Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Look for opportunities that you might initially think are a burden or, uh, check off the box, like accreditation, viewing the past accreditation report and looking at what we were falling a little bit short in that provides the impetus for change. So one example is our general education curriculum. It had not been updated in 18 years. I engaged two faculty who were involved, who have tremendous respect and are committed to getting it done. I recommended they look at a somewhat different way of considering outcomes in additional, in addition to traditional learning outcomes. And so we are imbuing a group of things called liberatory values, such as social agency critical consciousness into the general education courses. Those courses and the gen ed will still have traditional things like written and oral communication and critical thinking and so forth. But these other values and outcomes, I think are what make Montclair students successful. And we do some of it have never measured it, but it is hard to argue that you wouldn’t want to enhance a student’s social agency at the same time that you’re teaching them and that they’re learning from the classroom.
Joe Gottlieb:
That’s Junius Gonzales. A four-time provost raised by his parents to be curious and originally trained as a physician in psychiatry before entering academia. He led several research efforts at the National Institute of Mental Health that taught him how community and real-time relevance, not just rigorous service delivery, are essential to the engagement and effective consumption of health services. This early experience gave Juniuss a hunger to achieve student success in a way that is more intentional than one tends to see in practice than despite the widespread recognition of the need. But what I enjoyed most about this discussion are the organizational and data-driven development practices behind this intentional pursuit of student success. I hope you enjoy it too.
New Speaker:
Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast, focused on the new why’s, the new what’s and the new how’s in higher ed. In each episode, you will experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process and technology. It’s all on the menu because that’s what’s required to truly transform. Hello, welcome and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, president and CTO of Higher Digital, and today I’m joined by Dr. Junius Gonzalez, Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at Montclair State University. Junius, welcome to TRANSFORMED.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Well, thanks so much, Joe. I’m very happy to be here and look forward to talking about things that may be of interest to you and your listening groups.
Joe Gottlieb:
Lovely to have you. I would love to get your thoughts on the New Provost Accelerating Change in Complex Times. But before we dive into that, please share a little bit about your origin story and how you got connected to the work that you do in higher ed.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Sure. I’m happy to do that. Um, I sometimes call myself the accidental provost, a reference to an Ann Tyler book. Uh, but I’ll get to that after telling you a little bit about me. I think one of the things that, uh, I draw on is long ago personal experiences in my current work. I’m a double first generation, uh, college students. My parents were immigrants and did not have an an education. And I’ve taken some big leaps as folks have said in my career, and I’ve found that, uh, the curiosity that I was sort of raised with and not being afraid to try new things, in part because my family had to try new things as they were struggling, uh, to survive and, uh, make a, make a living and so forth. Um, I was lucky I, you know, got to college with scholarships and benefited from going to, you know, an elite university, and I’m always aware of that, right?
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
That that is a particular privilege that I got to do, um, through much of my education. And that hasn’t, uh, left my mind particularly as I think about how to improve things from our students who may come from those kinds of backgrounds as well. I’m trained actually as a physician, um, with background in internal medicine and psychiatry, and got very interested in an interdisciplinary field of health services research why, and how people use healthcare or why they don’t use healthcare. Hmm. And another particular area that I help to contribute to, uh, while I was at the National Institutes of Health was, um, having researchers consider the needs of communities and end users. Um, you know, often the focus in research is about rigor, and at that time it was time to ramp up the relevance piece, but also to add a dimension of real time that people were facing things in their lives right now at this minute.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
And was the work that we were trying to support and drive, helping them and their families and their communities. Hmm. So that’s my background. I went to a consulting firm, uh, to do some similar work and then was asked to, uh, look at being the head and dean of a research institute in behavioral health. And that seemed to fit very well, and that was nested within a university. And shortly thereafter while there, I was asked to create a brand new academic college. Uh, and that was my introduction to traditional university work, so to speak, merging five less than willing departments in schools with the institute and its three departments into what became the College for Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida. And I just loved learning about public higher education. I love the opportunity and access that the institution provided and really sounds corny, making a difference and seeing a difference even within one semester of how students could be transformed through the work.
Joe Gottlieb:
Wow. It never sounds corny to me. It, it never gets old. I I love hearing stories like that and it, it sounds like you cut your teeth on a really interesting organizational change management exercise, but let’s just set the stage for this topic and, and your experience in it. Tell me a bit about Montclair State. What makes Montclair State unique?
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
So Montclair is a fascinating university. It’s the second largest public university in New Jersey. It’s the largest Hispanic serving research institution north of Florida and west of, um, going west to Chicago. And, um, I was very curious as to why Montclair was so successful and its students were so successful. For example, US News and World Report ranked the seventh in the entire nation of all universities for enhancing social mobility and 11th in the nation for having graduation outcomes exceed what experts predicted based on the entering student characteristics. So that’s why I came to Montclair State University. I’ve been a provost a few times before, but I was thinking that if could understand what was happening here, not only could we do even better for the students with a talented faculty and staff, but perhaps we could transmit that information to other universities across the country.
Joe Gottlieb:
Interesting. So you mentioned you’d been a provost before, actually, uh, as a four-time provost, but knowing that every institution is different, how did you roll up your sleeves and really start to dig into the situation of Montclair? So you, you were attracted by its success, you wanted to understand it. Let’s talk about how, how you got rolling.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Well, with every institution being different, it’s important to go out and talk with folks and listen and, uh, been known to just wander around the campus and wander into empty or seemingly empty buildings. Mm-Hmm. Uh, and just stop people, uh, often strangers and just ask them what they thought of the place and, and what could be better students, staff, faculty, you know, whoever I, I ran into. And it’s always interesting to get those different perspectives, particularly if you ask a single question. Um, and we don’t have time to get into that, but it’s that sort of multi-stakeholder engagement that I’ve always been, um, so critically focused on. So what I did was I took all of that information and I take a strengths-based asset, right? Not a deficit based asset in looking at individuals, but also looking at, uh, programs and, and other things that are happening to really understand, leveraging those strengths when you do know, you need to perhaps make some changes.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
So this first year, you know, I have some particular elements of a philosophy of change management, and one is that really you need to have data and information, um, that’s pretty good and have a framework within which to consider it, but share all that data and information, right? Um, because one, we’re a public institution, but you really want people to know what’s happening in other colleges, schools, departments. I think a second piece was, you know, no positive change comes along without investing in resources to not only disseminate the, the data and reduce bureaucracy to access the data, but to provide resources for people to learn. And so we’ve done everything from developed short courses and project management, led by academic affairs to creating faculty fellowships and other things, again, for people to have, um, lots of information at their fingertips, sending folks to national meetings, including to organizations they had never heard of before.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
I think the third piece around change is I was a little bit surprised that, um, while there was a strategic plan with actions embedded into the multiple pillars, there were no action plans <laugh>, uh, at the college or school levels. And some of them had some goals, some of them didn’t have some goals, but it became very clear that they didn’t share the goals across colleges and schools. And this has all been changed by developing a framework, um, for theme areas, for action plans. And the deans get everybody else’s data, and they’re also asked to modify that and have that action plan for student success, for academic program, vitality for community-based work, and for research and scholarship, be a living dynamic, uh, plan with measurable outcomes. I think the last piece is, you know, my philosophy is that I’m pretty deliberate and open about challenging people, not just to be ory. Um, and also to communicate that we make talent development a high priority. So it’s about investing in people.
Joe Gottlieb:
Makes a lot of sense. I like the, the elements there. It always recurs. People are central, challenging people, is good leadership, supplying ’em with resources, as you pointed out, uh, transparency. So people have information that they can align around, uh, really, really useful things, including them pushing ’em out into the community so they can get, uh, get into contact with other perspectives and, and do a little bit of that networking, sort of activating their roles. So you’ve shared a little bit about a philosophy then, and, uh, you’ve even gotten into a little bit of what you’ve started to do there. So let’s, let’s dig a little deeper there. What, what are the, what sort of changes have you made at, at Montclair and, and what are you in the process of making? So we get a feel for almost like, uh, the horizons that you’re approaching there.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Sure, absolutely. I think, um, one is in order to, uh, get people on board and embrace change, committing to, and then actually investing in reducing bureaucracy, right? Uh, paperwork there, yes, there are still things that I get to sign and I’m wondering why am I not getting this digitally right as a really concrete example? And that kind of thing is, you know, 20 times worse for people at the front lines. Um, and so one specific example about the bureaucracy is about student data, right? So if we’re focused on student success, it is incredibly painful to get the data on students to inform your programming on student success. Um, and we’ve invested in partnering with a firm to help deve to develop a data lake. Um, and from that data lake, they will construct a number of tools using whether it’s, uh, tableau or otherwise that are easy to access, make sense, and are much more dynamic.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
So you can cut and paste or drag and click a hundred different student variables to get a report you may need. And to have those tools be much more widely accessible to many, many more people. And that will help student success programming and measurement and all of that. I think a second piece is really engaging the university on some priority topics. So I created a task force on student success, um, and one on Montclair’s global reach. They are both finishing their one year work, uh, and having long recommendations, uh, but I think that are gonna be really, uh, both viable and result in some, uh, incredible and powerful directions for the university. I think the third thing is to empower people, particularly key leaders and administrators, not just my direct reports of associate provost and assistant provost and just tell them what to do, but in certain areas.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Here, go figure this out. And then come and present to the larger group of the Academic Affairs Council. I’ve already mentioned the deans in their direct reports, but one group that is often perhaps less attended to right away is department chairs. They have a really tough job. And so what’s happened everywhere I’ve been is there have been twice yearly meetings with the provost, with department chairs. Uh, by the end of my time in Texas, they actually wanted eight meetings a year because they were involved in certain student success programs and felt that their input was meaningful. And here we’ve moved it from two to four times a year and got volunteer chairs to create two committees on two priority topics that they selected after I did a survey of all of the chairs and others, one on professional development and one on interdisciplinary work. I think the last piece in doing early changes is to look for opportunities that you might initially think are a burden or, uh, check off the box like accreditation.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
So we have our accreditation to prepare for in two years. It is a two year process, but in reviewing the past accreditation report and looking at what we were falling a little bit short in that provides the impetus for change. So one example is our general education curriculum. It had not been updated in 18 years. The, they did give us accreditation. Um, but what had happened before I came four years of two LI blue ribbon task forces on a new gen ed, and then it sat on a shelf. And there are many, many reasons for that. And so I engaged two faculty who were involved, who have tremendous respect and are committed to getting it done. I recommended they look at a somewhat different way of considering outcomes in additional, in addition to traditional learning outcomes. And so we are imbuing a group of things called liberatory values, such as social agency Mm, critical consciousness into the general education courses. Those courses and the gen ed will still have traditional things like written and oral communication and critical thinking and so forth. But these other values and outcomes, I think are what make Montclair students successful. And we do some of it have never measured it, but it is hard to argue that you wouldn’t want to enhance the student’s social agency at the same time that you’re teaching them and that they’re learning from the classroom.
Joe Gottlieb:
Uh, I, I love that list. I, I want to, I I have to summarize just because it’s rich and, and the dimensions that you’ve just addressed are powerful. So to recap, you’re in the business of teaching and learning. You’re in the business of making students successful. So why not have the data that you need to be able to understand what’s going on with the student and adapt as you continue to deliver value to the student? Super, super important. Then you talked about, um, challenging via task force. Your, your deans, your faculty, your organization to come up with the new ideas, let them bring a lot of perspectives, open up that ceiling so that they can articulate what could be interesting, what could be new, new programs, et cetera. Very, very healthy and, and something to harvest, right? But then complimenting that with encouraging your department chairs to examine processes and help them be heard, but then hear, you know, what happens when they are heard.
Joe Gottlieb:
Actually following through on allowing processes to evolve in, in, in the structures and the approaches of how things get done. And then last but not least, leveraging, as you pointed out, something that is often looked at as a burden, a bit of overhead, a test to pass, let it actually trigger via an outside perspective, something that was bas pretty basic, um, in this case, a, a a, a rethink of gen ed. And wow, the way you handled it, it produced an opportunity to actually go from something seemingly mundane into something quite rich and timely, like imbuing these new values and critical skills in, uh, in the jet end curriculum. I love social agency and critical consciousness both. I’m hearing a lot of that. The, the pattern here is to start to think about what are these new skills for the modern era that students need? And there’s some, there’s some change required there. Uh, yes, it’s great, great to see that happening. So love all that you alluded at the end of that little bit about measurement. Let’s talk about measurement. How do you measure change? Or let’s, let’s riff on that a little. ’cause that, that to me feels like the, the part that’s a little hard, even more elusive sometimes than making the change start, um, and yet so critical to sustained impactful innovation and, and, and health.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Sure, absolutely. I think, uh, measuring change requires getting information that is not solely quantitative, but also qualitative, right? And I think in an organization that has historically been incredibly siloed, the need for incentives both through fiscal resources and otherwise to collaborate and improve, um, is important. I mentioned that because that is a measure of change. Are there cross school, cross college collaborations that are meaningful, may not have something like, oh, and they submitted five research grants, you know, in two years. But I think measuring process changes, um, is really, really critical. And I think the way you get to measuring change also is by realigning or continuing to remind people of their priorities and the institution’s priorities, um, to get survey results and repeat the survey to see if things are changing in a particular way. And then, um, sometimes I ask people to reflect on, well, how was it 10 years ago? How did this happen? And, and what, what happened five years ago? And what are we doing now? And I think one of the most important proxies for measuring change, um, is really about hope. And that people actually see a future with some things being different. And I measure change and changes in attitudes and sort of beliefs and mindsets about things.
Joe Gottlieb:
Yeah, love that. Actually, it makes me think about one form of measurement used in another field politics, which, uh, might be, might be, uh, an odd place to learn from. But the whole concept of surveying large populations around their confidence in are we on the right track? Um, is it the right course? So, right. You know, sometimes it’s right. Course wrong track, meaning I like where we want to go, but I don’t feel like we’re getting there. And you, you, you get the point. But so just super qualitative, but it really helps people tap into their net sensibility and feelings around how they’re, how, how it’s going. Right. Mm-Hmm,
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
<affirmative>. Absolutely.
Joe Gottlieb:
Absolutely. It’s a fascinating area. So, so I know you’re writing an essay actually for the Provost handbook, uh, published by JHU Press. Perhaps you can, uh, describe a few of your favorite tips that you haven’t yet shared in this conversation. ’cause I, I know you’re pulling together a lot of, uh, things to pass on there.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Sure. Absolutely. Uh, uh, happy to, happy to do that. Um, so I think one tip is how you get people, regardless of their position or job, to not only understand that there is a larger world beyond the Montclair bubble, as I say, to embrace that larger world and to understand how others exist in an environment that is so complex and fast moving these days. And I think, you know, I tell folks a few things. One is in getting people to embrace the larger world and see things, uh, in terms of, you know, something bigger that, you know, you really need to think, act, and influence strategically. And while that sounds very commonsensical, you often will see people who are able to very, very carefully think strategically and then actually influencing, um, is not in their strong suit. And, uh, I think that people need to also understand that they’re engaging for the common good and not just to keep their jobs or, you know, keep the status quo, because that’s easier to do than to change.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
And that successful change is really accomplished with diverse talent, which has many, many, many dimensions. It’s not just an issue of origin or race, ethnicity or gender, but bringing people in who may come from different professions, you know, who may have had some touch with higher education. But remember, I didn’t come from higher ed, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and you know, I, people joke, I’m the only psychiatrist provost that they’ve ever met in 25 years, Uhhuh, <affirmative>. Um, and then involving people and asking them to reach, touch, and inspire others, that’s really critical to getting, getting the job done and having these important affective relationships, um, that are sincere and, and authentic. And then the other pieces on the tips for change are, you know, I’ve mentioned knowledge and data and providing resources and, and really, uh, helping connect people to others, both within the university and outside of the university.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
I’ll give you one anecdote. So I host a monthly just desserts with the provost and the pun is intended. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. So, um, I invite random, uh, faculty at different ranks from different departments and different schools and colleges. And so more than once the following has happened, two people come in, let’s say it’s you, Joe, and Susan, and you say, oh, Susan, we came in as faculty the same year, 14 years ago, and I have not seen you since. Okay. And, um, that kind of connection, uh, is important. And then they help connect not only themselves, but others in the room. And it turns out that if you get folks to see that their networks can benefit other people, um, it is a big win.
Joe Gottlieb:
Hmm. Love it. Love it. Uh, just, just great insights into organizational, uh, texture and behavior and, and, and, and longings and, and possibilities. Uh, appreciate you sharing that. So now I want to turn the, the, the discussion, uh, into a, perhaps a somewhat more serious, uh, angle. How do you given your, your comfort with leading change? I’m gonna take it as a comfort. It’s not it, but, but comfort that comes from experience. It’s never comfortable. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> typically. But given that, how do you see your relationship with and the, and the nature of the board and, and how does it differ at maybe at Montclair versus other boards that you’ve served in the past?
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
So, um, I’ll broaden that a little bit. ’cause I’ve had, uh, very deep experiences with boards. And I think having been on boards of nonprofit and other kinds of organizations, that perspective has also, um, helped me think about relationships with a university board. Um, so I think the crises in the Middle East are really amplifying the nature, power, influence, interest of university boards, uh, but much more. And that is other external body, right? You see the board chair at a Ivy League University step down, as did the president. Um, we won’t get into all of the details of that. And so it’s really important to understand the board membership, their backgrounds, their history and and their context. I think even if you’re at a private university, it doesn’t matter. Um, understanding politics, politics, politics, and more politics. Um, you know, when I got to the UNC system, uh, the state had changed several years ago and became very, um, extreme right.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
And that influenced actually leadership selection. Otherwise, I would dare to say that I was actually quite successful with my team, um, with the board and when getting things done. And that involved relationship building inside the meetings and outside the meetings, getting involved and facilitating inter-institutional inter university activities because I was the provost of a system of 16 universities. And so the board would see that, uh, for the system board, but then every university had its own board members. So it was complex, and then was able to try and understand from their perspectives, because they were all elected by the legislature, um, what priorities they had, et cetera. And again, it’s hard to argue with student success, right? Like, like mom and apple pie, why would you not support student success? And so that allowed me in drawing from my knowledge of what was happening in other states to design and develop with the universities A-U-U-N-C system-wide degree completion improvement plan, and then was also able to get a one time $2.3 million markup on trying to get students who had some college credits back in to finish the degree. Part of the argument there, knowing the board and the legislature, was to make the economic argument of how this might potentially increase the tax revenue coffers. So it’s also important to understand the relationship of the university president with the board. And so, um, I’ll leave it at that
Joe Gottlieb:
<laugh>. Understood, understood. But you’re right. The, it’s all, I, I’ve seen this from being a product person and working with the whatever board I’m serving at, at a product company, for example, in other industries. And it is hard to argue with the product. If you’re doing, if you’re leaning in and doing good things, you can create a lot of positive energy and the president has a different relationship and a different set of obligations, right? And, and sometimes those obligations, um, are, can be harder to sell with the board, can be harder to gain interest, uh, and, and or support. So it’s interesting if you, it just reminds me that when you, even when you talk about politics, when your intention is to do good and you can, and you can show progress doing good and making something good happen, um, even using politics to get there, where, where in in, in this case, it’s sensitivity, it’s awareness of relationships, it’s working people socially, right? That’s good politics, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> bad politics is leaning on points of power to, to cheat cut corners, influence in ways that aren’t doing good necessarily. So politics exists on a spectrum, I think. And, and, and when you’re, uh, when you’re in charge of the product, and if you can make positive momentum happen with the governing board of that offering, that value proposition, um, there’s a lot of virtuous, uh, momentum that can be created.
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, I think it’s a good time to close. So let’s, uh, let’s leave our listeners with three takeaways that they can have on this topic of the new Provost accelerating change in complex times.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Sure. Uh, it’s probably 33 takeaways, but I’ll focus on on three here. So I really truly believe in, it’s from experience as well as philosophy and, um, personal stories that change in innovation are best accomplished with diverse talent, that bringing in people who have different backgrounds come from different places. I came from a different industry, hence my reference to being the accidental provost, um, has really paid off. Um, and let me give you one example. In my time at NIH it was when evidence-based healthcare was big in the news and evidence-based medicine and the National Institutes of Health, we’re trying to figure out. So we have all these treatments, but nobody uses them. Okay? And, um, I was criticized for hiring at the time, a young man whose dissertation was on change and implementation of evidence-based practices in the UK health system. And I was criticized because he had just finished his doctorate.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
There was nobody else in the field doing this work. And his doctorate, his PhD was from a business school, you know, horrors to the people at NIH <laugh>. Anyway, uh, it was Oxford, but, you know, uh, that aside. And, and so I’ve hired people like that and, and, you know, he really drove important scientific areas, new ones, uh, at NIH, um, with me and others and, and other institutes. I think the second thing is, you know, you really need to pick the right things and lead people into the right things by touching and inspiring them. And so choosing projects that are likely to succeed because you’ve gotten input from others can really help you establish momentum and move more quickly. And some of these projects may be smaller things, but they give people a sense of, um, hope and accomplishment. I think the last thing is to be very clear and have a set of some principles that undergird everything you do. So a couple of my principles, you know, set bold goals, but have a willingness to fail. Um, another one is really that I’ve already mentioned sort of the, the people piece. Um, and it’s really how to, one of my principles is that my role is not about me, but it’s really to network and broker and facilitate people to work together and to work new people and to see new things in order to drive positive change.
Joe Gottlieb:
Genius. Great summary. And thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Junius Gonzales:
Well, thank you so much. It’s really been an honor and a pleasure, uh, to talk with you. And, uh, I hope there are a few nuggets here for folks. And, uh, it’s been terrific. Thank you.
Joe Gottlieb:
And thanks to our guests for joining us as well. Have a great day and we’ll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of Transformed
Joe Gottlieb:
Yo Stop. Hey, listeners have transformed. I hope you enjoyed that episode, and whether you did or not, I hope that it made you stop and think about the role that you are playing in your organization’s ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode, I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at Info@Higher.Digital or Joe@Higher.Digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them as you and they can easily find TRANSFORMED wherever you get your podcasts.
