in uh really um good activities positive activities but that was just an example of of what we tried to do at a place called school.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Yeah and that you the whole time you were that's the word that that was coming into my head is engaged. I mean engage the students and then where can that lead? In this case um you know sports more and more are an avenue um for scholarship to college and that's just another avenue for that 116 pound weight class student to be successful in his weight class and get a scholarship to go to college. Exactly that might not have existed if we don't have uh wrestling but anyway no that's that's all interesting uh and your your lessons in leadership and philosophy from a lifetime and in education um uh is is terrific and all of that started at UCA and it did start at UCA and I'm sorry I got us off a little bit here Paul um I can't say uh uh enough good things about uh my time at UCA and and uh and and I we focused on uh the time that uh I was there as an

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Athlete, but I was also uh a student and I had some great instructors and some great times, great memories. Um there are three or four of us that uh that still meet for lunch, uh uh graduates, and we talk about uh those times and and the great things that went on at UCA, but it was a super environment. It was a small environment at that time. And uh I I guess I didn't really appreciate the almost one-on-one attention that I would get from uh instructors or uh coaches or whatever. No, I I I think it would have been because I was not a serious student, I think if I had not had coaches and teachers as counselors, yeah, I would not have made uh I wouldn't have continued the path. But as it turned out, uh UCA was the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Yeah, they were pretty hands-on, very hands-on, yeah, very engaged back to that word. Absolutely. And um, so yeah, well, listen, um Bobby, really appreciate you being

Final Thoughts And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_00 44:59

here. As we as you mentioned earlier about schedules, I know being retired, you're not used to having a whole lot of dates on the schedules to be somewhere at a certain time. So uh really appreciate you coming up here. It's Razorback Baseball Day. Razorback baseball day. So yeah, that's right. I know that uh the retired schedule is different from the the uh nine to five schedule. So um uh it's great to visit with you. Thank you, Paul. It's been fun. Yeah, I really appreciate you being here today. So all right, and that's it for this edition of Central to NWA. As always, we appreciate you tuning in. Until next time, go Bears. That's it for this episode of Central to NWA, a UCA podcast. I'm Paul Gatling, Senior Director of Northwest Arkansas Engagement for the University of Central Arkansas. Be sure to subscribe to the show and follow UCA on all the appropriate social media. I'll see you next time on Central to NWA.