Leaders on Leadership featuring Dr. Berenecea Johnson Eanes, President of California State University, Los Angeles

Episode Transcript

Jay Lemons:

Hello, and thank you for listening. I’m Jay Lemons. Welcome to Leaders on Leadership, brought to you by Academic Search and the American Academic Leadership Institute. The purpose of our podcast is to share the stories of the people and the forces that have shaped leaders in higher education and to learn more about their thoughts on leadership in the academy. It’s a really special treat today to be joined by my colleague and my friend and my boss, the chair of the Academic Search board, Dr. Berenecea Johnson Eanes. Berenecea, thank you for your devoted support of Academic Search and the personal support that you have extended to me in all kinds of ways. You are a gift to us, so thank you. I’m going to now do a more formal introduction of Berenecea because she has a lot more that she is known for.

First, as a highly acclaimed and accomplished scholar who’s been widely published in the field of social work, she is currently the president of California State University Los Angeles, where she is the first woman to hold that position. Prior to coming to Cal State LA, she served as the president of York College of the City University of New York at CUNY, where she provided strategic leadership and council to approximately 1100 faculty, staff, and administrators, while overseeing a $91 million budget, including endowments, fundraising, and centrally administered resources. Berenecea was also a full professor in the Department of Social Work dating back to her service that began there in 2019.

Her appointment at CSULA Marks a return to the California State University for Berenecea, who previously served as the Vice President for Student Affairs at CSU Fullerton from 2012 to 2019, where she delivered leadership and oversight for a myriad of student success programs, as well as new campus infrastructure and the university’s strategic plan during a period where Fullerton State was nationally recognized for extraordinary improvements in student retention and student success, all while maintaining an absolute commitment to access. In 2018, Berenecea received the CSU’s Wang Family Excellence Award for achieving transformative results in her role as a member of the CSU Fullerton president’s cabinet, and as a vice president. Berenecea earned her bachelor’s degree in public health from Dillard University, a master’s degree in social work from Boston University, and her doctorate in social work from Clark Atlanta University. Berenecea, welcome to Leaders on Leadership.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Jay, thank you so much for having me. I’m so glad to be here.

Jay Lemons:

Well, it’s a special pleasure to have you with us. One of the goals of this program to ask leaders to reflect and consider and think back, reflect a little bit on pathways to leadership with a hope that others might find something that would inspire them, move them, connect with them. Berenecea, I just want to invite you to share your story, to talk about some of the people, places, and events that really forged you as a leader and a person.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I hope you can hear me well and all is good. I will be honest with you, I’ve been in higher ed since… Oh my goodness. I’ve been working in higher ed since I was… When I went to undergraduate education, I started working in student affairs and residence life when I was a RA.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

That’s where I started. I got a feeling that I would love to be on a university campus in my career, but it took a little while for me to really commit to it. My undergraduate degree is in public health. I thought I wanted to be a hospital administrator. That wasn’t where my track took me, but I thought that’s what I wanted to do. Then after I went to grad school and got my MSW… When I was in school getting my master’s in social work, I started to realize that there weren’t a lot of faculty that look like me. That was how it led to me getting my doctorate. In the midst of that, I loved my student affairs life. All along there I was working in residence life, and at each place that I went, I was working in student affairs.

Then I started to being a TRIO person, which is a whole nother commitment to serving and to loving the students. Between TRIO and residence life, that was my world until I got my credentials to be teaching. Then when I became a faculty member officially, I think my view of all of it changed, but I also was always a student affairs administrator doing something. I always had a grant going. I always had something going. A community thing going. I always had something going. I think for me it was mentorship. I had amazing mentors along the way. I worked for an amazing TRIO director at Morehouse College when I was really, really young.

I worked for some amazing people along the way that said, “You can do all these things. You can do them or you can’t do them or you don’t want to do them, but you can do it.” I think between that message of there’s this amazing world that you can be part of, higher education is very rewarding. Working on a campus has its own energy, and I already knew that. I think I knew it really early that being connected to campus life and being connected to higher ed was very good for your spirit for me. I knew that early. The combination I think of people helping me and that next step of just having the experience helped me along the way.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I do know that there was a moment when I had to make a decision about whether you’re going to be a senior leader or not. I don’t want to jump the gun, but I’ll go to that later.

Jay Lemons:

No, go ahead. Talk a little bit about that.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Well, I think you can work a long time and be in middle-level management. I was a full-time faculty member. I was a TRIO person. I was doing a lot of things for a long time before I had to ask myself, are you ready to take that next jump? Do you understand what that means? I tell people I went for a cold call lunch with a wonderful woman by the name of Hazel Scott. She was the vice president of student affairs at Georgia State. Never had seen me before. I sent her an email. I was teaching at Georgia State, and I said, “Would you be willing to talk to me about what it means to be a vice president?” She said, “Meet me for lunch and bring me your CV.” She came and she had a red pen. We had a wonderful lunch, and she did all these scribbles.

She was very gracious, and she’d never met me before. Wonderful. She said, “It looks like you only need one more job.” I said, “What do you mean?” She says, “Well, I think you need a little bit more budget experience, and I think you need to supervise a few more people, and I think you need to… But just one. I think you’re really close. One more job.” I said, “Are you sure? You think?” I was amazed because I was like, “Me? I’m ready?” She’s like, “No, no, you’re ready. Just maybe one more job.” After that, we were inseparable. I love her for accepting my call, but she was very pragmatic about the skills part. She’s very like, “These are the skills. This is not a personal thing. This is what you need to know how to do, or people need to see that you’ve done it.”

Jay Lemons:

What was that job?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

It was my associate dean of Diversity and Accessibility at Hamilton College, which is a really funny story for me because Hamilton College is my only private remote… It’s so not like anything else on my CV.

Jay Lemons:

It’s a bit rural. Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

It’s not like anything, but it was the job that positioned me to be a vice president. Ironically, and I know we’ll talk about this later, I had been resisting being vice president because I wanted to have children. We were not successful up to that time, and so I went to Hamilton and when my vice presidency at John Jay came open, my husband said, “Well, honey, it looks like we’re not going to have kids. Let’s go for it,” and I started at John Jay in July of 2006 and found out I was pregnant with my son two weeks later.

Jay Lemons:

I love this. If you don’t mind my indulging-

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Not at all.

Jay Lemons:

You were in Atlanta, you had a stop at Morehouse, and that baby that was conceived in 2006, where will that baby be on the fall of this year?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

That baby’s going to go to Morehouse College in the fall.

Jay Lemons:

That’s full circle.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

It is full circle. Yeah.

Jay Lemons:

It is.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

It is.

Jay Lemons:

Berenecea, you may or may not know this about me, my start in higher ed is exactly the same as yours. I was thinking I was going to be a PE teacher and a coach, and I found myself being an RA, candidly, because I’m a Pell Grant kid, I’m an SEOG kid. I’m an every dollar that you can find kid to be able to go to also another United Methodist related college, Dillard, and it changed my life. I remember one of the great leaders of southern US higher education is Aubrey Lucas. Aubrey in a SACSA conference in 1986 or 1987 said in that distinctive voice he has that the very best experience he ever had to preparing for being a university president was being a residence hall director because every problem known to humankind comes into a residence hall director’s office.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Yep. Exactly. I have no regrets on that one.

Jay Lemons:

It is [inaudible 00:10:40]-

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I got a lot of experience.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Well, and being trained as a social worker has no doubt been very impactful and helpful to your leadership too, I’m guessing.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

For sure. I think that the human connection and the understanding of building teams has been very powerful for me. Also, I’ve just talked to my new provost and had a conversation about the reality that I had to be deprogrammed by one of my bosses along the way because I’m trying to build a team here at Cal State LA that’s a real team.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I had my first… A couple of my first administrative situations we’re very siloed, and they weren’t teams. It was just who’s the winner? I was used to who’s the winner? Then I had this fantastic boss that just said, “That’s not what I want. You’re going to have to figure out how to be a team, and we are not going to have silos here.” My leadership style changed, and it has impacted the way that I lead my team. Because I’ve been here under two years, they’re feeling it right now. We’re nine days to commencement. When you have a new team and they’re not quite there, they’re feeling it.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I keep on saying, “Nine days. Nine days.”

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. The boys in the boat about 1936 Olympic rowing team. When you get that team and those rowers are in what they call swing, you know you are cutting through the water with the maximum efficiency and energy. That is awesome. Let’s talk about… I’d love to hear your definition of what I call a good leader. I hope that all leaders seek first to be good leaders. By good, I don’t mean grade B. I really mean someone that is filled with virtue and effectiveness and the ability to successfully move an organization and an institution.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I think that you have to first… It’s interesting that I used the word human in my last response. I believe that being a good leader is being vulnerable enough to show that you’re not superhuman, but also strong enough to be the leader in the moments you need to be. Let me say that is more difficult than I think it has ever been. I had a 41-day encampment last spring.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I have had a strike since I’ve been here.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

We have just recently gotten past the fires, which were extremely difficult and continue to be difficult for our campus as a community.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

It’s a hard budget. You’re everywhere. I think there’s two things. I think being able to be vulnerable and human, but also be nimble. Jay, you and I talk all the time about you wake up, you have no idea what your day’s going to be like. You have no idea what’s going to happen next. Some of that flexibility I think is much more needed than 30 years ago.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

That ability to get up and say, “I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I’m going to put these guardrails in place so I can make it and lead through the day.” I think it’s much more volatile than it’s ever been. It’s just never been this way before.

Jay Lemons:

Without question. The speed of communications I think is the variable that has contributed so much to this. We literally have a news cycle 24/7, and that can topple your day. Yeah. When you are building your team, just as you acknowledge you are doing, what is it that you want to look for in those leaders?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I look for the skill set that is diverse, opposite from myself probably, more often than not, specific to the discipline that I’m asking for because you want somebody who knows the stuff, right? Then a commitment to the vision or an understanding, whether or not it’s fully cooked or not. I don’t expect everybody to feel like I do about the CSU or about my students from day one, but just a glimmer. I need you to at least know why we’re here.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

That’s important. If you’re a reasonable expert of your discipline and you’re loyal and you can communicate well. Communication has become such an issue in all of our work that I feel like it’s become an even bigger part of how we select people that are on our team. It probably was not for me 10 years ago. I probably didn’t look at it that way, but now it’s just so expensive to have poor communication that you really have to be able to discern can you communicate with your teammates and can you communicate with your team you’re building? Because at my level, I can’t do that. You have to do that. If I’m not confident that you can do those two things, it doesn’t matter what superstar you are, it’s just hard. You going to have to build your own team, communicate well, and communicate in a way, in a variety of ways that resonates with the campus on behalf of the university. That’s what I look for more than anything.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. That ability to have both specialized knowledge but breadth of view, as you said, collaborate rather than build silos, really valuable. Berenecea at the heart of our motive for wanting to do this podcast is really thinking about those that are a part of our ALI programs and others across American higher education that are thinking about leadership. You talked about Hazel Scott, but I’d love to have you offer advice for those who aspire to leadership or those who are new to leadership.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I think we have to not shy away from it. We’re needed more now than ever before. Even though I know it may not seem attractive, the stress level, the day-to-day, the bureaucracy, the whatever, the students need to see you. They need to see you. They always need to see all of us who are sincerely committed to their upward mobility. Cal State LA is number one in upward mobility, I’m proud to say, and that is not me. It started way before me, but what I will say is you have to decide that it’s okay to be a leader. There are mornings I wake up and I’m like, “Ugh. What did I do?” But that’s okay because the upside of it is the impact. I was just speaking with somebody about the amount of graduates and we’re going to have 40,000 guests. We have 40,000 guests registered to come to commencement. That’s a lot of people.

Jay Lemons:

Where on earth do you do it? Do you rent a stadium?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Well, we have nine ceremonies over three days. The amount of people impacted by that experience, it’s exponential. Right? It’s a big doggone deal. Right?

Jay Lemons:

It is.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

For me, I’m like, “That’s what it’s about. That’s what it’s about.” I think when you can connect your why to the who… I have a wonderful mentor who is the past chancellor of the CSU system, Jolene Koester. She says, “The what, the how and the why. Start there. What is it that you actually want to do every day? How do you want to do it, and why do you do it? That’s it. Just keep it clean.” When she taught me that 14 years ago, whatever, I didn’t think that that question would come back to me so often, but it’s the what, the why and the how. If you can figure out your way through some of that, every day you’ll do whatever you’re doing the best you can. That’s it.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Thank you for that incredible insight and wisdom and for raising up and celebrating truly one of the most impactful leaders in American higher education over the last 25 or 30 years. Jolene’s special in every way.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

She’s amazing.

Jay Lemons:

That’s wonderful. What are the most critical challenges, and there are many, facing leaders in higher ed today?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Well, I would first start with trying to find the ability to prioritize and focus and not be distracted. There’s so many things going on, and figuring out how to get on a trajectory for your campus that it stays focused. I think that’s important.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

You can be distracted very easily by the day-to-day stuff, and that’s not going to help your campus. You got to figure out number one, focus, number two, budget and people’s understanding of the fiscal situation. We have a lot of concern and disruption and confusion about the actual fiscal situation. Every institution is different. Jay, I know you know this because you talk to everybody and you know all the presidents, all the people. There is a lot of confusion around state positioning of budget. Making sure your institution understands budget. That’s number two. Number three, I would say morale and culture. I do not think that we are past COVID enough to not understand the impact on everybody’s mental health. I’m extremely concerned about us discounting the students that were in high school during COVID that are coming to us now.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I don’t mean just them. I mean the impact on their families, them themselves. It’s all over.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Right? The person that had to drop out of school because they had a small business and they had to close it. The nuance of the impact of the pandemic is yet to be interpreted. I do not think that we will see or have research on that reality for a little while. I think we’re living in it right now.

Jay Lemons:

I think you’re so right.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

It’s like treating a patient that hasn’t been diagnosed.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Because we don’t know.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

They’re already here, but we don’t really know what they’re dealing with.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

We’re just guessing, right? It’s like we’re guessing. Well, we think this is an impact of COVID. We don’t know.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I don’t think we totally know. The only other thing, the fourth thing I would say is that I think the workforce development conversation and the careers of the future conversation has yet to evolve with the sophistication that we need it to. People, depending on where they are, are guessing those are the jobs of the future. No, those are the jobs of the future. If you’re in higher ed, you’re trying to help people.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Well, you’re so right. The speed of the development of AI impacts everything with regard to that career readiness.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I think there’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of pressure on higher education to deliver on that. I think that that’s hard.

Jay Lemons:

It is.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Because you can’t guarantee that you’re going to deliver.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

You want to, but… You’re trying.

Jay Lemons:

A little bit akin to the disclaimers around every investment presentation we’ve ever heard. Right?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Right. Right.

Jay Lemons:

Past performance does not necessarily predict the future. We know that college has been an uncommonly important vehicle for social mobility. As you shared Cal State LA has been celebrated for, and it will be in the future, but in what ways do we need to prepare our students to realize that promise? Yeah. Tough stuff.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Yeah.

Jay Lemons:

You’re right, expectations are high for delivery. I want to move us into what I call a lightning round where the questions are a little shorter. The answers can be as long as you would want them to be. Who are the biggest influences on you in your life?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

My parents and community people who were in my church probably and my mentors who were my bosses.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. Is there a book or books that have had great influence on you?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I would say movie… I’m a movie person. I will say, I think I’ve read every book that Maya Angelou ever wrote.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I’m looking around my office, and now in the last 15 years, I tend to read leadership books that are written by women.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Great. I want to take you back to Dillard. What was your fondest memory of being a student at Dillard?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Oh my goodness. There’s so much. Dillard just felt like home. We had so much fun, and they took really good care of us. We had faculty that just adored us. They knew that we knew they loved us. We knew they cared for us. The staff and the faculty, everybody. We were safe. We felt fine. We were crazy. Crazy college students, but that’s the one thing we were not worried about. They get us, and we’re okay. We’re going to be okay. I think to some extent we relax because it’s like, “We can worry about a lot of things. We won’t have to worry about this right here.” I think there’s a lot of room in the world to be worrying.

Jay Lemons:

There is. There is.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

We didn’t have to worry.

Jay Lemons:

I’m curious about how that experience impacts your expectations of what you’re trying to do for your students and what you and your team and your faculty and staff colleagues do for their students?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Well, I think we’re constantly trying to make them safe and give them room to learn because I think that’s the most important thing.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

If we level the playing field, so you’re not worried. Right? Then you can learn.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Yeah. If you hadn’t landed in higher education as a career outcome, what else might you have done?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Actually, ironically, I thought I would always own a salon because when I was growing up, the hair salon was the place where all the women in my community felt even the more safe, and they had the most fun and they laughed. They were happy. I just always thought, well, if I don’t do that, I’ll open a salon. I always wanted to dance, but I don’t think that I’m very good at it. That’s a whole other topic, but I think being a small business owner in my community would’ve been appealing to me.

Jay Lemons:

Your comment earlier about you thought you might be a hospital administrator. Ironically, Berenecea, I remember taking an aptitude test in high school and it told me I should be a hospital administrator. Here’s what I would say, Berenecea, I don’t think administering a hospital is terribly different by way of skill set than leading colleges and universities. There’s a lot of the same skill set involved.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Yeah. I think all the things that I ever wanted to do circle around the same space in a weird way. All the things I ever wanted to do were sort of the be with people, help people, be independent, be community driven. They’re all the same things.

Jay Lemons:

You’re right. You’re right. One of the things that I like to think about and celebrate because I believe Ernest Boyer’s contribution about the collegiate community, that ritual and tradition are really important in the world of higher education. I wonder if there’s a favorite campus tradition at a place that you’ve attended or served that you would want to raise up?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

At Dillard, we had the Avenue of the Oaks, and there were certain times of the year that we would have certain rituals in that space. I think one of the things that warmed my heart about… I told people when I was working at Morehouse, the graduation processional there is led by drummers. It always… Whenever the drums started, I would start crying immediately because I’m like, “We did it. We did it again.” I know it sounds crazy, but every time… That’s probably why I cry now at our graduation, because I know how big of a deal it is.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Well, I predict that four or five years down the road, you’re going to be crying when you hear those drums at Morehouse.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I hope so. From your ears to God’s ears, we hope.

Jay Lemons:

Well, one of the traditions that we try and celebrate here on Leaders on Leadership is we like to close by asking our guests to talk with our listeners, share whatever they would want about the distinctive qualities, the organizational DNA, the special sauce that made you say yes to returning to the CSU to serve Cal State LA. Talk about [inaudible 00:30:12] special place you have answered that call?

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

I feel so blessed to be in this position, and I really feel privileged to be doing the work that I’m doing. I think at this time, in this moment, the importance of us all being able to commit ourselves to education is big. We have to remember where we are and who we are and what we want for our space and our world. For me, it definitely was a no-brainer from that sense. I think that we have an opportunity to really embrace the fact that though it is maybe a little daunting and a little exhausting, we have amazing work to do, amazing opportunity, amazing work to do. For me, that’s it.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you for being who you are and answering that call. Thank you for taking time out of a really busy schedule ahead of the rush into commencement season for joining us on Leaders on Leadership. We’re really glad to have had you and appreciate your sharing some about your journey, your insights, your wisdom. I just want to let you have a final word before we sign off.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Well, thank you. I hope it was hopeful. I hope it was hopeful and helpful. I’m so grateful for my alliance with your organization and for all your support over the years. I appreciate you, and I appreciate the team there. I believe that people need to understand that higher education transforms lives and that any of us that are doing the work are doing the good work, and to try to take care of themselves and look forward to the summer and get a little rest so that we can figure out how to start over again. But I do think that we are blessed and favored to be able to do this work.

Jay Lemons:

Amen. Listeners, we welcome your suggestions and thoughts for leaders we should feature in upcoming segments. You can send those suggestions to leadershippodcast@academicsearch.org. You can find our podcasts wherever you find your podcasts. It’s also available on the Academic Search website. Leaders on Leadership is brought to you by Academic Search and the American Academic Leadership Institute. Together, our mission is to support colleges and universities during times of transition and through leadership development activities that serve current and future generations of leaders in the academy. It has been a joy and a pleasure and an honor for me to have Dr. Berenecea Johnson Eanes on our program today. Thank you, dear friend, for joining us and be well.

Berenecea Johnson Eanes:

Thank you so much. Thank you.