SPEAKER_00
Hello, and welcome to .edu, 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 the just, 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-host, Sarah Sprites, here in Mushtaq, Anja. How are you guys doing today?

SPEAKER_02
I'm doing great. I'm a happy person today. I am a happy, happy person.

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I'm, you guys go for walks to Panera and you don't invite me, so.

SPEAKER_01
You're not in the office, John. If you started coming into the office, then you would also get invited to.

SPEAKER_00
Maybe if you invited me, I'd come into the office, right? I mean, why are you putting this all on me?

SPEAKER_01
Are we trying to get Panera as a sponsor? Because we could also talk about how Mushtaq is part of the Panera Coffee Club.

SPEAKER_02
That's true. And I got a dozen bagels to it, too. Wow. Then was accused by a team member of wanting to eat all of those said bagels, which I don't know if you've, if many of our listeners have seen me in person, but I don't think that I probably could eat 12 bagels.

SPEAKER_00
You have to, you have to call them like delicious bagels. If we want Panera's response, you're going to sell it a little bit more other than I can't actually eat their product. That's not going to send us any.

SPEAKER_02
Sliced delicious Asiago cheese bagels that my children gobble up by the bagel bowl, you know, almost every morning.

SPEAKER_00
Panera bagels, the only bagels I'll come into the office for. Huh? Does that maybe? No. Okay. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01
Well, we've already gone off the rails. Congress is back this week. I don't know if they were back last week, but they're back.

The Senate this week, John, you probably know this because you follow all of my issues so closely. They're taking up the conference instructions on the US 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 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, you know, all of my conversations around competition, John, were easily overtaken by your issues this weekend.

SPEAKER_00
Because my issues are more interesting.

SPEAKER_01
Sure, let's go with that.

SPEAKER_00
Well, issues, John. In this case, the issue you're referring to is student loan forgiveness, which is one of those things that really, you know, is where our wonky sort of inside DC policy world slams head on into mass public opinion and there's been increasing interest, but certainly sort of more smoke around the idea that the Biden administration may do loan forgiveness. I think we saw over the weekend, the clear 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 to $150,000 for individuals and $250 to $300,000 for couples that file together.

SPEAKER_01
This is income levels right now the amount of loans that would be forgiven.

SPEAKER_00
Yep, that 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. That's what the president campaigned on. It's also not yet none of these things are sort of out of the blue right this is the idea of means testing the benefit the idea of limiting the benefits it's not universal.

Those have kind of been floating around policy discussions for a while now so nothing shocking in that regard but that was a huge deal on Monday. People are talking about this all through the weekend, and then Monday night something happened much talk that blew that out of the news and people stop caring about my issues you want to talk a little bit about our Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, talking about going off the rails right. Supreme Court went off the rails a little bit this. I guess last night we're recording on a Tuesday so Monday night a draft a Lido opinion that purports I think to be the majority opinion.

Over turning road versus Wade. Well, it was leaked. And who I mean, yeah, all of a sudden, student loan debt forgiveness was was wiped off the front page, at least in my Twitter, where really it was john.

I mean, nine out of 10 tweets seem to be about sort of debt forgiveness with the other one of course being you seek a Sarah I mean obviously. No that's not true.

SPEAKER_00
But there was about the NBA playoffs.

SPEAKER_02
Well, that's definitely true. But in any case, I mean, it's sort of stunning in a couple of respects I mean I think, you know, the idea that row might be overturned by this court of, you know, six conservatives, you know when they took up a couple of abortion ban cases. That's not shocking.

The leak of the opinion is pretty shocking is very shocking doesn't happen often. It's not the only leak of a draft opinion history but it's, but it's certainly a big deal doesn't doesn't happen very often the leak is a problem. The opinion itself is pretty shocking.

I mean there are, there are more and less narrow ways to overturn row. And Alito in this draft opinion and it's still, we don't know that it's, we don't know that it is the final opinion but if it were to, I mean he took a complete and utter sledgehammer not just to to row but to, you know some concepts surrounding the end of due process. I was boring Sarah on our walk to Panera about all things substance, all things up to the process but you know the reality is that, you know, this sort of set of doctrine underpins, you know, decades worth of jurisprudence around interception and interracial marriage and gay marriage and so, you know, if we sort of take out some of those fundamental building blocks you know what, what might come will be.

And so, you know, to me the leak is sort of interesting and will be interesting for like another, you know, 36 hours or maybe until our podcast listeners sort of download and listen to this podcast but you know the substantive sort of effects of this, this opinion if this were to indeed be the opinion are are are pretty, pretty striking and went way farther than I sort of might have anticipated this court might go in overturning row.

SPEAKER_01
And, you know, I think that it also given that everything this year is political in the lead up to the midterms, I think that that also means that Congress, you know, could try and take some action around it to try and put, you know, further protections into law, or at least try to And so it's unclear what that means for the rest, the rest of the kind of congressional agenda and the administration's agenda right is this going to take up a lot of their time.

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you've already seen these calls for overturning the filibuster to protect row in statute and other things which seems unlikely since there obviously a few Democratic senators who are very hesitant to raise 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 say team for that will be right back after a break.

And welcome back. We are joined by someone I'm very excited to be talking to and somebody that AC 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 College, Ferris State University, I apologize. So Dr. Pink for swell thank you and for coming out to the show and joining us today.

SPEAKER_03
I'm honored to be here john honored looking forward to this conversation.

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I know that Sarah and the second I join 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. You know, I think one of the things we are at this really kind of incredible transition point in higher ed right we're coming out of the pandemic. We're looking at all these changes, you know policy changes we've been talking about here in Washington.

And just, 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 the biggest experiences you've seen with some of the changes you've seen what you think you know, not just the pandemic but you know 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.

SPEAKER_03
Honestly, these last two years, where 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 so you know 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 not not wasting this crisis and combine that with the fact that we've had so many federal stimulus dollars that have flown have flowed through Community Colleges for your schools here in Grand Rapids. We were just doing some work on this yesterday and we have over the last two years we've put out $20 million to our students in terms of stimulus dollars now get $20 million.

And the way we see that as 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 a family trying to maneuver through some of the things that COVID-19 has done to them and to their families.

What this 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 3040 million actually 2025 million on the other side that was institutional for us that we then have 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 lives in our students our students lives a bit better in terms of when they are on campus so honestly, when I look at it nationally I think that's really what's been done. 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.

SPEAKER_00
And with the federal aid my one of the reasons, you know, was, you know, released by the federal government was in part to help students like the students you're talking about, be able to stay enrolled right to offset those financial concerns that so they could continue their education. And 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 the same challenges and you identified them but were the those trends hold true for Grand Rapids are you struggling with that more or less than maybe other institutions.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, that first the first year so the what I call the cove a year, the fall of 20 in the winter of 21. That was the year john that we saw about an eight to 9% decline in our enrollment and 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 help to talk about that state programming here in second, but the dollars that helped in terms of the federal funding that was helpful to our institution, especially the latter iterations of her dollars that really said that you can help out 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 coven year fall this year we were up 4 and a half percent. So our enrollment truly saw a rebound this winter we're about a half to 1% up from a year ago.

And so our hope is that that's a trajectory that continues. And so with the help that will tell you our state has two initiatives that were very helpful to community colleges one is called Michigan reconnect grant Michigan reconnect means that if you are an individual, and you are 25 and older, some are no college, and no you can access community college last dollar tuition free of charge. So I will tell you from our campus that brought us about 1000 students, just from the Michigan reconnect grant this year.

The other effort was what's called futures for front liners futures for front liners was an opportunity that the state again state initiative out of the governor's office both of these now the legislature has caught track traction on both, but future for the front liners. If you're an individual back in 2020 that you when Michigan shut down in March I mean we shut down as a state twice, once in March, and then again in November, when that whole everyone was fearful about the Thanksgiving, or what's going to do. So if you kept working if you're a frontline worker that kept working.

You are also you got to be able to prove that employment and also some are no college or all that good stuff. You also those folks get last dollar tuition for community colleges well both those combined john brought this college around 2000 students. And so those those efforts.

I'm not, I'm not some 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 kind of looks like it's going to be a bit down but a year ago this summer, our enrollment was out the roof.

I mean it was one of the best summers we've had in a while. And so trying to match last summer be difficult but we're really pushing forward at what the falls.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Dr. Dr pink I hope that that 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'm so honored to be able to transfer it into my four year institution and also midwesterner I love Grand Rapids have flown into that airport many times.

But you know they're they're so important to the community and for for people that also want to pursue your degree but are perhaps not ready and and I know that Grand Rapids Community College has a really robust articulation agreement actually with the institution that is moving to Ferris State University. Is that something that started under you, you know 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 for your institution.

SPEAKER_03
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 when you really think through that when you pull that string all the way through, you realize that oh wait a minute Ferris State also has a doctorate in Community College leadership program that is very robust I've had so many of my colleagues across the country, who email or call to say congratulations and also say we have my my provost my CF my whomever my Dean is a graduate of that program. So when you think about that kind of 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 the work that of the of a lot of the work that we do here at the college. And also the relationship with GRCC and Ferris State dates over 30 years when it comes to our applied technology center right here in the downtown Grand Rapids so that applied technology center. Beautiful facility.

When you go into that building it houses many of our, many of our some of our technical and occupational career CTE programs, but it also houses the absolute best culinary school in the world, just saying. But also what you get with with that building is that Ferris State University the grand one of their one of the strongest Grand Rapids presence for FSU is in our building. So you can 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 work workforce related programs that are 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, you know, staying with us at GRCC for three years, finishing that associate degree one more year with Ferris State and they finished the bachelor's degree. So that sends so many students on to their to their next whether that next be looking at a job that they already have.

And many of those students, you know, end up having the job for the finish, because of that level education. And so that to me is gives and by the way that also includes 20, actually 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 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. I mean, my goodness, I'm a fool. If I don't leverage a doctorate of Community College leadership program as being a the impetus to build more around professional development to build leadership opportunities and education for our community college partners that we are that close of a partner already.

It's time to stand that up even stronger and that's, that's part of the devious plan here.

SPEAKER_01
Obviously that will continue with your with your move.

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and Dr. But can I ask you, because you just walked through that and you made it seem so easy right that there are these connections between institutions and it's such a natural flow and, and yet we've had, I don't know how many conversations with people about transfer and the challenges of transfer and why, you know, particularly for students the challenges of transfer. You've got a great national perspective you're on our board you're on higher learning commissions board.

You have this sense, you know, and a number of other boards I haven't even gotten into yet. Can you maybe just learn some of your expertise. Why is it maybe so easy for you guys to do and so much harder for other people to do.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I I call this john 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 is the one that's sitting right there that isn't just next but it's, 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 ask you 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 desperate communities, how transfer hits them even stronger, because as 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 students 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 students. 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, of what equity needs to look like and so what I'm really encouraged about is fair state has a lot of this already as to 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 comes 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, the search process as I was looking at the presidential profile, and some of the data and they're in that profile john talked about I want to say the number was something that's between 60 and 70% completion of transfer students at fair state are you kidding.

Fantastic. Yeah, that's amazing. That to me, I get all it's it's crazy.

And so, a, I say, my first thing is, why in the heck aren't we blasting that information. And so, 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 on to their job but I mean those kind of data that's crazy, we've got to continue to promote that.

SPEAKER_00
And that's a national podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_02
Sorry, Bushack. So Dr. Pink. That 70% number is, is outrageous. Hi, it's, it's excellent how.

So, is that number so high is it, is it because of strong advising sort of on the front end are you accepting more, or will you be accepting more credits, you know, of those 32 credits or of the 60 credits that students come in, or higher percentage of those credits being accepted in the fair state. What's the secret sauce here.

SPEAKER_03
I think it's all around the intentionality of not only the articulation conversations but also, I mean, again, when you've got people right here on campus that students know they can go to the fair state to the office and sit and talk to people. That's helpful and that's powerful. The articulation can't be, I 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, how do we do this.

It's those levels of intentionality. And I will say this to the person who I am, and replacing Dr. Eisler David Eisler who's been there at fair state for almost 20 years in that role.

If you don't have commitment from the top, these things just never happen. And so, 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 third, the last thing is having a campus community at fair state who understands and gets it and sees how the alignment of programs with what they offer and what community colleges offer. I mean, it's a, it's a strong, strong space that they occupy and have a faculty that's going, yeah, we can figure this out. We're going to work this out.

And 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. You know, community colleges, we're always happy to have a conversation.

I mean, you know, university calls. Yeah, sure. When are we talking about it? You know, 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, I mean, we're always going to be at that table. But if you don't have that four year partner come into the table, it's just, it's just never going to work. Fair State has been one that's always been at the table.

SPEAKER_02
That's great. Dr. Pinkie, I was reading some research the other day actually that was about sort of persistence and the importance of community engagement and employment in the community and you mentioned a few minutes ago that you were, that you were proud of some of the relationships that that Grand Rapids Community College had had with some community partners from employers, you know, in the city and in the region. I wondered if you had a couple of examples that you were particularly proud of and, you know, some best practices that you might want to share with with the listeners of this podcast.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I, and that's a great question. Moose tag, Moose tagging. I, 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 Meyer, Meyer grocery stores Meyer stores. So, Meyer has a footprint that is a regional footprint, not just in Michigan. They stretch into Wisconsin, Illinois.

You can see you have Meyer grocery store and down in Kentucky. They have a large regional footprint what we did. This has been about four years ago when we first have the first conversation so conversation.

We asked as when I was just transitioning out of that Vice President role of workforce development into this president role. So, the conversation we had with Meyer was this so I we said, Okay, you have people working at your grocery store, who many of which do not have a post secondary credential may not 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, we kind of, you know, because one thing about these conversations, those are always good conversations you always get people not in their head 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's about seven to eight course certificate that is in again management in our business department, and that it is embedded into what could become a business associate, lean on to the bachelors and so what we did with them is that we said, We will build that certificate where not only is it do we will we take the seven eight courses that are part of that certificate in terms of our core our traditional business classes we're talking management accounting HR all those kind of pieces. I said but we'll do it in a way that is what I call my or century.

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 my or what how does that process look, if you work for my or when it comes to accounting management management principles, but what does Myers, my or their management structure look like, we made it very much, according to what my or would do. And so we made that put that out there.

They looked at it and they said, Yeah, 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 that it wasn't working much for them, and they came back to us.

And now that partnership. All the cohorts are Meyer employees, and it's now 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 you know they're 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 is concerned. And so what has happened is that we're starting the fifth cohort of that, and they're all Meyer employees.

It's fully online it's worked so well we now have started the first cohort of supply chain management certificate as well. And what I mean, 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 college community college can partner at a level with a large large large organization and be able to provide that in turn I mean my goal, I'll tell you my goal. I wanted to be their leadership because I wanted to get into leadership, leadership classes 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 more involved in more influential and is how do we work directly with companies to give them what they are 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 away. 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 at a dinner or luncheon and say, you know what we had that conversation.

Well the reason you only had a conversation because you never came to a conclusion of what that partnership looks like I'm sorry I'm on so much.

SPEAKER_02
I love that approach though I have to say because you know I think I worry that a little too often our campuses just are providing knowledge, you know, without and hoping that the employers are just going to come to them. You know, and I think being proactive about identifying the major employers, going to them first. You know with with the value proposition.

I mean our students are amazing our professors are teaching incredible things, our students are learning just a ton on campus and exposing that to to our employers in the first instance I think it's just incredibly valuable it sounds like you've done a great job with that.

SPEAKER_03
Well, and I'll even go a little further with what you just said, which tag because it's so it's so important that we. I think that higher education. And we're not coming out of this place.

Well, 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're going to come to us.

So many in many, unless you are a specialty unless you know some of them when I worked in private faith based education and we had to be out there beating the bushes and recruiting, but many of us on the public side, you know we've been able to sit back and say you know, we've already built it so they're going to come and we always had enrollment sometimes it's up sometimes it's down, they're already they're always coming. And we really in my opinion this is all pink opinion by the way, we took granted that they would always be there. So the world we're in right now.

Here's what's here's where we're 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.

You know that 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, you'll be working for us. And with all those challenges, we are foolish.

If we in higher education aren't taking heed and truly moving toward more closer to a conversation with folks to say, Alright, 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 we're going we're going to know. Let's get to what you need first.

And now I can also throw out there. Here's something that you may want to think about.

SPEAKER_00
So, so Dr. 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 want to ask you. You were the first black president at Grand Rapids, you will be the first black president at 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 then an apology so we mispronounce the man's name Patrick and the La Lioa, yeah, in the Grand Rapids in the Grand Rapids community.

You're not just a campus leader your community leader that must have put you, you know, in a lot of ways very central to a lot of these discussions in your community can just talk a little bit about that experience what you might have learned from it what, you know, perspective you brought to it and how you think it'll also inform your work going forward at Ferris State.

SPEAKER_03
This is, it's been a, it's been a very trying two years, for many reasons. So we think about some of the things that we, and it, and it didn't, it didn't obviously it didn't just start with George Floyd but his murder really was, was another, I'll say another wake up call I think we've had several wake up calls, wake up call done work unless you wake up but so we've had several things that have gone on and now with what we're dealing with here in in Grand Rapids. And from our perspective, from my perspective what's been important is for us to for me to not only continue to push the, the agenda of the community's college that that's that to me is important in all this because I keep coming back to how we prepare and educate our, our community, and in this case, our African American community how how do we stand in that 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, how do I when I take the Community College President head off and then just put on the hat of Bill Pink the community, 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 john, your question is so kind of really 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 is always like to and have you know some things to say to our to our graduating cadets, but what was so interesting about it john is during that ceremony, one of our cadets, who was the speaker, as far as that class that cohort was concerned, young man stood up. And as I listened to him speak. He was a white, 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, our next, our next crop of law enforcement individuals. And that's 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 in our institutions that have that focus.

But when I heard students really talk about, no, here's an I mean this young man already has a job. He's got a job already with one of our local municipalities but his, his words in representing his cohort. They are focused on saying, how do we, it wasn't this, but wait a minute, you know that wasn't no, it was none of the way to you know 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.

SPEAKER_00
Well, I think that also speaks to the institutions you've led and how you've shaped them and and certainly speaks well though all the contributions you've made both at the institutions in your community and and I'll just speak for Sarah and Moshack and say it's been a real pleasure to have you come on and talk to you and I'm looking forward to hearing some more pink opinions reaching out 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 and joining us today.

SPEAKER_03
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 in big rapids at Ferris State because we have work to do this is going this is this is fun is 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.

SPEAKER_00
Thanks again for having you know we'll be following up with you in the future and thanks everyone else for listening.

SPEAKER_01
As always podcast friends you can check out earlier episodes and subscribe to dot edu on Apple Google podcast Spotify Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast. For show notes and links to the resources mentioned in the episode you can go to our website at a c net dot edu backslash podcast and well there please take a short survey to let us know how we're doing. You can also email us at podcast a c net dot 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.

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