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 forces that have shaped leaders in higher education, and to learn more about their thoughts on leadership in the academy.

I am delighted to be joined today by Dr. Joel Martin. Joel is the president of Wagner College in Staten Island in New York, a post he’s held since July of 2019. He previously served in leadership positions at colleges and universities, both large and small, including Franklin & Marshall College twice, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of California, Riverside.

Joel is an extraordinary scholar. He’s a noted expert on native American religions and the author and editor of several books in his field. Welcome, and good morning, Joel.

Joel Martin:

Good to see you, Jay. Good to be with you. Thanks for this opportunity to visit with you.

Jay Lemons:

Well, I am grateful for this opportunity just as I am the great pleasure that I’ve had to be working with you over the course of the past 18 months or thereabouts, as we came to really know one another through the search that brought you to the Wagner presidency. And it was certainly out of that I gleaned much about your background and came to appreciate who you are as an individual and as a leader. And I would love to have you share some of that story with our listeners and talk about some of the critical people, events and opportunities that forged the person and leader you became as your journey in higher education unfolded.

Joel Martin:

Thank you, Jay. That’s a big question. There’s so many people. I’m so grateful for the path that people have helped to open up for me. I did concentrate when I was trying to think about this question a little bit on that period when I was at the University of California, Riverside, because on reflection I can see, I did kind of a double pivot there. I was a scholar of Native American religion and very proud of that work and really committed to that work. And it was at the University of California, Riverside, where I was able to translate the scholarly work into more applied work that would serve the tribal folks of Southern California. I started to partner with them. I was the Costco endowed professor, and`I was very honored to build a relationship with the [inaudible 00:02:43] and Luiseno peoples of Southern California, because I wanted the scholarship that I’d been doing to have actual utility in the world in a more direct way, and to benefit the tribal people of the United States. And I was so honored to be a partner with them and to earn their trust.

That experience then led administrators at the University of California, Riverside, the Dean, the chancellor, chancellor Cordova, Dean O’Brien to sort of lift me up as an administrator and to trick me into becoming ultimately a Dean of a college there. And it was there that I pivoted more fully into providing the support for others who are doing scholarly work, our engaged scholarship, and obviously the teaching mission of the colleges and universities that we’re so honored to serve.

I see that as a double pivot that occurred from being a scholar of scholarship for scholarships’ sake, primarily to impact a field among your peers, to be a scholar that’s engaged in work that really immediately impacts communities and helps them advance their objectives, to then becoming an administrator of a college or university where you can really leverage the power of the research university or the colleges we’re honored to serve, to have an even bigger impact, but you’re in more in the [inaudible 00:04:00] real.

It’s been really an interesting journey. It’s a long journey. There’s so many people that I’ve been honored to work with and I learned so much and I would just really highlight the leadership that I learned from the Dean, Pat O’Brien and also France Cordova, who was the chancellor, but also the tribal members and chair Mark Macarro, Gary [inaudible 00:04:22], just folks like that who helped me learn what it meant for them to do their struggle and for how the university could be of service to them. They had a great vision.

So I was privileged to serve really great leaders from the tribal community and from the University of California. That’s just a small procession, but that’s what launched me on this path to being a Dean and ultimately to become a president, where now we’re trying to make that impactful work here at Wagner through the practical liberal arts, through civic engagement, through our strong nursing program, really honored to be here and hopefully to be able to help New York city rebound through this pandemic.

Jay Lemons:

Wow. Thank you. Very interesting how your scholarship ultimately led you through application to the work and art of administrative leadership. I want to ask you to talk about, because you also though, have had the opportunity to serve a broad range of across sectors, public, private, large, and small, and that doesn’t happen very often either. How did those doors open for you and what impact did that have in your discerning that Wagner versus being an executive in the University of California system ended up being at your pursuit at this time in your life?

Joel Martin:

Well, I’ve been so fortunate to serve, and I think the throughput or through line, I should say for what unifies it is this desire to play a role in contributing to society and making the world a better place. And obviously the two universities I served have that deep in their DNA, they’re land grant universities, the flagship University of Massachusetts Amherst and UCR, which is the second flagship land grant university and the UC system, and a place that was 40% Pell eligible first-generation Hispanic serving super diverse.

So there’s that. And then the liberal arts college where we know we have an incredible impact on the lives of young people and we can really help them grow so much. And so marrying those two, marrying the liberal arts, high touch, small scale, intimate community that we treasure so much with an impact mission of educational institution. I think Wagner is an exemplar of that union. It’s been long renowned for the so-called practical liberal arts, but that goes back even further.

We have a very strong nursing program that was established in 1943, part of the war effort to help support society in the United States during the World War II. So 80 years now we’ve been doing a great nursing program, great PA program, it’s an interesting hybrid, if you will, of a school that has a wonderful liberal arts programs that are helping students connect to the city and to the needs of society, we have a great theater program. And at the same time we have strong professional programs. So for me, it’s the perfect union of all that I’ve been doing through land grants and through the private liberal arts college or Franklin & Marshall. It’s like the hybrid perfect model for me. And I think it’s great. I just love it.

Jay Lemons:

Wow. Thank you. I want to flip back and think about again, that which in some ways was informed by the curiosity that led you to the scholarship, into a focus on native peoples and think about those who have been harmed marginalized, not brought to the center of our work. I just think of this as another one of those through lines, as you said of your career, how do we improve equity and inclusion while embracing and celebrating diversity. I’d love for you to raise up how we might continue to move the needle to significantly increase the number of persons of color and numbers of women in leadership ranks in the academy.

Joel Martin:

Well, yes, that’s an absolutely critical priority for of the wellbeing of our institutions. Our institutions need to reflect the society we live in. They need to support the society we live in, and we all benefit when we have a truly inclusive culture at our leadership ranks. I don’t have any secret ideas. I’ve worked hard to develop the diversity programs for faculty in innovative ways. We did cluster hiring at the University of California before it was a thing and hired many scholars of African American culture. We’ve done the same thing at UMass Amherst. And at Franklin & Marshall, I did that with a Mellon grant to help diversify the faculty. Those were the areas that I focused on in my role as Dean.

I do think that there might be a little bit of just as we’ve learned that some schools are underestimating talent among the student body, and we know that there’s a mismatching occurring there that we’re trying to remedy through different initiatives, including the American talent initiative that [inaudible 00:09:42] helped to launch at Franklin & Marshall. I think we need the analogy. We need to do the same thing in the administrative level. And I know people are working on it, [inaudible 00:09:51] is working on it. There’s not a professional organization that’s not making it a priority.

But I wonder if we don’t need to cast our net a little more widely in terms of who we look for as candidates. I’m sure you’re doing that in academic search and it can’t just be, let’s go to the familiar places with the familiar pedigrees, I think we need to question, where are we going to find real talent and real leadership? And we need to broaden our base. That’s just a thought that comes to mind based on what I’ve seen. We can’t just continue to go to the same portals and the same institutions, we need to really broaden and see what people are doing at the community college, the Cal states, what they’re doing in small privates and really be aggressive about finding the talent wherever it is and however it’s shining people who are make difference, not just look for the pedigree that we’re familiar with, the standard pedigree.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you. I do think that again, your sector experience and range is a reinforcement of that. And it’s been certainly my observation having also served in both sectors. There’s talent everywhere. And I love that you embraced the community colleges. There are enormously able leaders in community colleges that so often we think, oh, they couldn’t possibly move between sectors. That’s a part of it.

Joel, I’d love to have you talk a little bit now about what in your mind makes a good leader. And by the way, by good, I don’t mean grade B. I really am focused on what in your mind makes a good leader, virtuous and effective and a successful leader.

Joel Martin:

I do think that it’s our obligation and it’s important for us to focus on our mission first and foremost. And we try to keep that central as a leader. And so, as long as you hue to that, I think you’ll be well served. If you’re a liberal arts college, you focus on the outcomes for students and you focus on that rigorously, and you keep bringing that to the fore and discussions with faculty and trustees and stakeholders and amid all the controversies we have to deal with, you keep going back to that center. And as long as you keep doing in that, that’ll help, you’re not going to make everybody happy, but if you keep casting your decisions around, what’s going to advance the core mission, whatever that is at your institution, it’s hard for people to really criticize you. And they will come to believe that, okay, that person really cares about what we’re supposed to be about.

Now, I would say if you’re in an engineering school at a research university, and they’re all about the research impact, well, you better focus on that and you better be true to that. So I just think that’s the core thing, have your compass set and keep going back to it. You’ll get knocked off of it. The needle will move a little bit, move it back to true north and everything will work out. That’s about all we can do. And then if that doesn’t satisfy everybody and they decide that you need to move on, you can say, well, I was true to true north, it was my moment to do that and I did it the best of my ability and everything’s fine. Let’s move on. That’s my approach to this.

Now, putting that in operation is a daily seeking of homeostasis and equilibrium and equanimity. And so we all need to work hard on that every day. And that’s where your team comes in. I know you’ve got some thoughts about that as well, and I’d love to share some thoughts I have about that as well.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you, Joel. The value and importance of having a north star and you’re right. I always found the two questions that I would ask myself, what’s in the best interest of my students and what’s in the best interest of my institution. And almost always in the most vexing of circumstances and situations sitting back that is helpful. Thank you. Let’s do pivot to team. What is it that you want and look for in the leaders that are a part of your team? I’m a big believer, as you know, that leadership is not an individual sport, it’s a team sport. Or to switch fields completely, it’s not a solo act, it’s a small ensemble. And when you’re thinking about your team, what are the qualities and characteristics that you want in those leaders?

Joel Martin:

Thank you, Jay. Yeah. I totally agree with you about the aspect of this is not a solo operation by any means. No president, no leader is successful without building the alignment with a team and with stakeholder’s internal and external, and that’s a big job to do that. That is a key word, I think, is alignment toward that mission that I just mentioned, that you want a team that we have the same direction, the same values in basic. We understand that together, we’re all working on it, but we also have some autonomy and initiative. And I want leaders who take initiative. I don’t want leaders to say, well, this is the way we’ve always done it. We’ll just keep doing that. That’s not really leadership. That is a kind of performance. It’s important. It’s sustaining. It’s useful.

But in these times we also need people who can take initiative and pivot to use the word de jure, and also think ahead and say, well, actually, we’ve been doing it this way, but we need to introduce a new way of doing it. And we need to learn from others who are out there in the world and they need to be sector experts, and they need to look at the leadership of others, including going to a previous comment, what are they doing in the community colleges? What are they doing in embattled private liberal arts colleges? Because they’re actually being really innovative. They have to be. They don’t have the option not to be. And historically, a lot of our institutions have looked upstream to those who have huge endowments. It’s hard to learn from them because they’re not necessarily, they’re great schools, but they’re not necessarily as hungry or as forced to innovate.

I want leaders who are aligned, who have initiative and are not scared to innovate. And then the final word would be to execute. And that’s really a huge, huge focus for everyone at this moment because the stakes have been so high this year for every leader on every campus, it’s all about safety and we have to execute. So you always need to do that. It’s one thing to have ideas and say, they’re doing this at this school and we can adapt it, but you got to bring it home.

So the final word, if I would, it goes right after that is another A word, which is accountability. You have to take accountability for your sector, your division, your work, and then how it contributes to the team effort. And then the president has to hold everybody accountable to what they’re held accountable to. It all rolls up and it’s definitely another part of this. It takes practice. It takes rehearsals. You don’t play the score the first time perfectly. You’re going to make mistakes. You got to be able to lean in and also you got to have trust. You got to be able to express yourself, try things out. And certainly my team this year, under enormous pressure has demonstrated that ability to have disagreement, to have argument, to raise counterpoints. And I value that also because that’s the only way we’re going to be able to get to the right outcome. So you got to have that atmosphere.

It’s not easy to create this. It really is not easy. And I appreciate all the work of folks like you, who are out there, talent scouting and fighting in good talent for us as we continue to try to work to build these optimal teams in very difficult times.

Jay Lemons:

Well, thank you. Part of the joy of the work that we do at academic search is our parent organization is the American Academic Leadership Institute. And as you just referenced, it’s a commitment to growing the next generation of leaders. And that’s a part of what drew me to this organization and the work that we do. We know that a part of the listenership for Leaders on Leadership are those people who are aspiring to leadership. And I would welcome you offering a little bit of advice for those who are thinking about leadership in the academy today.

Joel Martin:

Well, I would are my own personal perspective on this, and it’s probably not what everybody else says. And it’s like what some other people say, but it’s very much just the way I’ve conducted my approach to everything, really to my career and everything, which is, what is fulfilling to you? Who are you? What are your values? You really need to understand that. And you need to have that. You need to reflect on that. And then you need to find the match, the institution, the opportunity where your skills, your talent and your values and your heart will serve that institution. And so, definitely for me, it’s never been about, I need to achieve this position. I need to achieve this pedigree. It’s always about, what is my role here? What’s my purpose here? How can I help? And then trusting through this vetting process that occurs on these searches, that the institution has the wisdom to find the alignment, the right person.

And so if they pick you, you got to make sure that’s really the right place for you. It’s got to be mutual. If they don’t pick you, you take that as evidence that this was not the real match. And therefore it really wasn’t going to work. And it’s not really rejection. It’s just a sifting. That’s the advice that I would give to people. Because I know people apply, you go through the process, you start to get to know the institution and you start to imagine, oh, it’d be really great to live in New Zealand. I’d really love to be there and I’d maybe be able to do all this work, and then you start to think about it and then it doesn’t happen and you get a little bit disappointing. You’re like, okay, does take that as a grain of salt, you learn learned a little bit more about your own trajectory. That wasn’t really the right place. Just trust that really wasn’t the right place.

And then when it does happen, this is what it’s almost like love and marriage. It’s like, then when you actually find the right place, you really do know it. You really do know it. The key fits, the door opens. And it will not be easy. It will be hard. It has all the frustrations. I’m not talking about love and marriage, I’m talking about career. It will be a really difficult proposition, but you will be fueled by the fact that you have achieved the alignment and it’ll be a joy. And then I think at the end of this, you can tell me, Jay, this isn’t true. The time goes by fast, you look back and you say, I was the right person in the right place at the right time for the right reasons. And then my time is done, and I’m at peace with that. And now I’m moving on. Really that’s the way I’ve approached this and it certainly has been the case for me, finding my match with Wagner and [inaudible 00:20:49] with me and I hope everybody feels that way. But that’s the way it’s been.

So this has been an extraordinarily trying year, unlike any that any president has ever felt anywhere except for everywhere this year, yet [Jan 00:21:02] my wife and I are totally all in and fulfilled and feeling very proud of our community, for how I have risen to this challenge.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you, Joel. I think really some profound nuggets there beginning with know thy self and know what it is that will bring meaning to your life. And out of that meeting is the passion that’s necessary to sustain the inevitable ups and downs. And then, that sense of being in the right place and the right time. And I agree with you. And in my mind, when those things align, that’s fortuitous for the individuals, but it’s also incredibly important because it is through continuity of leadership that there’s a real capacity for making change. So I really appreciate what you were saying.

You also ended with, that which feels like an elephant in the room. And that is wow. We’re living through the most significant pandemic to impact our world in a century. And that’s out there among the critical factors that are challenging higher ed leaders. But I’d love to hear you talk a little bit about what you see some of the other challenges, and maybe also comment on whether you see new or emergent skill sets that are different than perhaps the abilities of leaders in the past.

Joel Martin:

Jay, let me ask the question then, is it that you want me to focus on other things other than managing the pandemic? Is that…

Jay Lemons:

I think what other challenges are out there. And certainly if you want to wax upon the challenges of the pandemic, please do, but what are the other critical challenges out there?

Joel Martin:

Well, I think the two got together because I used the metaphor that higher ed had some comorbidities prior to the pandemic. Just as we know that the coronavirus attacks those who have underlying conditions as individual bodies, it certainly has done so for higher ed. So we’re all familiar with those preexisting conditions of declining demographics in the Northeast of loss of trust and investment in the public sphere and in education generally, which is a severe long decade process that’s been going on. And that’s a big factor. The economics of our society that create great inequality and make it really harder and harder for a middle class family to support the cost, which are real to support a really good private liberal arts education. There’s concerns about student loan debt. There are of preexisting structural things that are out there that will be there after the pandemic and with a vengeance plus a recession plus economic impact plus unemployment plus great societal needs.

I could wax on and on about there’s no lack of challenges, our need for leadership in such a context. And that’s where the ideas are going to be really critical. Trying to pivot out of this is something that we’re working on hard, thinking about how we can be ready to help the world on the back side of this and particular, our city of New York, which was the epicenter is doing well now, but we feel very committed to being part of a partnership with that as we were before. And so we actually are trying to glean optimism in this moment and think about, okay, all those things existed prior. We were hustling along doing pretty well. We’ve got a diverse portfolio programs, and some of those programs are going to be even more needed in the future. And there’s no doubt about that.

So we’re not waiting to address those challenges. We’re not waiting for the pandemic to pass. We’re pivoting toward that future already thinking about making investments in our physical plant and our programmatic development, we’re thinking strategically, and that’s a leadership role is not to be trapped in the present. And a president should be thinking two years or five years ahead and asking the board to think 30 years ahead. And so we are trying to do that work in a crushing environment, which is existential. We still are finding room to say, okay, the world’s going to need us more than ever afterwards. We’re not going to go away.

We’ve been here 101, 102 years on Staten Island, for example, and we’re going to be here another 101 and 102 years. And I’ll just bring this home with a story. I love this story because we had an alum named Peggy Bombach from Brooklyn, born in 1918, I think it was. She came here to Wagner and graduated in 1940. I think that’s correct. She had an extraordinary life. Her name, she married and became Peggy Reynolds, just an extraordinary life, took her to Europe during World War II. And then she comes back and she died in March of 2020 of old age. She was 102 years old, and she never forgot Wagner. She came back to Wagner in the fall. I got to meet her. She wanted to be back to her campus. She never forgot it. And she gave us in her estate and her trust. And I’m the trustee of her estate, $8 million that just came in.

So here we have this other thing about always thinking about the future and never thinking about the present, and always thinking about how we are part of a long continuum. She goes back to the founder who brought Wagner to Staten Island, she knew Reverend Sutter. She knew president Staton who founded that nursing program I mentioned. And then I got to meet her in 2019 and visit with her. So that gift. I see my role now is I’m looking at my class of 2020, who just graduated into a terrible economic environment. And I’m thinking there’s a Peggy Reynolds in that group. And I need to be thinking about how we can support them. I’ve gone on for a long time, but I’d love to describe another initiative that we have seeded during this pandemic that sort of captures our sense that you always think about the future and you always plant the seeds for a future that will benefit your institution in a long term way.

Jay Lemons:

Well, I deeply appreciate your sharing that and congratulations. And it so true, the very best that we as leaders can do is plant seeds. It’s not always ours to harvest. We’re harvesting the seeds planted by others. And I really deeply appreciate that. And your framing and thinking about the pandemic in light of the larger challenges are beautifully done. Let me move us now to a little more of what I call a bit of a lightning round, or I’ll ask you shorter questions with, I hope you can talk as long as you want on all of them. Let’s start with this one, who most influenced you?

Joel Martin:

Impossible to answer. You got to go to your parents and your family, obviously your teachers. There’s so many people, how do you dare to answer that question? My wife, Jan, how do you answer that question? It’s such an extraordinary question. I’m so grateful for all the people in my life and it’s really hard to answer that. It really is. My parents I have to go back to them in terms of how they valued education so highly. And they fed my love of learning without any limit. They were from humble farm backgrounds in Arkansas, and they were just so supportive of my quest to learn. Any magazine subscription, any activity I wanted to pursue, and they worked so hard to support my education. There’s no doubt I have to start with them. But then my wife, Jan, is such an extraordinary partner. I’m so privileged to have her in my life. She’s a thought partner of. She helps me keep on the north, keep my north star in line. From my parents to my wife, what can I say? They’re just unbelievable influences on my life. I couldn’t be more blessed.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you. Thank you. Are you a first generation college student?

Joel Martin:

I am not. My dad was a, he served in the Navy right after world War II and on G.I. Bill. He got to go to Auburn University after playing baseball, professionally Jay at the lowest levels. From Arkansas, his arm took them out to the Southwest and he pitched in farm teams. He got paid to play baseball. Therefore, he is a professional baseball player and he ended up in Auburn and he got a masters there. So he did go to college.

My mother, who was just brilliant and is brilliant and is just great, a lifelong learner. She’s just still learning right now. She does Zoom. She does everything. She had a scholarship at the University of Arkansas, as the valid Victorian of her school in rural Arkansas and noble Arkansas. But she gave that up to follow Bill Martin in his arm playing professional baseball in these little dusty towns in Texas and all over the place. And so, that’s the fact.

So I’m first generation, but I am very mindful that most of my family from that background, they didn’t have the opportunities by any means that I’ve had, certainly not. My dad didn’t, by the way, he was born poor and share cropping family, as many southerners were. And so it’s the G.I. Bill that enabled him to get his education.

Jay Lemons:

Well, perhaps that piece of federal legislation that has been so consequential to so many of our families. I appreciate your sharing that and sharing your mom’s story as well. Because I know the regard you have for her and I got to think it would be so fun and interesting to have been a part of her parents’ conversation about her following Bill Martin, out there playing that darn game of baseball for goodness sake, but you know what? It all worked out, right? And there’s a lesson now for all leaders that a lot of this will work itself out. What book has had the most influence on you?

Joel Martin:

Another impossible question. This is my main vice’s books, and I just can’t stop buying books and reading books. But there is a book that I’ve taught as a professor. And like a lot of professors, you get a book that you really like, and you want to go back to it and go back to go back to it. And in my field of Native American religion, it’s a book called Wisdom Sits in Places. It’s by the anthropologist, Keith Basso, who was a student, I think he was a student at Harvard in the 50s and he somehow got connected to the Western Apache. And then he did a PhD, I think, at Stanford. And then he immersed himself in the community and just became unbelievably enmeshed in literate and fluent, and just a key partner in that group’s effort to preserve and to revitalize its culture. And he did this beautiful study of what the names of places mean. He’s written many books. He’s passed away, but he was just so highly regarded by the Western Apache himself.

The book takes you into their worldview, and it’s such a rich, profound, developed place based wisdom, if you will, and it’s not portable. You need to really know the places. You need to live with them. You need to hear the stories that are attached to specific places to become a wise person. And it takes a lifetime of work, letting the stories and the places work on you to be a good person. Young people are disrespectful. They make mistakes. They go the wrong way, but these places will enable them to grow as people, to become more moral people, to become better people, to become better Apaches. This is my quick takeaway, but it’s a beautiful study. It’s poet, poetic, intellectual, grounded, and it also has this unbelievable quality of helping you have a sense of the humor and the grace and the grit of native people in that particular community.

I tried to get him to come to one of the universities I worked at once, but he couldn’t do it. He wrote back and said, he’s got to take care of his cows. He was just like the super grounded. He sounds like a wonderful person. I never met him, but I really highly commend this book. It’s a beautiful book. And it helps you think about for a leader, the virtues that the Apaches espouse are to have a smooth mind, a steady mind, a resilient mind. I will never be able to do what they do. I’m not appropriating their culture, but I tell you what they aspire to create is a mind that can look to the future and have equanimity through stress and turmoil. And I know that I would love to have such a mind. So I respect that their wisdom tradition is so strong.

Jay Lemons:

Again, the title is?

Joel Martin:

Wisdom Sits in Places.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you very much. How ironic. I will tell you on Saturday, I officiated a wedding and I was struggling with how to bring closure to this wedding, which at the request of the wedded couple was more secular than not. And I closed it with a portion of an Apache wedding blessing. So there you go. Thank you. What are your favorite school colors?

Joel Martin:

Obviously it’s the Wagner colors of green and white. Here we are. So no doubt about it. No doubt.

Jay Lemons:

Go Seahawks. Huh?

Joel Martin:

Go Seahawks. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jay Lemons:

Do you have a fondest memory of your undergraduate experience?

Joel Martin:

Yeah, I do, because I was just talking to Jan, my wife yesterday about college food. And those of us who went to school in previous decades know most places the food was not so great. It really was not. And today you look at places like Wagner or UMass Amherst, and they have buffets of all sorts of food and all sorts of stations and it’s wonderful. The point of this is food was not one of my most pleasant memories of an undergraduate experience, but you would go through the cafeteria when you have a tray. And we took those trays on a one snowy day on the hilltop at Birmingham Southern. It never snows in Alabama. Birmingham, Southern’s up on a hill. And for God’s sakes, it snowed in Alabama. And so we took those trays and we found a higher purpose since the food that they were carrying was not so great. They were great for slidding down the hill. And that was a highlight. Everybody was just so joyous. There’s no person who appreciates snow more than an Alabamian, probably because we never get it, never get it.

And so when it happens, it’s a big deal. And to repurpose those trays that have been such a source of discomfort and mystery, I’m wondering what that meat was that they were serving us, and it turned it into a source of community effervescence and joy. That was really great. So we slid down the hill all day long, just had the best time and slid down the street. We just all over the snow. That’s a delightful memory.

Jay Lemons:

That is a wonderful one. And one of those that I think has been lost is so many campuses have moved to trail dining. I know the greatest loss of that is a good snow fun tradition. So favorite campus tradition for you at some place you’ve worked?

Joel Martin:

Well, it’s the same on every campus I’ve ever worked. And I bet it’s the same for every president and Dean and chancellor or faculty member is graduation ceremony, commencement ceremony, just to see all the work you’ve done, all the stress you’ve dealt with, all the lack of money you’ve had to contend with. And you see these young people come across that platform and receive their diploma, and you know they’re going to go out and make the world a better place. And you really believe that. And it’s just such joy.

University of California, Riverside, we would have massive graduation ceremonies because many of them were the first in their family to go to school and the whole family would come and there’d be thousands of people there. Wagner College, beautiful ceremonies here. It means the same thing, wherever you are, is so transformative. Those are some of the best things. That’s true everywhere. I can’t think of anything better.

Now, Wagner College we have something, we won’t be able to do it this year, unfortunately, because of the pandemic, but midnight breakfast at the end of the semester and the kids just rock and roll and we have pancakes at midnight and they just have the best time in the dining hall. Again, it’s the same thing I talked about my best memory. It’s this effervescent, just youthful joy, just cheer joy of being that’s manifested. And I guess that is a little bit like commencement. This is just the same thing, a punctuation point, just a great joy that occurs. Those are the two things. The Wagner tradition of the midnight breakfast that we were privileged to see last year, and then graduation, wherever you are. There’s nothing better than graduation. That’s why we do this work. That’s why we’re involved in this work. That’s why we take all the headaches and stresses and worries because we’re going to be making a difference in the lives of not just individuals, but families. We’re changing the trajectories of families every time we graduate a student.

Jay Lemons:

Amen. If you hadn’t worked in higher ed, what would you have done?

Joel Martin:

Wow. That is a really hard question. Because when I was a little nerd in Alabama and taken the ACT, whenever you take that, they had a little bubble thing back then and I put, I want to get a PhD. I was like, I knew that I wanted to pursue learning, therefore if I had thought a little more about it, an academic life, I was thinking just learning is the main goal. I hear there’s this thing called PhD. I think I want to get one of those. So it’s hard for me to imagine.

I have the fantasy of having been a writer. I grew up in the south. There are a lot of wonderful storytellers in everyday life, lot of wonderful writers. And I did work for a newspaper at one point as a job. There’s that fantasy of trying to be a writer. That probably would’ve brought me right back to the academy though. Nowadays that is where you end up if you’re trying to have a secure life, a lot of writers end up working in the academy. I hate to say I have a poverty of imagination in this regard, but there’s nothing better than being a person who gets to learn a lot and teach a lot. I don’t know how you can do any better than that.

My brother’s a lawyer. I did look at that. Again, the analytical ability to learn, but I did not want to pursue that. That was ruled out. I decided I definitely didn’t want to do that.

Jay Lemons:

Well, you found your world and you found your place. One of our traditions here on Leaders on Leadership is we like to close by asking our guests to share with our listeners, the distinctive qualities, or if you will, organizational DNA that makes Wagner so very special to you and to those that we serve.

Joel Martin:

Thank you. Well, I’ve already alluded to a few of the points that is the fact that we have an extraordinarily strong liberal arts foundation, great arts program, top number three theater program in their country. Really proud of our liberal arts commitment and also the practical liberal arts being embedded so that every student who comes here is going to be thinking about how they’re going to apply their knowledge. They’re going to do a lot of internships.

Our location in New York city affords us extraordinary chances to be involved in every sector of life and students get to be involved in that. We have a very good seamless transportation system with a van, and the ferry goes right by the Statue of Liberty near Manhattan. We can see Brooklyn, but we also have these great professional programs that are going to be growing and that are important in health sciences and in business and in education. So it’s that combination. The whole is greater than some of the parts.

The location is magical. Unbelievable. We have a beautiful campus. It looks like you’re in rural New England. It’s an iconic campus. It’s used in films. When people want to say, what does our college campus look like? They come to Wagner and it’s just unbelievably beautiful and poised and quite calm. The best thing though of all that I’ve described is probably the loving culture that exists within the community. Our students have been our faculty, our students, our staff. It is a very supportive, intimate, warm place where people have each other’s back and it’s very inclusive. It’s been just really remarkable to see.

The nation is being shaped by lots of things. We are actively involved in everything that’s going on in our country, but we also have a community that supports each other through that. And that we have a home. Everybody has a home here that’s really a center from which they can go out and make a difference in the world and then come back and be restored and then go out to New York or go out to the hospital as our first responders did during the pandemic, heroically contributing and continue to do so today. So we’re very proud of that sort of movement. We’re not isolated. We are connected, but we’re in a place of peace that enables us to do our best work for society. That’s the DNA of Wagner that I see, and I’m so privileged to be part of this community.

Jay Lemons:

Well, thank you, President Joel Martin for joining us on Leader on Leadership and for sharing your thoughts about leadership and for ending with sharing that, which was a part of the special call that brought you to Wagner College. We’re glad to have had you and appreciate your time this morning.

Listeners, we welcome your suggestions and thoughts for leaders we should feature in upcoming segments. You can send those to leadershippodcast@academicsearch.org. You can find our podcasts on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, or wherever else you find your podcast. 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. Again, it’s been a special pleasure to have had Joel Martin on our show today. Thank you, Joel, for joining us.

Joel Martin:

Thank you, Jay. Always a pleasure to visit with you.