Leaders on Leadership featuring Dr. Luis Pedraja, President of Quinsigamond Community College

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.

Today, I’m delighted to be joined by Dr. Luis Pedraja. Luis is the president of Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Mass, where he leads with a clear commitment to educational equity and access. A first-generation college student and a Cuban immigrant, Luis brings a personal understanding of the transformative power of higher education, especially for students from historically underserved populations by the higher ed system in this country.

Before arriving at QCC, Luis held leadership roles at institutions across the country, including provost and vice president for academic affairs at Antioch University in Los Angeles, and the interim vice chancellor of academic affairs for the Peralta Community College District.

You have had a wonderfully rich experience. I’m thinking about also having served at SMU and at Puget Sound, so I almost think that you touch every sector of American higher education, and certainly that was a part of your job when you served as a vice president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, where you also led the first program to grant American accreditation to foreign institutions, and provided guidance to universities in South America, Asia, and Europe on achieving American higher education standards. Luis is a philosopher by training and spent his career championing the importance of language, culture and inclusive dialogue.

At Quinsigamond, his leadership is focused on student success, community partnerships, and creating innovative pathways to opportunity. Luis has a bachelor’s degree from Stetson University and a PhD in Philosophy and Religion from the University of Virginia, where we were probably walking the grounds at the same time. Luis, it’s a real pleasure to welcome you to Leaders On Leadership.

Luis Pedraja:

Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and to speak a little bit about my circuitous journey to leadership.

Jay Lemons:

It has been circuitous, but I think that also prepares you to be an observer, a commentator, and maybe most importantly in your present role, to be a leader of the only truly American style of education, and that is our great community colleges, so I’m thrilled you’re with us. And one of my goals is to try and open up a little bit more on the personal side with leaders and to ask you to reflect and consider your own pathways to leadership with the hope that others are going to see inspiration and hope in thinking about their own. So I’d love for you, Luis, to share your story with our listeners and talk about the people, the events, the opportunities that have helped to create and forge you into the person and leader that you are today.

Luis Pedraja:

Thank you. Personally, I don’t think leaders are born, they’re made, and the experiences that shape your life shape you as a leader. And as you already shared, I’m a first generation college student. I’m an immigrant, English language learner. I grew up in a very impoverished neighborhood in little Havana in Miami where it was surrounded by crime and violence and poverty. My parents had not gone to college and my father didn’t even finish high school, but they always told me, “Son, study hard because they can take away everything.” They lost everything when we left Cuba. I flew in behind, and, “They can take away everything, but they can’t take away your education.” And those words were powerful. They stuck with me.

And I did study and I worked hard, but I never could have imagined growing up in that impoverished neighborhood in Miami that one day, I’ll be a president of a college in Massachusetts. If you had told me that back then, I would have thought that you were crazy. But I had people in my community that believed in me. They inspired me, they pushed me on. They got me to college, and in college, I had professors and others that mentored me, that encouraged my desire to move forward.

There was one particular professor that inspired me to do a PhD. I hadn’t even thought about that, but at the end of this exam, Dr. Musser had wrote, “Have you ever envisioned Luis Pedraja PhD?” He says, “Keep your grades up and I’m going to nominate you for the scholarship for a master’s program.” And I said, “Great.” So I did, I kept my grades up and I struggled. My first day in college, after classes, I remember sitting outside the dorms. What’s a Latino kid, English language learner from Miami doing here? I didn’t feel like I belonged.

Jay Lemons:

How did you get to DeLand, Florida and Stetson University? That’s a good story that needs to be told.

Luis Pedraja:

It was an interesting story. At the time, I was thinking of becoming a minister, and I did get ordained eventually.

Jay Lemons:

You did, yeah.

Luis Pedraja:

And served as a minister, and they had a religion program and somebody in the church that I was active in in Miami had encouraged me to consider going there and they offered me a good scholarship package. It was far away enough from home that I could feel like I was my own, but not so far that I was feeling uprooted from my community.

Jay Lemons:

That’s wonderful.

Luis Pedraja:

Yeah, so that just motivated me and I went, and I went to seminary, got ordained. I decided at that time that I was a little bit more liberal than the Baptists, which I was Baptist at the time, were, and what do you do when you have a master’s in divinity? You’re not going to be a minister. At least that’s not your vocation for life, so I went to UBA. They had a very strong religion and theology program, and I thought, “Maybe I want to teach in a liberal arts school like the professor that inspired me,” and I just went on and went to get my PhD at UBA, and then eventually taught at the University of Puget Sound at Southern Methodist University.

And the one thing, the shift for me for leadership, because I remember my first wife who’s passed away, she at one time had asked me while I was at SMU, “Do you think you’ll ever become a dean?” And I spent like an hour telling her why I would never be a dean, and sure enough, within six months, I became a dean at Memphis Ideological Seminary, worked there for some years, then I made the shift to accreditation. Then from accreditation, which I did for seven years, which I really enjoyed. You get to experience everything about higher education. You get to know different types of institutions and get to know a lot of different people. After that experience, I get to a point I miss being in the life of a college, being with the students, with faculty.

Accreditation, I felt like a grandfather. You go, play with the kids, tell the parents what to do and leave. You go, talk to everybody, tell the president what to do and you go. But I wanted to get back into making a difference, and that’s what I did. I went to Atlantic University, then Peralta and eventually here at Quinsigamond Community College, and that’s what really inspired me to be a leader. Every time I’ve taken a leadership position, it has been because there’s something I wanted to do. I wanted to make a difference, I want to change something, and I’ve always felt that if you’re not willing to take on the responsibility to making change happen, then you shouldn’t be complaining about it. So that’s what inspired me.

When I was at SMU, we rotated the department chair, and I got to be chair and I thought, “Hey, I can make a difference,” and that led to me becoming a dean. Then I wanted to get a bigger picture and make a broader difference, affect higher education more at its core, so went into accreditation, which I believe is one of the great things that we have in this country that preserves the peer review process, that allows institution to improve, and I was a true believer in that. It was a way of expanding access to higher education.

And eventually, like I said, I missed being with the faculty, with the students and seeing the actual change in person, so I made the transition to Antioch and then Peralta, and ultimately to a presidency because all those years as a vice president, you can only do so much. You effect change, but ultimately, it’s somebody else that has a final decision. To me, I figured, “I want to do a little bit more. I want to make a bigger impact.”

And the one thing that always inspired me about higher education is I saw how it transformed my life, opened doors for me, and I wanted to pay it forward, so I always focus on student success. I want to see the students have the same opportunities I have, so that’s been my North Star, to make a difference, to change lives, and that’s really what inspired me to be a leader.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. Well, speaking of leaders, I feel like I’m on a one-person crusade to reclaim the word good, so I want to be clear that by saying what makes a good leader, I don’t mean a grade B leader. I mean a leader who is virtuous, effective, and successful. What makes a good leader in your mind?

Luis Pedraja:

Well, last fall, I do an editorial every month for the local paper, I did one on leadership. The elections were coming up so I looked at what makes a good leader. And the first thing I said is that there are different opinions about what makes a good leader, but the best thing to start off is knowing what is not a good leader. To me, I think that a lot of people confuse bravado and arrogance for leadership, and that’s not true leadership. Actually, it’s the opposite because it’s more about the person and about the people that they’re serving, and I think that’s something that we need to shift our thinking. Just because a person has arrogance and you confuse that with confidence, it’s not the same thing. Confidence is not the same as arrogance. Bravado isn’t the same as decisiveness and strength.

A good leader, first of all, has to think about what they’re doing and realize that it’s not about themselves, it’s about the people you serve. You’re doing this to benefit others, not so much to benefit yourself. So it takes courage in some ways because you have to be able to speak truth to power at some point to others. You have to take unpopular stance, and sometimes be willing to sacrifice yourself and your career for the sake of the people you’re serving.

A good leader also surrounds themself with well-informed people and listens. I think listening is critical. Being able to get out there and hear the people that you’re serving is important. Get as much data as possible and then make informed decisions, not be rash in those decisions. Hard work is also critical. You can’t just be a leader and delegate everything. You really have to take responsibility and work hard and do what is needed. You have to have integrity.

I think leaders are quick to throw someone under the bus for their benefits. I think a true leader takes on responsibility and learns to say, “I’m sorry, I apologize. This is on me.” I had one president that I served with that used to tell me that credit rolls down, blame rolls up, and I believe that. Credit rolls down. The people that you serve, the people in your team, the people that work with you, when something goes wrong, you are ultimately responsible. The buck stops here and you have to be able to then take responsibility for it. You have to communicate and be transparent in your communication.

I always said that in the lack of communication and transparency, rumors grow to fill the vacuum, and usually the rumors are worse than the truth, and that’s the reality. So transparent, clear communication is important, and then being consistent in your decision making, being fair and helping people understand why you made those decisions. But you have to have that commitment and dedication and be willing to make the sacrifices when needed, and recognize it’s not about keeping your job, it’s about helping the people that you’re serving achieve their goals, their dreams. Empowering them, encouraging them, and giving them a vision that unifies them and moves things forward and accomplishes change.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. Well, you mentioned this in part already, leadership’s not a solo act necessarily. So when you’re creating a team, what is it that you’re looking for in those leaders who you will give your ear and your heart to in terms of listening and trying to have the benefit of their counsel?

Luis Pedraja:

Well, I always think back to the words, I think they were credited to Eisenhower. I don’t know, if he actually said them, but what makes a good president is surrounding yourself by people that know more than you and listening to them, and the reality as a leader, you can’t know everything. You have to have those subject matter experts to advise you and inform you, and I try to build teams that bring knowledge to the table, that bring expertise, that are willing to contribute to the conversation, and I think that is critical. At the same time, I also think that they have to be willing to speak truth to power. Every leader has to be willing to speak truth to power, and I expect them to speak to me and to share opinions that might not be what I want to hear but what I need to hear, and then I listen.

Ultimately, we’ll make a decision, an informed decision as a group and then we stick with it, but in the discussions that we have with cabinet and some of our one-on-ones, there has to be that freedom for your team to be able to speak up, and I don’t want people who are yes persons. I want people that are willing to say, “No, you got it wrong,” or, “Here, let me give you this different perspective,” and we discuss it. And being open to that is critical, and having those discussions are very important.

I also think that people in my team need to look ahead and predict where things are going to go, plan. I always tell my people, I want to plan A, B and C, because sometimes plan A doesn’t work so you have to have alternatives and you have to look ahead. You have to identify problems before they become problems. You’ve got to see trends and recognize, “Hey, this is not going the right direction. Let’s shift it around and do something,” and for them to advise me. I tell my team, “If I’m the one that identifies the problem, then you have a problem. You should identify them for me first.” If I need to get involved and say, “Wait a minute, I’ve seen this trend and it’s not good,” you have to come ahead of the problem, get ahead of it, and you have to be able to come to me and say, “Hey, there’s this. This is a solution I want to try,” and then we talk together, but that’s important.

Willing to be part of a team, having a shared vision with me, and ultimately also a bit of humility. Again, I believe leadership is not about yourself, it’s about the people you serve. And in the same way, in my team, I expect them to be thinking about the people they’re serving, not about what’s my next position and how do I move ahead?

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. One of our real special audiences are people who are aspiring or thinking about or being encouraged, and our participants in our American Academic Leadership Institute programs are really at the heart and soul of this, and I always want to invite our distinguished guests to think about the advice that you would give to those who are considering leadership.

Luis Pedraja:

I think to me, the first thing that they have to do is ask themselves why. Why do I want to be a leader? Because it takes responsibility. It’s not easy, it’s hard, so why do you want to do it, and do you want to do it for the right reason? Going back to what I said, it’s not about yourself, it’s about the people you serve. So I see some people that come and think, “I deserve it, I’ve earned it. I should be this,” and that’s not the right attitude. It’s more about, “I want to make a difference. I want to change people’s life. I want to solve this problem. That’s why I want to take on this responsibility.” That’s the critical thing. And to be willing to take on responsibility, to be held accountable, to hold others accountable, and to be willing to do what it takes to bring about the change that they envision. I think that’s important. And part of what I already shared about the humility, being able to communicate, taking that responsibility. Blame rolls up and not down. Credit rolls down. I think that’s important for the leader.

The best advice that I received when I first was going to become a dean and I was talking to the dean who had hired me, who at the time was interim president at SMU. He told me, “Don’t summon people to your office. They’re uncomfortable, it’s a power play. Walk around the halls. Go to their office in their space. You get to see what’s important to them, they’re more comfortable, more relaxed, more willing to share with you, and they don’t feel the power differential as much.” So I’ve always made a habit of going to where the people are, stopping by faculty offices and talking to them, going to a cafeteria, going to events, being accessible to the faculty, the students, the community.

When I started here at Quinsigamond, one of the lawyers in the community said, “I see you. You’ve been here like six months and I see you more than any the president who’s been here for years.” We have a lot of colleges here in our neighborhood. And I said, “I believe that getting out there in the middle of it, being able to be present with the people.” I have pizza with the president for the students.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful.

Luis Pedraja:

So they come and we just talk, and you have to feed them pizza. Feed them, they will come. Faculty, I do coffee with, and staff, coffee with the president, but I feel as a good leader, you have to know the ethos of the people, you have to be in and about. You can’t lead from the ivory tower and be secluded. You have to be in the middle of things, and I think that’s important. And I’ve seen other presidents are that way. When I was at Antioch, the president and I, we both had the same philosophy, so our staff was always running the halls trying to find us because they didn’t know where we had gone, but that’s the best way. Get to know the people, get to know what’s happening, and be willing to go to them and not just have them come to you. Don’t summon, go to where the people are.

Jay Lemons:

Love it. Luis, it strikes me that you spent was it seven years at Middle States?

Luis Pedraja:

Yes.

Jay Lemons:

And I’ve forgotten how many assignments you all had to handle. I knew this once upon a time when I was the Middle States president, but you were on dozens and dozens of campuses. I have observed this having now had the privilege of working at Academic Search about the last seven and a half years. I see it more clearly now than I did when I was a campus leader where I was honestly just trying to stay ahead, trying to keep my head above water, running as hard as I could, trying to do as much good as I could. I didn’t think about it. I’m just trying to survive. I’d be curious, you can tell good leadership when you’ve been on a campus for a day, can’t you?

Luis Pedraja:

Absolutely. You get a vibe for it, but you can see it in the people, the way they interact, and you probably know this from being in some of those searches. I remember when I first was looking for a presidency, I would go to visit with the search committees. I could tell where the campus had dysfunction and which one were really good campuses that had good legacy of leadership just by the way they interacted.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah, it’s very, very interesting. The post that’s sitting in one of our formerly regional accreditors I think is a really valuable learning post. What are the most critical challenges facing higher ed leaders today?

Luis Pedraja:

Well, where to begin? The list is long. I think the most critical challenge is the rapid pace of change. You could look at the politics, you can look at AI, but it’s a rapid change of pace. Before the pandemic, I was thinking, “Oh, I can make change here,” and then the pandemic hits. All of a sudden, you’re dealing with a situation where you don’t know. I could have just as well made decisions using a magic eight-ball because there was no history, no trends to predict what’s next. And I’m sitting there thinking, I thought I was going to make decisions about academic things and budgets and finances, and all of a sudden, I’m having to make decisions that are life and death, that affect people.

But I also learned I had to be a comforter in chief and also the one who kept things positive, kept them focused on the future, that this too will pass, and make change and pivot quickly and encourage people to do that and lead them through that process, and I think that’s critical during the rapid change that we see, whether it be with all the policies that keep coming every day now, whether it be with things like AI or disruptors, there are many out there, the financial challenges. I’m also now on NECHE Commission, so I see so many institutions are so frail and just about to just make it, and you have to provide them with encouragement and those presidents, but I do see some people that are being unrealistic. They’re trying to make decisions like they were back 20 years ago or 30 years ago where everything’s fine.

We have the demographic cliff here in the Northeast, we have the changing socioeconomic outlook of the nation, and then education, the narrative has not been good. We haven’t done a good job of articulating a positive narrative about the value of education. I do believe education is more needed now, higher education, than it was decades ago, because it’s hard to find good paying jobs without being able to manage things like information technology, AI as it’s emerging, and the quick pace of change, so people have to reinvent themselves constantly.

And I think as leaders of education, we need to be visionaries in some ways, predict the future, look at trends, but at the same time, be willing to pivot quickly and come up with multiple scenarios so that if this doesn’t go this way, then you can pivot to the next one. And be willing to listen to your people, because change is hard and higher education is changing fast, but then people are not changing as quickly. And to be able to bridge that with the people that say, “We’ve always done it this way,” and those people who are visionaries, future focused, that are trying to implement change, and try to see the value in both and bring them together and make that transition, that’s very critical around this time.

I do think we’re in a sea change in higher education, something that has been unprecedented. I hate to use that word because I think it’s been used to death, but that’s the reality. What do you do when there is no precedent? Then how do you make informed decisions about the future? And I think as a leader, you have to get to a point, you have the data that you have, and then make a decision based on that data and move things forward into the next step. Try it, take the risk. If it doesn’t work, pivot and do something else, have that plan B and plan C, and be willing to take responsibility when you try something and it didn’t work. But with higher education, that’s the kind of leadership we need, not people that feel like, “Oh, I’m just going to go and be a placeholder.” You can’t be a placeholder. You have to and be transformative as a leader nowadays if you are to survive and if your institutions are to survive.

Jay Lemons:

So true. So true. I’m going to move into what I call our lightning round where I’ll ask shorter questions. You can answer at whatever length you want.

Luis Pedraja:

Okay.

Jay Lemons:

But here we go. Who’s had the most influence on you?

Luis Pedraja:

There’ve been some different people at different stages in my life. Obviously, my parents, my spouses, they’ve been a very positive influence. The one person that did change my life was a professor that I mentioned, Dr. Musser. He was my theology professor. I remember I got a low grade in one of his tests, and that inspired me to keep trying and probably made me into a theologian. He used to be able to sit there and argue one part of something until he had you convinced that this was the right perspective, and then the minute you agreed, he shifted. And it taught me to be a thinker that considers different things, that has the critical thinking skills to evaluate and shift between different perspectives and understand why both can be held at the same time.

He also inspired me to be like him. He was the one who inspired me to go pursue a PhD, and I visited him a few years before he passed away. He had retired, went to his home. He came out with a packet of files of works that I’d done, comments on some of my presentations, letters of recommendation written to give to me because he was cleaning out his things, and that he kept it through all those years meant a lot to me. And he shifted the direction of my life and career. He is the one that advised me to consider UVA. He was a big influence in my life.

And then of course, there’s been at different stages, different people, mentors, the historian, Gus Gonzales, who advised me in the writing of my first book, and others thinkers that really have influenced me. But I think Dr. Musser made the biggest difference in the sense that he opened doors for me that I didn’t think would ever open.

Jay Lemons:

I can well appreciate and imagine that. Is there a book that’s had an outsized influence on you, or books?

Luis Pedraja:

A lot of books. I do read quite a bit. I think because of my background in philosophy, Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality and Adventures in Ideas. He is a process philosopher and theologian, and I took a class when I was in seminary on process philosophy and that opened the doors for me and my thinking. And then later on, some of the writers in liberation theology, the option for the poor, that also opened a lot of doors for me. But I think Process and Reality made me see the importance of creativity, how things are interconnected, and how decision is important in shaping the future.

Jay Lemons:

Fabulous, fabulous. Do you have a fondest memory of your time at Stetson As an undergrad?

Luis Pedraja:

I could think of some. Playing frisbee with my friends or chatting with people, going to the movies. I think the one that’s the sharpest for me is at graduation, because my parents were there, they were beaming with pride. My professors were there, a couple of them, taking pictures with me and it was all that excitement that was going on, and that was this very special moment, that all these people that were influential in my life were there for me.

I remember during that time, I had a friend that came and asked me, “You spent four years here to get that degree. How does it feel?” And I looked at them and said, “I got this degree because I spent four years here.” And what that taught me, and I often use that when I’m doing my graduation speeches, it’s the journey that matters. The time that I spent there, the friends that I made, the learning, that process is the shaping of who you will become that matters. That’s why you get the degree. You don’t need to go to get the degree. I mean, you kind of do, but the reality is you get the degree because of the shaping that occurs, that journey.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. So what if Dr. Musser hadn’t been there? If you hadn’t found your way and a calling in higher ed, what do you think you would’ve done?

Luis Pedraja:

Well, there’s a couple of things that come to mind. Obviously, I might have been a minister because-

Jay Lemons:

At your church, yeah?

Luis Pedraja:

Yeah. I was going to go into that. I felt a calling into the ministry. Now if you want the fun answers, I could have been a magician. I did magic shows to put my way through graduate school. I could have been a storm chaser. I did a little of that when I was in Dallas and enjoyed it. Most likely, I would’ve been a writer. I love writing, and I don’t do enough of it now that I’m a president, you don’t get to do much of that. When I started as a president, somebody had told me this. Well, they told me this when I was a dean but it applies to presidents and all. “The first year, you stop writing. The second year, you stop reading. The third year, you stop thinking.” I don’t believe that. I’ve always tried to write something and contribute something every year, but sometimes you get so busy, you don’t get to do enough writing. But writing is one of the things that I enjoy that I wish I had more time for, and that maybe I could have been a writer.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. Ritual and tradition are certainly a significant part of the American higher ed scene. I’d love to hear if there is a campus tradition at a place that you’ve attended or served that you hold really close to your heart.

Luis Pedraja:

I’ve seen so many traditions now.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Luis Pedraja:

I think that the thing that I’ve seen in several campuses which I always appreciate is at graduation, the faculty, they stand in a line. There’s a student parade [inaudible 00:33:33] through. They encourage them, some shake their hands. They give them praise and words of wisdom as they depart, because as you know, the students go first and faculty come in last, but having that line of faculty on both sides as a student parades through the middle. I think I first saw that at the University of Georgetown when I was there, I don’t know if they still do it, and I’ve seen it in other universities, and we do a little of that here. It’s hard, we get a lot of graduates going through, but I always like to stand out there as the graduates are going through before I line up with the prestige to march, because just seeing the excitement on their faces and for them to see you and say, “Oh, my professor’s there. The president’s there,” it makes it so exciting. I think that’s a tradition that we all should emulate.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. Well, one of our traditions on Leaders on Leadership is I like to close by inviting our guests to share with our listeners the distinctive qualities, or if you will, the organizational DNA or secret sauce that makes your institution, in this case, Quinsigamond Community College, so very special to you and to those you serve. Tell us about it.

Luis Pedraja:

I think one of the things that I appreciate about Quinsigamond is we have an email that goes out for different things. It’s called QCC Family, and we talk about QCC as a family, and community colleges are embedded in the community. I like the name community in it. They serve the community, they work with the students in the community, and the faculty and staff here, when I came, I said that my North Star will be student success, that I would not rest until we achieve a hundred percent student success. And people say, “Well, you can’t achieve that.” And I said, “Maybe, but that means we won’t rest. We’ll always do that.” And the faculty and the staff embrace that idea too, and they’re so dedicated to our students that they really work hard to make sure our students get a good education, that they can achieve their dreams of a better life through education, and we’ve created a very strong ecosystem and support for the students.

So it’s not just in the classroom, it’s outside the classroom. We have mentorship programs, we enlist the people in the community to join as mentors, we’ve worked with others. To me, that’s what matters, that they truly care about the students. There always might be exceptions here and there, but the reality is that we think of ourselves as a family supporting each other. We might disagree from time to time like most families, but when it comes to what matters, we bind together and we move forward. We fought through the pandemic. We were able to have the most stable enrollment of any community college of Massachusetts.

Jay Lemons:

Wow.

Luis Pedraja:

And we’re able to use her momentum and keep moving forward, but it’s always been the focus on the student. That’s been our North Star and I think that’s what really makes a difference, and people in the community recognize the value that we have to the community. We have nine or 10 other college universities here.

Jay Lemons:

You do.

Luis Pedraja:

Some elite colleges, but people have a special place in the heart for QCC because we train the EMTs, the nurses, the first responders, the people who serve the community, who stay here, and we’re embedded in the community. It’s not just a community that we serve outside. We build community as a college.

Jay Lemons:

You know, Luis, I sometimes think about there’s these little tiny coffee table books. One of them was a life’s instruction book or whatever. I have this notion that maybe one day, I’ll do 365 things every American ought to do, and absolutely for certain, one of those pages, one of those days is devoted to attending a community college graduation ceremony. They are truly distinctive and incredibly powerful events, and I’ve had the privilege of attending so many of them and you cannot come away without feeling as if you are connected to all of those families because all of their families are there and joining in the celebration of their loved ones, whether they’re a generation older or younger than they are. And I think that intergenerational quality of our community colleges is a really beautiful, powerful thing.

Luis Pedraja:

It is. We’ve had people that are dual-enrolled students that are getting their high school degree at the same time as they get our community college degree, and we had seventy-five-year-old veterans that never got a degree that are coming in to get their first degree, and seeing everybody in between. Sometimes mother and daughter are getting a degree at the same time. It’s just amazing and it’s such a celebratory time. We’re having our graduation, and every time when I go to it, I’m always amazed, the resilience that the students demonstrate to get there, the support from their family, and then the joy that emerges once they’ve done it.

Jay Lemons:

Well, it’s that occasion when, as you describe it, your North Star shines brightest.

Luis Pedraja:

Absolutely.

Jay Lemons:

Well, thank you, Luis, for joining us on Leaders On Leadership. We’re so glad to have you and appreciate you’re so generously sharing your thoughts, your insights and wisdom about leadership with us.

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’s been a real special pleasure to have Dr. Luis Pedraja on our show today. Thank you, Luis, for joining us, and I’d love for you to have the final word on today’s program.

Luis Pedraja:

Thank you, Jay, and I think the thing I will do to close it out is just to say if you’re thinking about being a leader, think about why you’re doing it, that’s very important, and know that it’s hard. But we need more leaders. We need more leaders with integrity, with vision, with a passion to serve a community, and to be compassionate to others and to listen and to drive the future. And I believe that we can affect change no matter how badly things get, and the reality is that we need leaders that believe that, and we can change the world if we work together to bring forth change.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you so much, Luis. On the custom of somebody who has an M.Div, it’s okay if I say amen. Have a great day. Thank you again.

Luis Pedraja:

Thank you.