878: Differentiating for the Win - with Dr. Robert E. Johnson, President, Western New England University

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio back with another episode. I'm giggling a little bit because this guest co-host that I have with me today, I've been trying to get around like two or three different times. And either the guest has canceled or I've had to cancel, but she keeps coming back and we're finally delivering today. And I'm so happy to have her here. One of the, I think, most powerful parts of the EdUp Experience podcast is that we bring back many of those who we interview to be a guest co-host, to ask the questions, to be curious. And sometimes it's presidents that we've interviewed that come back to interview another president. Sometimes somebody they know, sometimes somebody that they want to know. And those connections can be everlasting. And this podcast, really the true honor and the journey part that Elvin and I are so proud about, are being able to make these connections sometimes before they existed. We make the connection and then people go on to have great conversations into the future and solve problems for students. That's what we do, right? We do this for our students every single day. And it's hard. This is not easy work. And so it's important to take some time to talk about our wins, to talk about who we're helping, how we're helping them. And I'm going to do that today with my guest, but let's bring her in now. My guest co-host, ladies and gentlemen. I think third time is the charm. This is the third guest host schedule that we had. And we finally got her here. Ladies and gentlemen, she's Dr. Aisha Francis. She is the president at Franklin Cummings Tech. What's going on Aisha? How are you?

Dr. Aisha Francis: I'm doing very well. Happy to be here. And yes, third time's a charm, but this is a wonderful platform. And I definitely was very happy to be invited back as a co-host.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Thank you. And you kept coming back. That means every time I didn't make it happen or we didn't make it happen for you, you said, okay, I'm going to give it one more chance. That says two things: one, that you're very forgiving, right, of me. So I appreciate you. And two, you want to be part of these amazing conversations and interviewing other amazing guests. Talk to me about that co-hosting part. What made you want to come back and co-host and talk to somebody else?

Dr. Aisha Francis: Well, first of all, I wanted to make sure I had, I think, an opportunity to engage in a different way with the EdUp Experience because the previous time I was on, I was in Dr. Johnson's seat. And then secondly, I really honestly wanted this kind of a platform to speak with my fellow Massachusetts president here, who I talk with in all kinds of forums. But this is different. It's something for posterity and also the conversations lend themselves to a lot of levity, which is nice in this difficult work that we're doing.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Isn't that the truth? Well, here he is, ladies and gentlemen. If it was a little bit of a teaser, we're going to bring him in now. It is Dr. Robert E. Johnson. He is the president of Western New England University. Dr. Johnson, welcome to EdUp. How are you?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: I'm doing great. How are you doing?

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know what? I had a boss one time that would say, if I was doing any better, it wouldn't be fair. So that's what I'm going with today.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Okay. Well, that sounds great. That sounds good.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah. Dr. Johnson, thanks for coming on. We're very excited to talk with you. A lot going on in your state, education in general, higher education, the value, there's so many swirling topics, closures, mergers, all of this, but level set for us. Tell us about Western New England University. What do you do and how do you do it?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Well, you know, Western New England University, we are, as one of my mentors used to say, we are in good shape for the shape we're in. We are a comprehensive university with about 3,500 students, 2,400 at the undergraduate level, and the rest in our graduate programs, law, pharmacy, and the health sciences. We are located in Springfield, Massachusetts. We think of ourselves as an institution that really pulls together this very basic ideal of the powerful preparation for the future of work. And that is preparing our students not only for jobs of today, but also the jobs of tomorrow. Educating young people for jobs that do not yet exist, utilizing technology yet to be created to solve problems that we haven't even identified. 

The way that we create this environment for the powerful preparation for the future of work is we really stand on three pillars: the new traditional university, the agile mind education, and personal exploration and growth. The new traditional university is really designed inherently to build upon the founding of the Academy of the mentor relationship with faculty and students, and at the same time, embracing new modalities of teaching and learning. The Agile Mind education is really giving all of our students the essential human skills that cannot be replicated by a robot algorithm or AI, and gives them the skillset mindset to continuously create new value. And personal exploration and growth is at its foundation helping every student to discover their why. 

This educational experience through our colleges of business, engineering, arts and sciences, of course, in our law school, pharmacy and health sciences puts us in a unique market position. 98% of our students have jobs and/or are going to graduate or professional school when they graduate. The starting salaries of our students are higher than 52% of the top 100 universities in the country. We pride ourselves on social mobility. Harvard did an insight study several years ago. It was reproduced in the New York Times about a year and a half ago. And it looked at students who start institutions of higher learning in the bottom quintile over their lifetime. How did they progress into the top quintile in terms of success? Out of 575 institutions, selective private institutions in the country, Western New England University is number 10, number 10 in the country in terms of social mobility.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Amazing!

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: It is quite amazing when you think about it. We are a national university, as you very well know as a comprehensive institution. According to US News and World Reports, there are about 449 institutions that have that designation. We rank number 238 in terms of a national institution, a national university, and we're proud of that fact. We have great programs in advanced manufacturing, computer science, cybersecurity. The list goes on and on and on. We have quantum computing on our campus with FinTech. Our law school has done amazing things with their Center of Social Justice to put a legal kiosk in about 11 locations throughout Western Massachusetts. So if you are having a problem, may it be a housing problem, immigration problem, whatever the case may be, you can go to one of these kiosks and speak to a lawyer in real time. 

So I think Western New England University is uniquely positioned to make a difference in the world. Last year, our entering class was 22% higher than the previous year. Currently our applications for next year, we are up some 30% or 40% in terms of applications year over year. In fact, we've received more applications to date than we did for the entire year recruiting season last year.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Victory!

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Absolutely. So we're very optimistic about our incoming class. Last year we saw a growth in our overall enrollment and we expect to see the same thing in this upcoming fall as well.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's awesome. The numbers of growth are incredible, particularly as you look at what's going on with FAFSA, right? You know you're... There isn't a conversation we can have in higher ed right now that doesn't end with those letters at the end of it, right? It's about the FAFSA. Can't you tell I've lost all of my hair? It is quite nerve-wracking. Can you talk just a little bit about what you're doing at your institution? You know, I call it like intentional waiting, you know, we're waiting with intention, we're waiting for... How is your school doing? Are you having anything come through yet? What are students saying? What's the feeling?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Yeah, so we have approached this a bit differently. We have pre... There is Pell-nomics data and other kinds of data out there available where you can estimate household incomes. We've gone out and used that technology and that data to come up with some preliminary pre-packages that we sent out to students back in January. So based upon what we've been able to estimate family income to be, we've sent students their award letters en masse by late January, early February, telling them that at minimum this is the amount of money that they would receive. Now we have finally started receiving ISIRs from the federal government for students who have completed the FAFSA and we have about 1,500 or so additional packages that we will be putting out on the streets and as they come in on a day by day and week by week basis we will continue to do so. So I think we have bumped the queue because we've actually had award packages out on the street since early February.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, it makes a big difference, doesn't it? I mean, man, can you imagine I have a niece, my sister-in-law, her daughter's going to school. They're just sitting around waiting. They don't know what to do. They don't know how to make a choice. They're in a little bit of panic. So that makes a big difference, Aisha. I know you're dealing with that too. This is confusing time.

Dr. Aisha Francis: Yeah, I think one of the things this points to is the diversity of types of institutions and the diversity of problem solving. I think the creative problem solving that does exist, but a lot of the focus in the national media is on a sliver of highly selective institutions that have, for the most part, one way of doing things. Franklin Cummings Tech is a non-selective institution and frankly, we package late anyway because our students apply late. And we purposefully do that because a lot of people think about college well after the traditional process is closed or well after people think the traditional process is closed. So there's a lot of different institutions out there, that's for sure.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: And I think Aisha makes a very, very good point in terms of the plethora of institutions. Here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we have what, 59 private colleges and universities. And after you take out the big eight, the Harvard, Northeastern, BU, BC, so forth, and so on, then there's the rest of us. It's the other 51 institutions that range from very small to medium in a handful of large private institutions. And our approach has to be very, very, very different because we are eclectic as a group of institutions. And by the way, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the epicenter of higher education on the planet. There's no place you can go in the world and find this many colleges and universities within a 90 minute drive from downtown Boston in the world, public, private. And I think that that makes a big difference as well. We're also the only state in the country where more students attend private institutions than they do public institutions.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You outlined the difficulty of competitiveness in the state, didn't you? I mean, there's so many schools and so little students for some of those schools. How do you position you when you think about positioning amongst other schools? How do you differentiate? I mean, that's a... I think it's a key question. So many institutions are asking themselves right now because, quality education, flexibility, you can do it. We all have these same value propositions that we try to recycle. Can you talk about how you've differentiated your institution?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Sure. For us, it's real simple. It's ROI. 98% of our students, our graduates have jobs or are going on to graduate or professional school. The starting salaries of our students is higher than 52% of the top 100 universities in the country. For an institution that is, you know, 3,500 students in terms of enrollment. You know, it's kind of like the Goldilocks. We're not too big, we're not too small, we're just right. It's a place like Cheers where everyone knows your name. I think what families are looking for more than anything else is return on investment. In our engineering program, we have 100% job placement rate and have had 100% job placement rate for the last 30 years. We also have place-based education. So our students get internships and co-ops and what have you, but at the end of the day, why do students go on to college? It's because they want to get a good job that they couldn't have gotten without going to college, and they want to earn a decent living. Our value proposition pays off. Ninety-eight percent job placement rate and/or going on to graduate or professional school, starting salaries higher than 52% of the top 100 universities in the country. And I would go so far as to say that Western New England University is the only institution in the country that prepares people for the powerful preparation for the future of work that is a new traditional university with an agile mind education, providing students with a personal exploration and growth. If you can find another institution out there that can do it and find a better deal, then buy it.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Tell it like it is. If you can say "prepare people for powerful preparations" five times fast without making a mistake email the EdUp Experience at gmail.com for your $50 gift card because I don't think anyone can do that as fast as Robert Johnson just did it. It's impossible by the way, and I'll say this before I pass it to you Aisha. I literally have sound effects on my board. I have cheers and I have 100%, but you're going so fast between them, I couldn't kick the buttons fast enough.

Dr. Aisha Francis: Well, I want to pick up on a few threads. And so I'm going to ask two questions in one. You talked about very squarely the value of being in a Commonwealth that has this multiplicity of education options, right? Post-secondary education options. What do you think, my first question is, what do you think is most important to really bring across to folks the value of how many schools that are here? Because I think often we hear this, there are too many, one or two or three or five or 10 less won't really matter. So that's one question. And the second question is, recently I was at a conference and I heard sort of debate between whether or not there is really an enrollment cliff or is it the enrollment myth. And the myth side of the panel was talking about the fact that the cliff only exists for these micro populations that have been our traditional audience or what many colleges are pursuing as a traditional audience, but if you move outside of that, there's a lot of people that are really interested. So those are the two kind of areas of questioning. How do you talk to folks about the value of multiple institutions being available in a relatively tight geography? And then what do you say to the doomsayers that are really focusing only on the enrollment cliff?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Yeah. To your first question in terms of being in an environment like Massachusetts where there are so many colleges and universities, I think it's an opportunity for students who go to college to be in an environment, whether you're in Boston per se, central Massachusetts or Western Massachusetts, having this conglomeration of colleges and universities wherever you are attending school provides an ecosystem and kind of a culture that has a great college vibe that I think benefits students in the long run. Because if you're in the greater Boston area, you are going to school with individuals who are attending the most elite institutions, institutions that are two and four year and have open access. That conglomeration of students together in the greater Boston area when school is in session, when college is in session, I think there are well over 500,000, 700,000 college students in the greater Boston metropolitan area. So when you're going out to lunch, when you're hanging out, what have you, you have this culture of a college vibe of a generation of young people who want to change the world. You find the same thing in Western Mass and Central Mass as well.

So I think it's an opportunity for young people to be around other college students who are not like themselves. So even for the students who attend the most elite institutions in Massachusetts, when they are out and about and throughout the community and they're engaging with others from different socioeconomic statuses, first generation, second, third generation students, it makes a more vibrant experience. 

And as far as the economic cliff is concerned, my view of this, some call it an economic cliff. We knew that this demographic shift was going to take place 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And I would simply say for the institutions that did not start planning 10 or 15 years ago to shore up their market position, shame on them. It's fuzzy math. It is fuzzy math, right? Demographics have changed over the last 30 years. We can see peaks and valleys with the demographics for college going students. An institution has to determine where do I currently get my students from? Can I increase my market share? Are there markets I need to let go of? And where do I go to open up new markets and penetrate more deeply in markets where I've already been successful?

If you're doing that, then you will be able to evolve your applicant pool. You will be able to evolve the students who are coming to your institution. And that may mean different types of students who are coming to your institution because those demographics are shifting. And if you want to have a monolithic enrollment, unless you're one of those elite institutions that get 50,000 applications a year, then you're going to have to evolve with the demographics of what your student body is going to look like, because demography is destiny. And several years ago, many years ago, in terms of the public school system, K through 12 system, the K through 12 system became a majority minority student population, and that's where we ultimately get our students from. So if you've had a very monolithic student body and you don't want to change that and you're not one of those elite institutions, then it's gonna be a serious demographic cliff for you. If you're an institution that wants to be inclusive and involved all on your campus, there are gonna be plenty of opportunities for you. But you also, as I talk about our students having an agile mind, we as institutions of higher learning, as leaders and as administrators, staff and faculty, we also have to have an agile mindset as well.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I like your style dude. You know, one of the things you, I was just peeking at your bio and I liked the way it's written. You know, two things I want to kind of say and then ask you a question. I like where you write that you have an unyielding belief in higher education as a public good and a path for transformation, transforming individual lives. And then you have the part here where you talk about, through higher education, students must develop divergent thinking skills, social, emotional, intelligence, empathy, and a sense of humanity, because the human capabilities cannot be replicated by technology. And when paired with an entrepreneurial outlook and the value creation orientation, those are the hallmarks of success in a complex hyper-connected world. Love it because it says, change is good. Right. Think forward. Higher ed is averse to change in many ways. We have structure that's built to prevent change. There's been a lot of, there's been books that have come out recently. There's been a lot of articles written from presidents, from past presidents saying, wow, it's hard to change. It's hard to move an organization toward change with these bureaucracies that we've built over hundreds of years or whatever else. How would you keep that agile institute? How do you keep the institution agile? How do you keep it moving in an agile way?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: So let me answer that question by starting with the end. Adapt or die. It is just that simple.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yikes!

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: We have to adapt or die as institutions of higher learning. Now having said that, how do you do that? I'm a firm believer in the human spirit and the capacity of people wanting to do the right thing. I often think about, and I have asked the question of individuals, why are you here? Why did you decide to work in higher education? Why did you decide to come into an environment where you could touch people's lives? And ultimately, the response is generally the same. I want to make a difference. I want to help young people realize their dreams, their goals, and their aspirations. And if you start off with a basic ethos of on a planet with almost 8 billion people as educated citizens those of us with at least a bachelor's degree, we represent seven point seven percent of the world's population. So therefore we are privileged. So therefore we have to give back and leave the world better than the way we found it. If you start off with that very basic premise and you look at those of us who have come into the Academy to teach, to manage, to lead, whatever the case may be, we have that basic fundamental principle at our core that we are privileged and that we want to leave the world better by touching lives of the next generation of young people. 

So what I have found when you go into organizations and you put the data in front of faculty, staff, and administrators, and you say, here it is, you start with why we need to change. What we need to do, but why? Well, the data says we need to change. And if the data says we need to change and people understand that why, they figure out the what. They create a sense of urgency within the organization to bring about that change. And if for institutions that choose not to be transparent, choose not to put the data out there to say this is why we need to do it, then they die. They die. So you have to adapt or die. We have to be data-driven organizations. So if you look at the data, and this is what the data is telling you, it tells you why we need to do things differently. And all too often, organizations, institutions of higher learning, we start off with, this is what we need to do. This is what we want to do. No. Never start with the what. Always start with the why. If you start with the why, you can get to the what, you can bring about change. And when in the history of the world, have you ever had a group of people who decided that they wanted to achieve the same goal, who were rolling in the same direction, and they were not successful? I believe that data-driven organizations and people clearly understanding what that data means from a why perspective drives them to the what, and they pick up the banner and they all roll in the same direction. Ultimately, they bring about the change within the organization.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Nailed it. I am going to do something a little bit different. I've been doing this on my last few episodes. Aisha, before I pass it back to you, you get to have a little bit of fun too. This is another in-episode episode, if you will, of the EdUp Either or Experience. And this is where we're going to give you two terms, two words. You've got to pick which one you like better. Or if you like both, you owe me five bucks and I have your email address, I will find you. So I'll be taking a tally. If you can't pick one or they don't feel good, you have to say both and then you owe me money. So, you know, think about that long and hard. Here we go. We're going to start with you, Aisha. Ready? We're going to start easy. Early morning meeting or late afternoon meeting?

Dr. Aisha Francis: Early morning.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Dr. Johnson, early morning or late afternoon meeting?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Early.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay, you got us the early risers. All right, here we go. We're going to go a little bit harder. Aisha, student first or meet students where they are?

Dr. Aisha Francis: Student first.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Robert?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Meet students where they are.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I mean, okay. Now we're gonna do some ones that feel a little bit icky, but you got to choose anyway. Dr. Johnson, over to you first. We're gonna table that or let's circle back.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: I don't like either one of them.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay. That's five bucks from Dr. Johnson. We got five bucks. You have to do something.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Let's get back to you. Let's do catching done. The job's not done.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: There you go. Aisha, let's table that or let's circle back.

Dr. Aisha Francis: In terms of my daily parlance, I'm much more likely to say we'll circle back as a way to move on. But I do tend to circle back within the same meeting.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Hopefully. See, these get a little funny. Okay, let's go with Dr. Johnson. Over to you. Bursar or student accounts.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Student accounts.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Aisha, over to you.

Dr. Aisha Francis: Agree, student accounts.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay. What's a bursar? Okay, we'll go a little bit harder. Dr. Johnson, over to you. Competition or collaboration?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Competition. Kill the enemy or die.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Oh my gosh.

Dr. Aisha Francis: Collaboration.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I had a feeling that one might end up sitting bipolarly. Okay, here's, we'll do a couple more. Dr. Johnson, over to you. Sitting desk or standing desk?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: I'm standing now.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay. Okay. A couple more. Dr. Johnson, over to you. Student services or student success?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Student success.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Aisha?

Dr. Aisha Francis: The same, student success.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay. We'll do one more icky one, or at least I think it is. Aisha, we'll go to you first. Paradigm shift or pivot.

Dr. Aisha Francis: Pivot.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Pivot.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay. Aisha, rubric or rigor?

Dr. Aisha Francis: Neither.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Five bucks.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Rubric.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay. And the one that will burn you in your sleep, you'll be thinking about it. Aisha, we'll go with you first. Pedagogy or pedagogy?

Dr. Aisha Francis: It's a late on some motto.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: Oh my goodness, I say Goji because I'm Southern. We always use, you know, all of those vowels.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I'm from the Midwest, from the 40s, pedagogy. See? Now, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, another very fun in-episode episode of the EdUp Either Or Experience. Now let me figure out how to turn this sucker off. Okay. See, I can't turn it off. Fade it out. Anyway, is what I why I started doing this as I thought we all use there's so much commonality in the terms we use but so many of us use them in different ways and they mean different things and some are total inside baseball. So let's get these out in the open. Let's make people choose between circle back and table that. I mean if you... What a choice that is. Anyway, we hope you guys enjoyed that. Aisha back over to you for any questions yet for Robert.

Dr. Aisha Francis: Sure. So one of the things I know that holds a lot of value for you is mentorship, particularly at the president level and also with folks who are aspiring to the presidency. So I just love... You've already given us some wonderful gems around the importance of being data-led, of leading from a sense of data, starting with the why and not the what. You know, there were two things that you wanted to share to aspiring presidents who might be listening, whether they are current provosts, deans, chiefs of staff, what have you. You have the floor. Two things.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: You know, so my dad, actually, you know, I have a manuscript for a book of lessons in leadership that I learned from my father. And I'll share with you two of them for current presidents, aspiring presidents, whatever walk of life you happen to be in. My dad used to always say, whatever you do, don't believe the hype, theirs or your own. Don't take yourself too seriously. Do not believe the hype, theirs or your own, because when you do that, you fall into this trap of actually believing that you're greater than you are. And it really comes from the basic principle: seek to understand before you try to be understood. 

And then the second thing I would say, as a leader, when someone brings something to you, and this is a principle I learned from my dad, no matter, when someone brings an issue to you, they could be your arch nemesis, you could dislike them, you could have nothing but contempt for them, they may not like you. It could be a toxic relationship. But when they bring you an issue, the first question you ask yourself is, are they right? And if they are right, you deal with the issue. And his point, his leadership lesson is always separate the personality from the profession. So as a leader, no matter who comes to me with anything, faculty, staff, students, board member, alum, person from the community, no matter what their approach is, no matter how toxic they may say it, the first question I ask myself is, when I cut through all of that, are they right? Because they may come to you with 10 different things, and nine of them may be asinine, but one of them may be spot on. But if you're so close-minded that you will not seek to understand and ask that simple question, you may miss an opportunity to become a better leader and to solve a real problem that is important to your institution.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, I mean, that's got my wheels turning. I think every one of us has been in that spot where somebody's come to us and I could probably pick them out and go, I just didn't even listen because I couldn't separate the personality from the problem. It takes a lot of skill and patience to do something like that. And as a president, I would think that's one thing you have to truly master is at least on the surface, be patient.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: You do. You have to be patient and you have to take the incoming. And there's a reason why you are the president and you are the leader. And if you don't have thick skin and if your feelings get hurt very quickly, don't do this job, right?

Dr. Joe Sallustio: In the wrong business.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: In the wrong business. If you want everybody to like you and make you feel good, then you're doing the wrong job. But it is important because, it actually goes back to that lesson. When I was 16 years old growing up in Detroit, so in my senior year of high school, my best friend and I, Lindsey, we were walking in downtown Detroit in Greektown and this guy was sitting next to a light pole. We were about 20, 30 feet away from him. It was downwind and we could smell him. He was reeking. He was grimy and what have you. When we got up to the bum, Lindsay, my best friend, asked this guy, he said, what kind of advice would you give to young fellas like us? And I'm like, Lindsay, dude, what are you doing? We shouldn't be talking to this person. And this old bum, reeking, looking really, really bad, looked up at us and said, you can learn something from anybody, even me, and I'm a bum.

Dr. Aisha Francis: Everybody has something to offer if you were just listening. That is correct. You know, I think that might have us go farther in some... All kinds of relations or there's town-gown relations and faculty administration relations... This and I think one of the pearls there is not to dismiss, right? No one wants to feel dismissed. I think all of us feel disrespected when you dismiss perspective or hearing and so that's... That's a good, I think we've got to exercise that muscle even more. Thank you for sharing that.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Golden nuggets come out of these episodes. That's why we do them. Robert, we want to give you the last couple of questions to end the episode. Number one, another open mic for you. What else do you want to say about Western New England University? Maybe something we didn't touch on, an initiative, thought, anything at all that you want to say about Western New England, and then we'll ask you one more and end.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: I think the great thing about Western New England University, and I know every president says this, but in our case it's really true. We have really, really great kids. We are big enough without being too big and small enough without being too small. It's kind of like the Goldilocks of institutions. It's a place like Cheers where everybody knows your name. And I think that that up close and personal community is part of our secret sauce and DNA that really has been perpetuated for more than 100 years now throughout our history.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: If you could just say it one more time, it wasn't clear. I just wanted to show you that I did have... You found it. It's just unexpected. You keep saying it. Robert, what do you see for the future of higher education? To close us out?

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: I think the future for higher education overall, I think, is bright. There are going to be winners and losers. There's going to be consolidation. Some institutions will not make it. Some will evolve, thrive, and grow in real time as we go throughout the next five to 10 years, which I think will really, really be challenging. And I'm a proponent that really does believe that higher education is a public good. It transforms lives and enables people to go out into the world and leave it better than the way we found it. And it is very, very important to me that as we educate the next generation of young people, that we teach them the basic concepts of civility, mutual respect, and civil discourse, understanding that all we do, we must do it with a sense of humanity. And as educated citizens, we're privileged. So therefore, we have a social obligation to go out into the world and leave it better than the way we found it. I'm bullish on this generation of young people. You know some people are trying to give up on the world, but they're going to solve the world's problems and clean up the mess that we've created.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know, when you say all that, it comes back to what you said, adapt or die. We have to stick around too. And there's a lot of institutions out there that are in trouble by the time you know that you're in trouble. You're already dead. You have to know that before you ever get in trouble. You have to think forward beyond your financial problems. You have to look at closing your expense gaps and you have to generate revenue because it's hard to cut your way to prosperity.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: That's right. It's all about value creation, you know value for the outcomes, value for the inputs. It's just very sound advice.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Robert, thank you for being here, but before I thank you even more, I gotta thank my guest co-host, who I would say did an incredible job for her first guest co-host.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: She did, she did. She really did.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, she's Dr. Aisha Francis. She was the president of Franklin Cummings Tech. Aisha, thanks for being here. It's such a pleasure to see you.

Dr. Aisha Francis: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And our guest today, no, he is your guest today. He is Dr. Robert Johnson, he is the president of Western New England University and he dropped some golden nuggets on us today. Robert, we hope you had a good time as you got to talk about your university.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: I did. Well, it was an honor. It was an honor to have you both here.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And we can do this again anytime you guys want. Call me.

Dr. Robert E. Johnson: We will call you.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: See? Elvin, you heard him say it. Get him. Ladies and gentlemen, you just EdUpped!