[19] In a Storm and On a Journey - Sandy Shugart

In today's episode, Peggy Kao Enderle interviews Sandy Shugart, President of Valencia College and InterVarsity alumnus. Sandy shares stories about the heroic work his staff, faculty, and administrators did to transition courses online.

Hear how Sandy and his team have gone to extraordinary lengths to care for their students, acknowledge their humanity, and honor them.

NOTE: This is the first part in a two part episode

LINKS
We've created a website (updated regularly) full of resources to help you with Ministering Online Through COVID-19: intervarsity.org/online.   

Sandy shares a poem from David Whyte titled "Everything is Waiting for You," available here: https://onbeing.org/poetry/everything-is-waiting-for-you/.

Transcript

Unknown Speaker : 0:12

Hey, everyone, this is piggy cow in Delhi and you're listening to the ministry during the disruption podcast. Today I have the privilege of interviewing Sandy Schubert, president of Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Hey, Sandy. Hi, Peggy. So I can't even imagine what it's been like for you to be in higher ed administration for the last two months. What have your weeks been like?

Unknown Speaker : 0:40

So it has been quite a season, the last six 810 weeks. But I've been doing this for 38 years. And, you know, there have been storms before. I think one of the advantages of having been in leadership for a long time she learned not to overreact to some things but it's been An extraordinary and in many ways, it's a mountaintop experience because people give their very best in a crisis. But you can only be in that modality for a while before it begins to wear pretty significantly. So we're trying to pivot back to a little bit more normal process for getting things done and a little more patience with decision making. So everything isn't a big surprise.

Unknown Speaker : 1:26

Right? Especially in crisis communication being so important to keep everyone as calm as possible.

Unknown Speaker : 1:34

That's true. And I think we've had more zoom meetings in the last eight weeks than I've had in my entire life event.

Unknown Speaker : 1:42

What happened on the day you announced that campus would close?

Unknown Speaker : 1:47

We didn't use that language. So we're on spring break and we said we're just going to extend spring break an additional week for students, and we're going to use the next 1012 days to convert everything we do online. About a third of the college's offerings were online to begin with. And the faculty stepped right up. They functioned as a high performing community of scholars, they helped each other We had lots of support for them. And they were just many champions and heroes through that. And then 10 days, they moved 4000 course sections online, as well as tutoring and advising, counseling, all the transactional services. So it was remarkable, amazing. We sent everybody home. I think the just to reflect on what it felt like it, it felt to me a little bit like being a head basketball coach, in a double overtime game in the Final Four. Things are coming at you really fast, and they really matter. And there's not a whole lot the coach can do. So I watched my team function at such a high level and I was there to improve And support and give them some counsel. But just like the coach, I can't make a free throw and I can't intercept to pass and I can't steal the ball. I'm on the sideline. And I had to get used to the idea that my contribution was probably mostly made in preseason

Unknown Speaker : 3:19

in the ways that you prepared them. Yes. And at the same time, you as a coach would make some key calls. And I think as a leader, sometimes even if we seem really sure about our decisions, or not, because we don't know how they'll go, how do you manage your own doubts about your decisions?

Unknown Speaker : 3:46

Well, I certainly have them.

Unknown Speaker : 3:49

say a couple things with it. The first is, their principles that you hold on to. And one of those principles is we're in the middle of a storm. We've got navigate the waves that might swamp the boat. But we also are on a journey to some point on the horizon. And if you forget that you're going somewhere, and just manage to the waves, that's when you really get lost. And so my job was to say, yeah, let's manage the crisis. But let's not forget why we're in this enterprise to begin with. So in every meeting we had, we started with the why, what are our real goals, and our real goal is the safety and health of our community, all of us, and those we love, and the continuity of our students experience because we know if they interrupt their education, many of them, especially the most vulnerable, won't get back on the path again. And so everybody cared about the same thing, how we do that. I had to, you know, kind of trust that those decisions were being made well, deep in the organization, but making sure we were on the same music.

Unknown Speaker : 4:56

So you've been with Valencia College for a while now. 20 years, 20 years, and you yourself and the college have won numerous awards for the ways that you I would almost say, you humanized, college education for a lot of your students. For you, what award are you most proud of receiving?

Unknown Speaker : 5:20

And I'm always grateful when the work of the staff and the faculty gets acknowledged, because it's remarkable. But I don't think any of the formal awards are top of mind for me, I guess. The college won the first Aspen prize for excellence and that was a big deal. Because it's, it's not an award you can apply for. They select you, sort of independently from the data on your students performance and so on. But I think the happiest moment, the proudest moment in some ways, was not an award but a customer That we brought in to study our identity to do what's called a community identity study. And she interviewed people in the community about the college and interviewed people inside the college, and then compares the two pictures that we paid it to see how much of our own Kool Aid we've been drinking. And when she was done with all this, and I sat down with her said, Tell me what you learned. And she said, I want to work here. And I said, Tell me why you want to work here? And she said, Well, two reasons. One is, everybody here knows why they're here. That is such a coherent sense of purpose and service to your students. And that's very attractive. And the other is that I heard the best answer to my closing question here. So what was your closing question? It was what makes this place special. And the answer that some of us had given was it's the people here that are really different. There. What's extraordinary people are amazing. And so does that the answer? She said no, the answer that impressed me was several faculty said, Our students are amazing. And of course, that's the right answer. And they are amazing. They're astonishing. So is everyone else's students, but most colleges believe that they are amazing. Not that their students are amazing. The students are almost an afterthought. And we really believe they are, of course, my faith comes into that because we believe that the image of God is impressed on every person. There's amazingness in every human soul, and our job is to try to find and cultivate and call that out of them, even the ones who bury it very deeply. And to have what I would just call a sacred anthropology at the root of our work where we believe this human being in front of us is not a number. It's not a magnetic strip on the back of a car is not an enrollment isn't a report to the state. This is a human being a unique person made in God's image and deserves a unique and loving response. Not just from individuals, but also from institutions, which is really hard to do.

Unknown Speaker : 8:13

Something you like to do is to walk around campus and greet students and talk to them. And I feel like that resonates with us and InterVarsity because we talked so much about incarnational ministry and being with people. What do you like about going around meeting students even continuing conversations with students kind of on the fly?

Unknown Speaker : 8:40

So I think

Unknown Speaker : 8:41

the essence of human connection is story. in First Corinthians 13, Paul makes the promise that someday, we will be known, even as we know, now it's through a glass but darkly but that future extra dictation the hope that I will be completely known, all of us experiences sort of existential loneliness. And for God to know us all the way through every cell, every thought, every wish, and love us thoroughly, while knowing us utterly, is the promise I think of fellowship with God. And fellowship with human beings is the same way. And the way we're known to each other isn't story. And so I think it personalizes it dignifies the humanity of the person you're with, when you hear their story. And every story is full of hope and surprise, and anguish, and so on, and they're all unique. Our team decided that one of the worst effects of going remote during the pandemic was the loss of personal contact and the feeling of loss of agency, from our staff and students. And they decided one way to solve That was to call on the phone, every student call them all that's almost 40,000 students. And they call them in about two and a half weeks. One of the staff persons called 1801 students, and she was sending me names, here's one you should talk to. And I was calling them myself and told the students, you're a person to us. And we didn't call the market anything to you we call to say, how are you doing? Is there anything we can do to help you if you running up against an obstacle and some experts that might be able to help you? To me one of the great challenges to all of our large institutions of every kind is not to dehumanize the people we were designed to serve by commoditizing them and, and story is the secret ingredient for relationship and uniqueness with human relationships.

Unknown Speaker : 10:57

How do students normally respond when you call And get them on the phone.

Unknown Speaker : 11:02

They're all over the place. Some seem a little nervous at first, like I'm calling to bring the bad news. Maybe those are the ones that like me went to the principal's office in junior high, but most of them are pretty Matter of fact. Oh, Okay, thanks. Appreciate the call. Let me tell you my story. And I listen, the better I listened to the more they tell me and offer you know, you can still reach me if you want to talk again. I get my phone number I give them my email address. Just giving them the power to reach out and touch a person rather than institution humanizes them all my career. I've thought no one should ever get a letter from the Office of, say the bursar. They should always get a letter from a person or an email message or a person, a person who gives them the power to reach back to them and contact them personally not the office and say you reached out and said, I owed you money. I don't think I do. Let's talk about that, as opposed to an office or to me that institutions have just learned how to dehumanize so thoroughly. And that that's something that can be fixed.

Unknown Speaker : 12:15

As your students are finishing up school, a lot of them are looking ahead with no jobs lined up. And that's happening all across the country where graduation is supposed to be a celebratory time. Well, words of encouragement would you have for these students as they're looking at? A not so positive future?

Unknown Speaker : 12:38

So first thing I'd say is, the prospects of the future haven't changed one bit in the last eight weeks, or eight years, or eight centuries. The circumstances have, but hope doesn't come from circumstances. real hope comes from an expectation of goodness in the future that's still there. I was worried about Just a little bit. So I recorded a poem. It's not one of mine. It's one by a friend named David white, who's a magnificent poet called everything is waiting for you. video recorded that we send it to every student. I won't read the whole poem to you but the closing. few lines are put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing as it pours you a drink. The cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good and you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you know that the universe is there. And all of its wonder and complexity and mystery. whatever's happening on the front page of the news, and it's calling beckoning to all of us to get engaged, join the conversation. The future is no more or less hopeful than it's ever been.

Unknown Speaker : 13:56

I love those words. It reminds me of an adult version of other places you'll go by Dr. Seuss.

Unknown Speaker : 14:05

Remember your standard graduation present for high school graduates? Yes.