Jon Fansmith: Hello, and welcome
to dotEDU, the higher education policy podcast from the American Council
on Education. A little later in the podcast, we're going to be joined
by a really exceptional guest, Dr. Bill Pink, the current president of
Grand Rapids Community College, and I don't know if he's just been
announced, but the soon-to-be President of Ferris State University. But
before that I am joined as always by my wonderful co-hosts, Sarah
Spreitzer and Mushtaq Gunja. How are you guys doing today?
Mushtaq Gunja: Doing great. I got to see Sarah in person today. I am a happy, happy person.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. You guys go for walks to Panera, and you don't invite me, so-
Sarah Spreitzer: You're not in the office, Jon. If you started coming into the office, then you would also get invited to walks to Panera.
Jon Fansmith: Maybe if you invited me, I'd come into the office, right? Why are you putting this all on me?
Sarah Spreitzer: Are we trying to get Panera as a sponsor? Because we could also talk about how Mushtaq is part of the Panera Coffee Club.
Mushtaq Gunja:
That's true. And I got a dozen bagels today too, then was accused by a
team member of wanting to eat all of those said bagels, which I don't
know if many of our listeners have seen me in person, but I don't think
that I probably could eat 12 bagels.
Jon Fansmith:
You have to call them delicious bagels. If we want Panera's response,
you've got to sell it a little bit more other than, "I can't actually
eat their product." That's not going to get us a response to this.
Mushtaq Gunja: Incredibly sliced, delicious Asiago cheese bagels that my children gobble up by the bagelful almost every morning.
Jon Fansmith: Panera bagels, the only bagels I'll come into the office for. Is that, maybe, no? Okay.
Sarah Spreitzer: Well we've already gone off the rails-
Jon Fansmith: Totally off the rails.
Sarah Spreitzer:
But Congress is back this week, but I don't know if they were back last
week, but they're back. The Senate this week, Jon, you probably know
this because you follow all of my issues so closely, they're taking up
the conference instructions on the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act,
the giant competitiveness bill that I just won't stop talking about. And
as part of that, they're doing motions to instruct.
And our
boss, Terry Hartle, pointed out that this is the first time since 2017
Congress has actually done a formal conference on a bill that's not
appropriations or the defense authorization bill, so there. It's a very
complicated process. We've heard that Congress wants to finish it before
July 4th, because if they don't, then they're likely not going to get
it done before midterms. But all of my conversations around competition,
Jon, were easily overtaken by your issues this weekend.
Jon Fansmith: Because my issues are more interesting.
Sarah Spreitzer: Sure, let's go with that. What are your issues, Jon?
Jon Fansmith:
In this case, the issue you're referring to is student loan
forgiveness, which is one of those things that really is where our wonky
inside DC policy world slams head-on into mass public opinion. And
there's been increasing not only interest, but certainly more smoke
around the idea that the Biden administration may do loan forgiveness. I
think we saw over the weekend the clearer signs of what that might look
like. There was a big Washington post piece that began to outline what
the administration is thinking about. And obviously, there's lots and
lots of factors that can be considered when you're thinking about who
gets student loan forgiveness and how much, but at least as was
identified in the article, they're really looking at undergraduate loans
versus graduate loans, and then particularly, income thresholds for who
will get those loans, setting them at either $125,000 to $150,000 for
individuals, and $250,000 to $300,000 for couples that file together.
Sarah Spreitzer: And that's income levels, not the amount of loans that would be forgiven.
Jon Fansmith:
Yep. Those are the incomes you would be at to be eligible to have your
loans forgiven. Most of the amounts doesn't seem to be set, but it seems
like around $10,000 is the most talked about number. It's what the
president campaigned on. Also, none of these things are out of the blue.
This is the idea of means testing the benefit, the idea of limiting the
benefit so it's not universal. Those have been floating around policy
discussions for a while now, so nothing shocking in that regard, but
that was a huge deal on Monday. People were talking about this all
through the weekend, and then Monday night something happened, Mushtaq,
that blew that out of the news, and people stopped caring about my
issues. You wanted to talk a little bit about our Supreme Court?
Mushtaq Gunja:
Yeah. Talking about going off the rails, right? The Supreme Court went
off the rails a little bit, I guess last night. We're recording on a
Tuesday, so Monday night, a draft Alito opinion that purports, I think,
to be the majority opinion overturning Roe versus Wade. It was leaked,
and whew, all of a sudden, student loan debt forgiveness was wiped off
the front page, at least in my Twitter, where really it was, Jon, nine
out of 10 tweets seemed to be about debt forgiveness, with the other
one, of course, being USICA, Sarah. Obviously.
Sarah Spreitzer: Of course, of course.
Mushtaq Gunja: No, that's not true.
Jon Fansmith: The other one was about the NBA playoffs.
Mushtaq Gunja:
Well, that's definitely true. But in any case, I mean it is sort
stunning in a couple of respects. I think the idea that Roe might be
overturned by this court of six conservatives when they took up a couple
of abortion ban cases, that's not shocking. The leak of the opinion is
very shocking. It doesn't happen often. It's not the only leak of a
draft opinion in history, but it's certainly a big deal. It doesn't
happen very often. The leak is a problem, but the opinion itself is
pretty shocking. There are more and less narrow ways to overturn Roe, and Alito in this
draft opinion, we don't know that it is the final opinion, but if it
were to, he took a complete and utter sledgehammer not just to Roe, but
to some concepts surrounding substantive due process. I was boring Sarah
on our walk to Panera about all things-
Sarah Spreitzer: Not boring.
Mushtaq Gunja:...
Substantive due process, but the reality is that this set of doctrine
underpins decades worth of jurisprudence around things like
contraception, and interracial marriage, and gay marriage, and so if we
take out some of those fundamental building blocks, what might come,
it's just hard to know. And so to me, the leak is interesting and will
be interesting for another 36 hours, or maybe until our podcast
listeners download and listen to this podcast, but the substantive
effects of this opinion, if this were to indeed be the opinion, are
pretty striking, and went way farther than I might have anticipated this
court might go in overturning Roe.
Sarah Spreitzer:
Given that everything this year is political in the lead up to the
midterms, I think that also means that Congress could try and take some
action around it to try and put further protections into law, or at
least try to. And so it's unclear what that means for the rest of the
congressional agenda, and the administration's agenda. Is this going to
take up a lot of their time?
Mushtaq Gunja: Yeah.
Jon Fansmith:
You've already seen these calls for overturning the filibuster to
protect Roe in the statute and other things, which seems unlikely, since
there are obviously a few democratic Senator who are very hesitant to
erase the filibuster on anything, but definitely something that I am
sure we and all of our listeners will be hearing a lot about over the
next few days and weeks and months. But before you hear all about that,
you'll be hearing from Dr. Bill Pink, and what I promise you is a really
fascinating interview with a really fascinating campus and college
leader, so definitely stay tuned for that, and we'll be right back after
a break.
Jon Fansmith: And welcome back. We
are joined by someone I'm very excited to be talking to, and somebody
that ACE is very lucky and very honored to have on our board right now,
the distinguished Dr. Bill Pink, currently president of Grand Rapids
Community College, but soon to be the next president of Ferris State
University. So Dr. Pink, first of all, thank you for coming onto the
show and joining us today.
Dr. Bill Pink: Honored to be here, Jon. Honored. Looking forward to this conversation.
Jon Fansmith:
And I know that Sarah and Mushtaq and I joined you in that excitement. I
think one of the things that's just so interesting about where you are
right now is you are at this transition point between these two great
institutions, and two different institutional types of community college
for your institution. I think one of the things, we are at this really
incredible transition point in higher ed. We're coming out of the
pandemic, we're looking at all these changes, policy changes we've been
talking about here in Washington. And I think maybe a great place to
start would be talk a little bit to you or ask you a little bit about in
the five years since you've been president at Grand Rapids Community
College, what are some of the biggest experiences you've seen? What are
some of the changes you've seen? Not just the pandemic, but you've had a
real window of experience there. What are the highlights, you would
say, of the last five years of your tenure there?
Dr. Bill Pink:
Honestly, these last two years, as we have been digging at this whole
issue of COVID-19, when you think about the amount of dollars that truly
have been infused into our economy. We're always trying to live in that
game of never wasting a crisis, and I will tell you, the last two years
we've been in that space of not wasting this crisis. Combine that with
the fact that we've had so many federal stimulus dollars that have
flowed through community colleges, four year schools here in Grand
Rapids. We were just doing some work on this yesterday, and over the
last two years, we've put out $20 million to our students in terms of
stimulus dollars. Now, $20 million, and the way we see that is twofold.
Number
one, those are dollars that have gone to our students to help them. In
many cases, some of our students who lost jobs, who are still trying to
take care of family, trying to maneuver through some of the things that
COVID-19 has done to them and to their families. What these dollars have
done, number one, as I said, helping our students out, but then number
two, as we were talking yesterday, that's $20 million that our college
has been able to put into our economy here in West Michigan, so $20
million that we've been able to infuse into the economy.
And
that's not to say for the other $20, $25 million on the other side that
was institutional for us, that we then had the opportunity to take those
dollars and as much as possible, try to keep it local, but to do some
things to our campus to make our students' lives a bit better in terms
of when they are on campus. So honestly, when I look at it nationally,
Jon, the investment that's been made in higher education that we then
are pushing out to our communities in days of pandemic, I think, have
been very helpful and powerful to our community.
Jon Fansmith:
And going back with the federal aid, one of the reasons it was released
by the federal government was in part to help students, like the
students you're talking about, be able to stay enrolled, to offset those
financial concerns that so they could continue their education. Sadly, I
think we've seen a lot of numbers nationally that community college
enrollments are down pretty strongly, as high as 10% nationally. Were
you seeing those same trends? Obviously, they're the same challenges.
You identified them. Did those trends hold true for Grand Rapids? Were
you struggling with that more or less than maybe other institutions?
Dr. Bill Pink:
Yeah. That first year, so what I called the COVID year, the fall of '20
and the winter of '21, that was the year, Jon, that we saw about a 8 to
9% decline in our enrollment compared to the year before. So that was
the year that, quite honestly, there was some programming coming from
the state and the federal dollars helped. I'll talk about that state
programming here in a second, but the dollars that helped in terms of
the federal funding, that was helpful to our institution, especially the
latter iterations of HEERF dollars that really said that these dollars
can help. As far as budget stabilization is concerned, those dollars
were helpful.
Now, fall of this year, now the year after COVID
year, fall of this year, we were up 4.5 percent, so our enrollment
truly saw a rebound. This winter, we are about 0.5 to 1% up from a year
ago, and so our hope is that that's a trajectory that continues. One
thing that helped, I will tell you, our state has two initiatives that
were very helpful to community colleges. One is called the Michigan
Reconnect Grant. Michigan Reconnect means that if you are an individual
and you are 25 and older, some or no college and no degree, you can
access community college last dollar tuition free of charge. So I will
tell you, from our campus, that brought us about 1,000 students just
from the Michigan Reconnect grant this year.
The other effort
was what's called Futures for Frontliners. Futures for Frontliners was
an opportunity, again, state initiative out of the governor's office.
Both of these, now the legislature has caught traction on both. But
Futures for Frontliners, if you were an individual back in 2020, that
when Michigan shut down in March... We shut down as a state twice, once
in March and then again in November, when everyone was fearful about the
Thanksgiving, what's this going to do? If you were a frontline worker
that kept working, you also got to be able to prove that employment and
also summer of college, all that good stuff, also, those folks get last
dollar tuition for community college as well. Both those combined, Jon,
brought this college around 2,000 students.
Jon Fansmith: That's amazing.
Dr. Bill Pink:
I'm not foolish, I know those efforts helped us out tremendously in
being able to get to a good place enrollment-wise. Now we're focused
this summer, it looks like it's going to be a bit down, but a year ago
this summer, our enrollment was out the roof. It was one of the best
summers we've had in a while. And so trying to match last summer will be
difficult, but we're really pushing forward at what the fall's going to
be.
Sarah Spreitzer: Dr. Pink. I hope that's
true, that your enrollment numbers return, and that they start to come
back. I am such a huge fan of community colleges. I'm a proud community
college graduate. I transferred into my four-year institution, and also a
Midwesterner. I love Grand Rapids, have flown into that airport many
times. They're so important to the community and for people that also
want to pursue a higher degree but are perhaps not ready. And I know
that Grand Rapids Community College has a really robust articulation
agreement, actually with the institution that you're moving to, Ferris
State University. Is that something that started under you? How long has
this been going on? And can you talk a bit about what it's like to have
that relationship, especially since you're now moving to that four-year
institution?
Dr. Bill Pink: Yeah. And Sarah,
because of the relationship, that's what made it, for me, easy to
really consider looking at Ferris State, because in my mind, Ferris
State University, because of the relationship that it has not only with
GRCC, but with many of our community colleges across the state, and then
when you really think through that, when you pull that string all the
way through, you realize that wait a minute, Ferris State also has a
doctorate in community college leadership program that is very robust.
I've had so many my colleagues across the country who email or call to
say congratulations, and also say my provost, my whomever, my dean is a
graduate of that program.
So when you think about that kind of
an outreach to community colleges, Sarah, that's one thing that made it
really easy for me to look at Ferris State, because I feel like it is a
continuation of some of a lot of the work that we do here at the
college. So the relationship with GRCC and Ferris State dates over 30
years when it comes to our applied technology center right here in
downtown Grand Rapids. So that applied technology center, beautiful
facility, when you go into that building, it houses some of our
technical and occupational CTE programs, but it also houses the absolute
best culinary school in the world, just saying.
But also what
you get with that building is that Ferris State University, one of the
strongest Grand Rapids present for FSU is in our building. So a student
at GRCC can actually come to GRCC, finish the associate degree, finish a
bachelor's with Ferris State, and if it's in one of those
workforce-related programs that are over there, they never have to leave
Grand Rapids. The home campus of Ferris State is in Big Rapids,
Michigan, which is about almost an hour north of here. Those students
never have to leave Grand Rapids, never have to leave our campus.
And
so some of those, Sarah, are two plus two, but I will tell you, I
always have students that tell me about having gone through the
three-plus-one agreement, which is staying with us at GRCC for three
years, finishing that associate degree. One more year with Ferris State,
and they finish the bachelor's degree. Sarah, that sends so many
students on to their next, whether that next be looking at a job that
they already have, and many of those students end up having the job
before they even finish because of that level of education.
And
by the way, that also includes 19 other locations across the state
where Ferris State has some level of presence, and my goal is to see how
that footprint needs to be expanded to Grand Rapids, Detroit, and other
spaces, but also having a strong, strong push in terms of how we stand
up more robust professional development opportunities for our community
college partners when it comes to leadership. My goodness, I'm a fool if
I don't leverage a doctorate of community college leadership program as
being the impetus to build more around professional development, to
build leadership opportunities and education for our community college
partners. If we are that close of a partner already, it's time to stand
that up even stronger, and that's part of the devious plan here.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah. And obviously, that will continue with your move.
Jon Fansmith:
Yeah. And Dr. Pink, can I ask you, because you just walked through that
and you made it seem so easy, that there are these connections between
the institutions, and it's such a natural flow. And yet we've had I
don't know how many conversations, guys, with people about transfer, and
the challenges of transfer, and particularly for students, the
challenges of transfer. You've got a great national perspective. You're
on our board, you're on Higher Learning Commission's board. You have
this sense. And a number of other boards I haven't even gotten into yet.
Can you maybe just lend some of your expertise? Why is it maybe so easy
for you guys to do, and so much harder for other people to do?
Dr. Bill Pink:
Yeah. Jon, I call it the next big issue of social justice when it comes
to higher education, honestly. When it comes to equitable offerings and
equitable outcomes, I feel like transfer is the one that's sitting
right there that isn't just next, but it's what we're experiencing right
now. You look at some of the national data. I've done some work with
the Aspen Institute and also with AskU and some of the work that they're
doing and some of the data that they put out talks about, from a
transfer perspective, how many students of color and students from
disparate communities, how transfer hits them even stronger.
Because
many of them are coming through the community college ranks and trying
to get to that next institution, but when they are faced with coming out
of a community college where A, they may be a first gen college
student, so how do you navigate the transfer piece? And then oh, by the
way, the university is telling me that of the 60 hours I've just
completed, only 32 are going to truly transfer. The other 28, they'll
transfer, but they won't work towards your degree. Okay. Think about
what that does to any student. But if you have more students of color
coming through community colleges, then we truly have an issue in terms
of what equity needs to look like.
And so what I'm really
encouraged about is Ferris State has a lot of this already. Sarah, to
your point, a lot of these pieces are already in place, so the
conversation doesn't become how do we stand it up, the conversation
becomes how do we strengthen it? How do we expand it? Because there's
already a culture of transfer on campus. There's already that, and if
you look at some of the data, it was interesting because during some of
the search process, as I was looking at the presidential profile and
some of the data in that profile, Jon, talked about, and I want to say
the number was something between 60% and 70% completion of transfer
students at Ferris State. Are you kidding?
Jon Fansmith: Fantastic. Yeah. That's amazing.
Dr. Bill Pink:
That, to me, it's crazy. And so, my first thing is why in the heck
aren't we blasting that information out? But number two, how do we make
sure that we can continue that those numbers, and continue to build that
to where we are making for smooth pathways, smooth highways into our
institution, and smooth highways for that student to finish and get onto
their job? But those kind of data, that's crazy. We've got to continue
to promote that.
Jon Fansmith: Well, you just announced it on a national podcast. Sorry, Mushtaq.
Mushtaq Gunja:
So Dr. Pink, that 70% number is outrageously high. It's excellent. Why
is that number so high? Is it because of strong advising on the front
end? Are you accepting more or will you be accepting more credits of the
60 credits that students come in with? Are a higher percentage of those
credits being accepted at Ferris State? What's the secret sauce here?
Dr. Bill Pink:
I think it's all around the intentionality of not only the articulation
conversations, but also, again, when you've got people right here on
campus, that students know they can go over the Ferris State to the
office and sit and talk to people, that's helpful, and that's powerful.
The articulation, that can't go unnoticed, as far as just
programmatically, faculty and others getting together saying, 'How do we
make this work, and how do we do this?" It's those levels of
intentionality. And I will say this too, the person who I am replacing,
Dr. David Eisler, who's been there at Ferris State for almost 20 years
in that role, if you don't have commitment from the top, these things
just never happen. And honestly, that's what some of the research also
shows.
If you can't get the top leadership to be committed to
it and saying, “We're going to put things in place to ensure this
happens," you can't just leave it to chance. You can't just be a CEO
that says, "Yep, we're going to do that. I'm all for it. I'm all for
it," and then walk away and think that it just happens. It has to be
followed by intentional pieces in place, and Dr. Eisler has been that
kind of person who says, "We're going to make this work. We're going to
figure out how to do it." And then the last thing is having a campus
community at Ferris State who understands and gets it, and sees how the
alignment of programs with what they offer and what community colleges
offer. It's a strong space that they occupy, and to have a faculty
that's going, "Yeah, we can figure this out. We're going to work this
out," because everyone at the end of the day realizes it's to the
benefit of our students, and without our students, who are we?
And
so I credit not just the leadership down, but I credit the folks who
are digging at it at the faculty and advisement level. Community
colleges, we're always happy to have a conversation. A university calls,
sure, when are we talking about it? We always want to have that
articulation conversation. How can I expand the choices that our
students have here? And so I think we're always going to be at that
table, but if you don't have that four-year partner coming to the table,
it's just never going to work. Ferris State has been one that's always
been at the table.
Mushtaq Gunja: That's great.
Dr. Pink, I was reading some research the other day, actually, that was
about persistence and the importance of community engagement and
employment in the community, and you mentioned a few minutes ago that
you were proud of some of the relationships that Grand Rapids Community
College had had with some community partners, some employers in the city
and in the region. I wondered if you had a couple of examples that you
were particularly proud of, and some best practices that you might want
to share with the listeners of this podcast.
Dr. Bill Pink:
That's a great question, Mushtaq, and one of them I think of right off
the bat. So right here locally, one of the more popular one of our
largest employers in West Michigan is Meier grocery stores, Meier
stores. Meier has a footprint that is a regional footprint, not just in
Michigan. They stretch into Wisconsin, Illinois, you have Meier grocery
store down in Kentucky. They have a large regional footprint. This has
been about four years ago when we first had the first conversation, when
I was just transitioning out of that vice president role of workforce
development into this president role, and the conversation we had with
Meier was this.
We said, "Okay, you have people working at
your grocery store, who many of which do not have a post-secondary
credential, many don't have anything. So how is it that we can work
together with you to help those individuals who work for you? By the
way, here's a suggestion." Because one thing about these conversations,
those are always good conversations, you always get people nodding their
heads saying, "We need to do more." Whenever you get up from the table
and you don't have a definition of do more, usually nothing happens.
So
we said, "By the way, here's something that we have." It was new to our
campus. It was a retail management certificate. It was a certificate
that was about a seven to eight course certificate that was in, again,
management. It's in our business department, and that it is embedded
into what could become a business associate, leading onto the
bachelor's. And so what we did with them is that we said, "We will build
that certificate where not only will we take the seven, eight courses
that are part of that certificate in terms of our traditional business
classes, we're talking management, accounting, HR, all those pieces," I
said, "But we'll do it in a way that is what I call Meier-centric.
So
the accounting course, accounting one, we're going to do accounting
principles, but then we're also going to cover what does that look like
for Meier? How does that process look if you work for Meier, when it
comes to accounting. Management, management principles, but what does
Meier, their management structure look like? We made it very much
according to what Meier would do. And so we made that, put that out
there. They looked at it and they said, "Maybe. We may think about that,
but right now we're looking at some other things." They came back about
a year later and said, "Can we revisit that?" And so when we sat down
and revisited that of what they were asking, and what they had done is
that they were looking at something totally different, found out it
wasn't working much for them, and they came back to us.
And
now that partnership, all the cohorts are Meier employees, and it's now a
fully online offering. I think we just started our fifth cohort, I
believe, where they have people that they send in, they pay for it. They
also are still their employees. This isn't one of those of trying to
fill a pipeline, this is really retention of the folks you already have,
and it's also trying to prepare your future leaders, as far as that
organization's concern. And so what has happened is that we've started a
fifth cohort of that, and they're all Meier employees. It's fully
online. It's worked so well, we now have started the first cohort of a
supply chain management certificate as well, and my goodness, supply
chain. Look at how that looks right now.
So that to me has
been one of those signature programs of example of how a community
college can partner at a level with a large, large organization, and be
able to provide that. I will tell you, my goal, I wanted to be their
leadership, because I wanted to get into leadership classes, the
leadership education. I want to be their number one professional
development arm. I want them to always ask GRCC, "What can you guys
build for us?" And so that type of a relationship has been developed
there.
It also gives this institution a playbook of how to
take that framework to other companies and do the same thing. I think
that's the kind of work that higher education needs to become even more
involved and more influential in, is how do we work directly with
companies to give them what they're looking for? And again, I think we
have to be as intrusive of saying, "And by the way, here's something
that we would throw out," because again, these conversations that lead
to nothing are those conversations that you just get up and say, "Yeah,
we want to work together. That's a great idea," but you never say,
"Here's what that looks like," and then months later, you see each other
out of dinner or a luncheon and say, "You know what? We had that
conversation." Well, the reason you only had a conversation is because
you never came to a conclusion of what that partnership looks like. I'm
sorry, I'm on a soapbox right now.
Mushtaq Gunja:
I love that approach though, I have to say, because I think I worry
that a little too often, our campuses just are providing knowledge, and
hoping that the employers are just going to come to them. And I think
being proactive about identifying the major employers, going to them
first with the value proposition. Our students are amazing. Our
professors are teaching incredible things, our students are learning
just a ton on campus, and exposing that to our employers in the first
instance, I think, is just incredibly valuable. It sounds like you've
done a great job with that.
Dr. Bill Pink:
Well, and I'll even go a little further with what you just said,
Mushtaq, because it's so important. If we're not coming out of this
place, shame on us. I think higher education is trying to move itself
out of what you just talked about, where we have spent decades and
decades being a place where we really didn't have to do a whole lot in
order for people to come, companies to come, students to come. They were
going to come to us, unless you are a specialty. When I worked in
private faith-based education, we had to be out there beating the bushes
and recruiting, but many of us on the public side, we've been able to
sit back and say, "We've already built it, so they're going to come."
And
we've always had enrollment. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down,
but they're always coming. And we really, in my opinion -- this is all
Pink opinion, by the way -- we took it for granted that they would
always be there. But in the world we're in right now, here's what we're
facing. We have people who are saying the degree isn't all that
important. We've got companies that say, "You know what? You don't have
to have a degree to come work for us," or you have others who are not
even higher ed institutions who are saying, "You know what? We can do
it. We can give you what you need. We can do it faster than they can. We
can do it more relevant than they can, and you'll be working for us."
And
so with all those challenges, we are foolish if we in higher education
aren't taking heed and truly moving closer to a conversation with folks
to say, "All right, tell us how you need this. Talk to us about how we
need to build this with you and for you," instead of walking in the
door, always just saying, "Oh no, we know what you need." No, let's get
to what you need first. Now I can also throw out there, "Here's
something that you may want to think about."
Jon Fansmith:
So Dr. Pink, first of all, I think I could listen to Pink opinions all
day, so I like that term a lot. And I know we're taking up a lot of your
time, but before we let you go, I wanted to ask you. You were the first
black president at Grand Rapids, you will be the first black president
of Ferris State. You were the president at Grand Rapids during a period
of intense activity and introspection, and national debate and
discussion around racial equity and racial justice. The George Floyd
issue, obviously, and apologies if I mispronounce the man's name,
Patrick Lyoya, in the Grand Rapids Community. You're not just a campus
leader, you're a community leader. That must have put you, in a lot of
ways, very central to a lot of these discussions in your community. Can
you just talk a little bit about that experience? What you might have
learned from it, what perspective you brought to it, and how you think
it'll also inform your work going forward at Ferris State.
Dr. Bill Pink:
Yeah. It's been a very trying two years, for many reasons. So when you
think about some of the things, and obviously, it didn't just start with
George Floyd, but his murder really was I'll say another wake up call. I
think we've had several wake up calls. A wake up call doesn't work
unless you wake up. So we've had several things that have gone on now
with what we're dealing with here in Grand Rapids, and from my
perspective, what's been important is for me to not only continue to
push the agenda of the community's college. That to me is important in
all this, because I keep coming back to how we prepare and educate our
community, and in this case, our African American community. How do we
stand in that place of being that education pathway?
I don't
care if it's the 18 year old or the 48 year old. How do we continue to
give them, from an education standpoint, opportunity? Then, when I take
the community college president hat off and then just put on the hat of
Bill Pink, the community voice and community leader, how do we continue
to call and shed light upon what we need to be thinking of and what we
need to be doing as a community? I will tell you the other night, Jon,
your question strikes me because last week we had our commencement
ceremony. The day before commencement, we had our police academy
graduation, and I attended our graduation as I always like to, and have
some things to say to our graduating cadets.
But what was so
interesting about it, Jon, is during that ceremony, one of our cadets,
who was the speaker as far as that cohort was concerned, young man stood
up. He was a white young man, and as I listened to him speak, it made
me feel so good about where we are as an institution when it comes to
preparing our next crop of law enforcement individuals. It is because of
individuals who are focused on making a difference in this world. And
to me, that's what makes this job all worthwhile, is that it's not only
faculty and folks that work at our institutions that have that focus,
but when I heard students really talk about...
And this young
man already has a job. He's got a job already with one of our local
municipalities, but his words in representing his cohort, they are
focused on saying, "How do we?" It wasn't this, "Well, wait a minute.
That wasn't." No. It was none of the way the we're not getting a fair...
It wasn't that. It was, "We know what we're doing. We know what we're
going into, we've been prepared to do it. Now how do we make a
difference in this community in a way that will be so different from
what we just saw?" So that, to me, keeps me motivated to do the work
that we do, because it lets me know it's worthwhile when I hear students
talk that way.
Jon Fansmith: Well, and I
think that also speaks to the institutions you've led and how you've
shaped them, and certainly speaks well to all the contributions you've
made both at the institutions and your community. And I'll just speak
for Sarah and Mushaq and say it's real pleasure to have you come on and
talk to you, and I'm looking forward to hearing some more Pink opinions,
reaching out and picking your brain on a whole lot of these subjects,
because it's clear there's a lot we can learn from you, and we really
appreciate you taking the time in joining us today.
Dr. Bill Pink:
Well, you guys have to know, I'm honored to be a part of having this
conversation with you. I look forward to us having more conversations
when I'm on the other end up in Big Rapids at Ferris State, because we
have work to do. This is fun. It's why we do it, because of the work,
and so looking forward to that. And thank you guys, I'm honored to be a
part of this.
Jon Fansmith: Well, thanks again. We'll be following up with you in the future, and thanks everyone else for listening.
Sarah Spreitzer:
As always, podcast friends, you can check out earlier episodes and
subscribe to dotEDU on Apple, Google Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or
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resources mentioned in the episode, you can go to our website at
acenet.edu/podcast. And while there, please take a short survey to let
us know how we're doing. You can also email us at podcastacenet.edu to
give us suggestions on upcoming shows and guests. And a very big thank
you to the producers who helped pull this podcast together, Laurie
Arnston, Audrey Hamilton, Malcolm Moore, Anthony Truehart, Hisani
Stenson, and Fatma Ngom. They do an incredible job making this happen,
and making Jon, Mushaq, and I sound as good as possible. And finally,
thank you so much for listening.