Leaders on Leadership featuring Dr. Susan Hasseler, President of Muskingum University

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. Sue Hasseler. Sue’s the 21st president of Muskingum University, a private liberal arts institution in New Concord, Ohio, which is dedicated to access, opportunity, and the transformative power of education. Since 2016, Sue has led Muskingum through a decade of growth and renewal, and she will conclude her presidency at the end of the 2025, 2026 academic year, but she’s not through yet. Her tenure has been defined by a clear focus on affordability, innovation, and regional impact. Under her leadership, Muskingum expanded STEM offerings, strengthened programs for adult and graduate learners, secured significant grant funding to support scholarships and career development, and opened the Bullock Health and Wellness Complex, an investment serving both the campus and the broader community.

Throughout, Sue has reinforced Muskingum’s longstanding commitment to student access and success. Prior to Muskingum, Sue served in senior academic leadership roles at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Messiah College, and Calvin University. She began her higher ed career at Michigan State University, and prior to that she was a K-12 educator for 13 years. Across each chapter of her career, Sue has championed high impact liberal arts education and collaborative leadership. She’s a respected voice in independent higher education, having served on the NCAA Division III Presidents Council, the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities Board of Directors, and several regional boards. Sue also currently serves on the CIC NetVUE Advisory Council. She holds a PhD from Northwestern School of Education and Social Policy and is a graduate of several national leadership programs, including Harvard’s Institute for Educational Management and our very own AALI programs. Sue and her husband Ken enjoy the arts, athletics, travel, and time with their children, their grandchildren, near and on lakes, and with two red labs.

Sue, it is a pleasure to welcome you.

Susan Hasseler:

Thank you so much, Jay, and thank you for that wonderful introduction. Much appreciated.

Jay Lemons:

Well, you have had a rich and full journey in life, and a part of this next chapter is trying to share the benefits of the wisdom and knowledge that I know that you’ve gained. And now, I’d love to just open it up and help others to understand your pathway to leadership in higher education, which came after, we’ve just said, a long career in K-12 education. But talk about the people, the events, and opportunities that have really forged you as a person and as a leader.

Susan Hasseler:

This is the time of life, I think, for somebody in my position to be doing that kind of reflecting on leadership, and I really welcome the opportunity to share a bit about that. As I look back, I come from a family of educators. My grandmother went to teacher’s college in the early 1900s, she actually graduated in 1913, and my mother took in laundry and ironing in order to finish her four-year teaching degree when I was in grade school. So, I come from this tradition of people who believe so deeply in the power of education. That was a huge shape in my life. Leadership I think, came naturally to me, but I didn’t recognize it. In high school, I organized an experiential learning week for 750 students, single-handedly, it had never been done on the campus before. And to me, that was just day-to-day work.

So I moved into my teaching career, loved it, loved the students, was really drawn to students on the margins. Studied learning disabilities, worked in urban settings, and then I really got engaged in higher education and educating educators, and that just opened up so many new doors to looking at how to have an impact. So, a couple of the key experiences there as I moved from K through 12 to higher education. First of all, my graduate program was life changing. I went to Northwestern University and had the opportunity to do research on the south side of Chicago, and it brought me face-to-face with a whole different world around education. And in fact, I completely changed my focus midway through my program to studying social context and studying education. So that was a life-changing moment, and really then shaped the kinds of opportunities I pursued.

Had the incredible gift of working internationally, I’ve been to South Africa six times, and again, that broadening of vision about the power of education. I was there in 2004 and really learned from Mandela’s philosophy that education is the most powerful tool in the world. So, those kinds of experiences have really shaped my both desire to lead, my desire to lead transformationally, and have really shaped what I do now. That’s been also impacted by people, amazing people in my life. I was thinking through whether I wanted to be an academic full-time, or whether I was called to be in leadership, and the president I was working with at that time, Kim Phipps at Messiah College-

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful, wonderful colleague.

Susan Hasseler:

… sat me down and said, “You’re a president. Let’s figure out how to get you there.” And that was transformational. So all along the way, transformational leaders, these wonderful experiences, it’s been the coolest journey ever. That’s how I would describe it.

Jay Lemons:

I love it. That’s the title of the episode. If we had titles, that would be the title. Remind me, and share with our listeners how you made a choice about where you did your undergraduate work.

Susan Hasseler:

I chose my undergraduate work in part because of family influence. My grandmother and my mother attended Calvin College, so I was third generation female actually to attend this college. And so, that was significant. It happened to be the background I grew up in that was connected with Calvin and actually with Dordt and other institutions.

Jay Lemons:

Reformed tradition.

Susan Hasseler:

However, I really looked at other opportunities and chose it deliberately.

Jay Lemons:

Interesting. Well, you made at least one consequential friendship at Calvin. Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Susan Hasseler:

Well, absolutely. One of my consequential relationships long-term was meeting my husband there, who came from South Dakota to Calvin College. And our funny story about meeting is I was on the Calvin Worship Committee and I was leading worship. And the head of the youth ministries in the Christian Reformed Church at that time was leading the service. And I sat down from doing the introduction and he looked at me and he said, “That’s Sue Schneider. And as far as I know, gentlemen, she’s available.” To this entire auditorium, whereupon I got four phone calls the next day and my husband was the first.

Jay Lemons:

So, Ken was quickest to the prize.

Susan Hasseler:

He was quickest.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you for sharing that.

Susan Hasseler:

And we’ve been together almost 50 years, so it’s pretty amazing.

Jay Lemons:

That’s fabulous, fabulous. Well, I know the two of you have been great partners. I love Jim Collins’ work, good to great begins with good is the enemy of great. I think that misses out on that very definition of good that I think we need to have greater focus on in this world today. And that is, I don’t mean grade B. I mean, good as in virtuous, and effective, and successful. What makes a good leader in your mind, Sue?

Susan Hasseler:

When I think about a good leader, part of that is contextualized. I mean, I think there are some qualities that are leadership qualities across the board, but in higher education a good leader deeply believes in the mission, really believes that education makes a difference, that it transforms the world. A good leader focuses on students. Students are the heart of education, so that’s this moral compass. Maybe not moral compass, but you know what I mean, this focus of a really good leader in higher education. It is ultimately all about the students, no matter what the age is. So those are things I look for, I would define as a good leader. I think a good leader has their own sense of integrity. They have their own sense of what matters in the world. A good leader is curious. When I do personality tests, my number one quality is curiosity, and I think good leaders wonder about the world. They want to understand it and learn about it.

And then I think good leaders have to have a sense of humor, because there is so much in this world that demands humor. All the way from the students to the constituents to the faculty, you have got to … And maybe it’s not just being able to laugh at the world, but find joy, find joy in the enterprise.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you for that. And thank you for raising up curiosity. One of the privileges of the presidency is our ability to meet extraordinary people. And one of the extraordinary people in my life, now gone for probably at least a decade, was Dr. Paul Coleman, who was a distinguished engineering professor at the University of Illinois, and he was a graduate of Susquehanna, but he, late in his life, he was at least 95. And he said to me one day, “Jay, I don’t understand. Why are people not curious? We have so many questions we need to understand.” Paul, would have been a great leader. He was a great teacher and lived his life in that grove, but curiosity, such an important and valuable quality.

Susan Hasseler:

If I can follow up quickly on that, I am very curious about the world. I love figuring out how the world works, and I love nature, and science, and literature, and that kind of thing, but what I’ve learned is it’s super important to be curious about people. What is driving what they’re doing? And if you can be truly curious, it brings you a long way, right?

Jay Lemons:

It does, Sue. To learn requires an openness that is rooted in curiosity, I think. And so I really, really appreciate that. Now Sue, I know full well that you believe this. Leadership is not a solo act, it’s a team act. So when you’re creating a team, what do you look for in the leaders that you surround yourself with?

Susan Hasseler:

When I built my current team, and I built it over time, I was very deliberate to look for a number of things. And I will say the first thing is the students first. I want all the leaders who are on the same page about what we’re trying to accomplish. The second thing is not only competence in your area, but an understanding of the whole enterprise and a willingness to be part of that whole. So, you don’t have a team where a bunch of individuals are advocating for their area, although they are going to and they should, but there’s also this understanding of how we do this all together. I think those are very important parts of a team. I really look for team members who want to learn from others and want to keep learning. So, I look for that curiosity and that commitment to learning.

And then, you want leaders who have earned trust as leaders. They have earned trust in their own areas. They may be coming out of different kinds of leadership positions, they might have earned their trust externally, internally, but you want demonstrated that people trust them, that high integrity.

Jay Lemons:

You are spot on in that observation. And I recently wrote our board and I invoked that I think that many of us in leadership in higher ed and elsewhere could really benefit by trying to take stock and think about what Coach Curt Cignetti at Indiana University has done, taking the losingest college football program and in two years time turning out the first 16 and 0 team since the 1890s at Yale. And I think Sue, he says it. Students first, he wouldn’t call them just students, but seeing the whole and building trust. You do those things, almost anything’s possible. So, thank you for sharing that. One of our functions is to hopefully be a resource and a tool for people who are considering leadership, perhaps somebody like you who is in a faculty role, perhaps somebody who’s advancing up the administrative ranks. I’d love to hear your advice for those aspiring to leadership.

Susan Hasseler:

My advice for aspiring leaders is to learn, and to very deliberately look for experiences outside your particular areas. So, I understood coming through academe that there were areas that I just needed to understand. I needed to understand the power of athletics, a power of the student experience. I needed to understand finance, not just budget, but finance and fundraising, and all of those components that run in institutions. So, relatively early I started seeking out these learning experiences. I would encourage people to go to NCAA, the conference, it’s a fascinating experience, to really understand, to sit down with your advancement team, not just to say to them, “Can you raise money for my pet cause?” But to understand how the work happens, because the more you understand the broad enterprise the better off you are going to be. Attend workshops, attend, Jay, you mentioned early on the AALI workshops, which I found very helpful, but all kinds of opportunities.

They’re offered in your disciplinary areas, they’re offered in your region. I just took full advantage of learning from others. So get out there, identify what you don’t know, and learn it.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you. Good advice. When you step back and think about the most critical challenges in higher ed today, what are they?

Susan Hasseler:

I went to a presentation recently in which somebody spent 20 minutes outlining all the challenges in higher education. It was like five very full PowerPoint slides, and I think all of us in the room fell over at the end. But I would say our number one challenge right now is exemplifying the value of this experience, creating the experiences that convince all of our potential constituents that this experience has value, and that is not rhetoric. It has to be action. Our programs have to have credibility and validity with our constituents, whoever they are, whether that’s traditional 18 through 22 year olds, whether that is first generation students like we serve here at Muskingum, whether that’s adult learners, whether that’s our policymakers, funders, we have a huge calling right now to not just defend our value, but exemplify it, create it, embody it. I would say that is our number one challenge.

And it’s tied to, of course, what all presidents think about, which I’d say is recruitment and retention. But just that creating energy, enthusiasm, delight around what this enterprise does.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah, yeah. And that’s fundamentally about regaining the public trust.

Susan Hasseler:

It is, but regaining it not with rhetoric. They’re not interested in a lot of words, and statements, and proclamations. They’re interested in programs that prepare students to take on the world, whether that is professionally, or as a civil leader, or a civic engagement, any of those things, we really have to be relevant and responsive.

Jay Lemons:

Yep, yep. Actions speak louder than words.

Susan Hasseler:

Absolutely, yeah. And we have to understand government relations. That was the whole thing that I immersed in when I came to Muskingum. Hadn’t done that before. And not just external or not government only but corporate relations, the whole world of policy and procedure that impacts us because that really matters.

Jay Lemons:

It really does, it really does. There’s no end to the identifiable constituencies that modern American college and university president will intersect with. So, yeah. Sue, I want to move into what I think of as a little bit of a lightning round where the questions might be shorter. You can answer as long as you would like.

Susan Hasseler:

Okay.

Jay Lemons:

So, who’s had the most influence on you?

Susan Hasseler:

I have such a hard time with the most questions. I’m going to want to equivocate on that.

Jay Lemons:

Who are those people who have most influenced you?

Susan Hasseler:

So, I have been wonderfully influenced by strong female leaders in particular, although I’ve worked with some wonderful male leaders as well. And these leaders have come from all walks of life. Many have become friends, some are in business, some are in not for-profits other than education, many in higher education. We have shared experiences and influenced one another, I think, in really powerful ways.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. Is there a book that’s had the most influence on you?

Susan Hasseler:

That’s a terribly hard one, because there are such powerful books out there. I love poetry, I happen to love music and poetry. And the work of Maya Angelou is one of my favorites. It’s one of my inspirations. I really like Mary Oliver. Recently, I read an interesting book by Scott Carlson called Hacking College. He’s from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. So if I would talk about on the professional side, it’s these books that frame up a whole different way of looking at higher ed. And his was the most recent one that I read that I found really compelling, that the way we frame up majors is no longer the way the world looks. So, on the personal side it’s poetry, it’s music, and it’s mysteries. And on the professional side, it’s books that challenge the norms.

Jay Lemons:

Very good, very good. Let’s go back to Calvin. Do you have a fondest memory of your undergraduate experience?

Susan Hasseler:

When I think about Calvin, I laugh about the fact that I did get thrown in the Sem Pond. So, there’s a tradition there of throwing people for various reasons in the Sem Pond. Would not call that my favorite memory, but-

Jay Lemons:

You got all wet and muddy.

Susan Hasseler:

[inaudible 00:22:36]. Yeah, there you go. One of the interesting things that happened at Calvin is I needed a credit or a January term. I needed I think my third or fourth January term there, which I found to be a great experience anyway. And I set up my own experiential learning program in which I spent time in Chicago, I spent time in Grand Rapids and really spent time studying urban settings. And I think that eventually led to my work at Northwestern and led to shape my career, but it was also fun. Worked with some professors, they helped me organize things. I think I spent a week in Chicago, spent time just experiencing places in the city of Grand Rapids and started me or kept me going on that whole experiential learning thing, how you learn by these powerful … Yeah.

Jay Lemons:

I love that. Well, you lived in a K-12 world, you’ve lived in higher ed. Is there some other field of endeavor that you might have wished you had had a chance to explore and do?

Susan Hasseler:

I even think about this in my next career, by the way, but the next phase of my life, I would be an architect and or an engineer. I love designing buildings. I love designing space, and thinking about how you create space that’s both efficient and affordable but also beautiful and effective. And I look back on that. My aptitude tests are very high around architecture and engineering, and I have had the privilege of being able to do that in my leadership roles, building just an incredible facility here on the campus from bottom to top. And so I love that, and I’ll probably keep working in that area.

Jay Lemons:

Love it, love it. Well, Sue, I want to flip back to in some ways hearkening to your experiences perhaps at Calvin, but you’ve served a significant number of higher ed institutions. Is there a favorite campus tradition that you would hold up?

Susan Hasseler:

I have had favorite traditions at each place, and I started looking for what the theme might be, and what I’ve realized is that I love sending ceremonies. I love our ceremonies that celebrate either entry or exit to the next step. I love opening convocation for first year students, and that saying goodbye to parents, “Bye, time to go.” And embracing students into the life. I love commencement, I’m a total schmuck for commencement. And for adult learners too, I love these adult learning commencements. We have a program that is for people who have been in a two-year occupational therapy program, and they end up with a master’s degree, and many are the first in their family not only to go for a four-year degree, but actually to get an advanced degree. And the celebration there of families and children, and just this entire community that came around students for success, I just love it. I love those ceremonies.

So, I think those are the traditions that are really, really important. I’m also into ice cream. I can tell people I host ice cream socials at my house for all the first year students, and then periodically just bring an ice cream truck to the quad when we need a little boost on campus. So, that’s the other tradition I would put forward.

Jay Lemons:

Lovely, lovely. Well, your invoking Kim Phipps and Messiah make me think about the late Ernest Boyer, who had an affiliation with Messiah. And Boyer wrote about six essential elements of campus life, what makes these institutions different and unique, and ritual and tradition are a part of it. And so I love it, through ice cream and sending ceremonies. I don’t know that I have ever thought about that frame, but it’s the best answer I think I’ve heard because for me too, that ability to begin the new chapter and to send them off, those bookends are unbelievably powerful, and sweet, and so very important.

Susan Hasseler:

They are lovely. By the way, I’ll tell you that the Ernest L. Boyer Center was under my purview at Messiah. And so, I got to know Kay Boyer quite well and worked a bit with the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of teaching where he had his work was really embodied, and such a transformational view of community, of the fact that education is community. And Messiah embodied that beautifully, he really shaped that community.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s lovely. I believe that we, in our broader society, but especially in American higher education, we need to revisit Boyer’s themes around community-

Susan Hasseler:

Agreed.

Jay Lemons:

… because we know what isolation is. One of our traditions here is I like to close our podcasts by asking and inviting our guests to share with our listeners the distinctive qualities, if you will the organizational DNA, the special sauce that has made Muskingum a place so very important to you and to those you serve.

Susan Hasseler:

I think a lot about that right now. I’m in that phase of reflecting on my decade here at Muskingum, what brought me here, what kind of impact the place has had. We’ve been around since 1837, so this place has had an impact on a lot of people. And number one in the special sauce of this place is true inclusivity. Muskingum started a program for students with learning differences called the PLUS Program in 1983, long before this was a thing. But even before that, this campus has been shaped by deep care for student wellbeing, and I think that is built into the DNA. It’s kindness is built into the DNA here. We had a survey done early in my time here, somebody was coming through, wanted student data, and they came back and said, “Your students are unusually kind.” And I think that is built into this acceptance.

And then, I would also say this incredible building of confidence. We take students who, they don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves and they go out and do just amazing things. And our alums come back and talk about how this place built confidence so deliberately. And then I would say persistence, we’re scrappy. We’ve been through a fair amount as a small institution in Southeast Ohio, and going through a lot of eras, and we are scrappy. We are persistent. Sam Speck did the first price reset in the United States here at Muskingum in the mid ’90s. So, we’re fearless in our own way. Even though we love our traditions, we have the same struggles everybody does with, as my wonderful president at Augustana used to say and I’ve adapted this for Muskingum, building the Muskingum of always, but building the Muskingum of never before.

Jay Lemons:

Lovely.

Susan Hasseler:

And so, I think that we’re pragmatists about surviving into the future while holding onto some pretty powerful core beliefs.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, for those who may not have been to New Concord, find your way there. You’ll see the handwork of Sue exercising her wannabe architect with some spectacular campus improvements of the past decade, and know that you’d be welcomed to a place with kindness. That’s a powerful formula. And then Sue, thank you for reminding us all that so many of our institutions have endured really challenging times before, and they will again. And while we are accused of being very slow to change, the truth is these institutions adapt at maybe a slower rate of speed, but they do in fact change and adapt. And I think that’s a reassuring message for all of us.

Susan Hasseler:

Absolutely, and an important one. It’s an important one for us to hear internally and also to share externally.

Jay Lemons:

Absolutely. Well, I want to say thank you, Sue, for joining us on Leaders on Leadership. It’s really been a special treat. And on this day I will note that this is the day that your successor has been announced, and your campus community will very soon be having the opportunity to meet that new leader. How special is it that you were able to carve out some time to share in this experience with us today? And I want to just also wish you well as you come around the home stretch on the presidential track, carrying that baton towards your successor with a great deal of momentum and energy and speed. So, thank you for your leadership and for being with us this morning.

Susan Hasseler:

Well, and thank you for having me, Jay. This was delightful.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you so much. It’s been a special pleasure, as I’ve said, to have Sue Hasseler with us. Thank you, Sue, for joining 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 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. Thanks for joining us.