Dr. Brenda Allen:

What I was focused in on was letting the legal system do its job. Yeah. Um, no one needed me to interfere and tell my own, you know, story. I didn’t really even know what their story was. I had a sense of what it was, but, you know, I really didn’t even know it really had nothing to do with the job that I was doing. And so it was not about me. I think it was about a larger sense of who’s in charge because of that. I just said, okay, boards are in charge. They hire presidents, but we have bylaws and we have statutes, and we have governance that we have to follow. And so I was determined to make sure that Lincoln didn’t fall into that category where we ignored the importance of governance structures, and we just overlooked them at the whim of, of certain people in leadership, any type of leadership, there are always gonna be bumps in the road. And you have to remain focused, um, despite the bumps, right? You have to figure out how to maneuver and navigate through them in order to reach your goals.

Joe Gottlieb:

That’s Brenda Allen. Now in her seventh year, serving as the 14th president of Lincoln University, the nation’s first degree-granting HBCU. Three years ago, an executive board session decided not to renew Dr. Allen’s three-year contract, despite broad and deep support from university faculty, students, and alumni. And this happened while she was leading Lincoln through its first Covid response plan. And after she had improved freshman retention and four-year graduation rates, earn back accreditation for the school in 2019 and raise the university’s ranking. The local county judge ordered Dr. Allen back to work less than two weeks later. And her contract was ultimately extended. But talk about a disruptive leadership challenge. How does one keep a level head amid such turmoil? And what can be learned from this experience? I asked Brenda these questions and others, her answers help me to understand why she was there in the first place and why she’s still there working so hard for Lincoln University. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Joe Gottlieb:

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.

Joe Gottlieb:

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 this special presidential series episode of Transformed. My name is Joe Gottlieb, president and CTO of Higher Digital, and today I’m joined by Dr. Brenda Allen, president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Brenda, welcome to TRANSFORMED.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Thanks, Joe. Happy to be here. What do you want to talk about?

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, I’m glad you asked. I wanna talk about your thoughts on how to survive a presidential ouster through focus on transformation results. But before we get into that fun topic, tell me a bit about your personal journey and how you got involved with, uh, serving higher ed.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Oh, so great. Um, my journey to higher ed actually began right where I sit today on the campus of Lincoln University. I came to Lincoln in 1977 as a freshman straight out of the inner city in New Jersey. Um, first to go to college, first generation, and four years later I emerged with the idea that I could have a career in higher education. I went on from Lincoln to a second, historically black college. I should have said the university is the first degree, granted historically black college in the nation. But I went on to Howard University in Washington, DC where I received my master’s and PhD. My education there sent me on a 20-year career in the Ivy Leagues. So I spent three years as a postdoc and lecturer at, at Yale University, 15 years as a faculty going through the ranks at Smith College, and then about six years as an administrator at Brown University.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

It was really after those experiences of seeing education done really well, but also getting a great understanding of liberal arts that I began to reflect on how transformative Lincoln had been for me and develop a desire to come back to the historically black college environment where I may be able to do things that could help students like me pursue their dreams and goals. So I pursued my entry back into the HBCU environment, got a job as provost at Winston-Salem State in, um, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and for eight years really learned how to really lead a university from all aspects. And from there became a candidate for presidency at Lincoln. And here I sit today, so that’s my quick story through higher education. But just wanna round off to say that I have come back to a place that was very transformative for me because I believe that I can now bring some experiences that can make sure that Lincoln continues to provide those experiences for students just like me.

Joe Gottlieb:

Uh, it’s a great story. I love hearing how people often come back to, uh, a place where they started and, uh, with a, with a renewed sense of how they might make bigger contributions after they’ve gathered more experience. So you survived an ugly ousting as president of Lincoln University. But before we get into that, tell me a bit about the beginning of your presidency, what, what you were hired to do, and how you started tackling the job.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

So I came to the presidency at Lincoln University after about six years of very turbulent leadership. So in 2012, long serving president, retired, a new president was hired. And after two and a half years, uh, it became obvious that it wasn’t the right fit. And then for another two, two and a half, three years, there were many interims in between. So by the time they got to the, um, advertising for a presidency in which I became a candidate, it was really clear that the first thing we needed was some consistent leadership and for someone to bring vision to the university that embraced who we are historically, um, but also had some kind of a vision, um, and outlook for the future of the university. And so I was, um, one of the candidates and was hap um, um, happy and, um, very delighted to be chosen as president and coming into Lincoln.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Um, I just started in my first six months. I knew, I knew the university. I had been a student here, but I had never worked here. Mm-Hmm. I didn’t really know the data of the university as intimately as I needed to in order to be able to bring forward vision. So I spent the first, I would say 90 days, just digging through the data, looking at where we had been historically, where our bumps in the roads were. And then came back really early on with some strategic ideas that we then put through a deliberative and, um, integrative process. We were able to deliver a draft strategic plan to the board of trustees. Within that first year, um, it got approved and we’ve been using that strategic plan for the last six years in order to move the vision and mission forward. Also, in coming into the presidency, we had some really big, um, high stakes, um, hurdles we had to cross.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

So by my second year here, we were gonna come up for our decennial review for middle states. Lincoln had been put on probation in its previous, um, re-accreditation. So I wanted to make sure that we could get the university through its re-accreditation process with glowing colors. And to be able to integrate a new strategic direction with a, with the self-study, um, took up a lot of my attention and and time in those first couple of years. Um, not to mention that when I got back, we had not done a significant, um, capital project on campus, um, since like 2010, even though the state had allocated more than a hundred million dollars to, to the university for some capital upgrades. So restarting the capital projects on campus was also a really big focus along with the strategic plan and re-accreditation. So the early years were really quite busy and, and actually getting us up to a level point so that we could move forward.

Joe Gottlieb:

Wow. Sounds like a very challenging environment. Um, and, uh, uh, and I, I imagine now my next question will sort of help the story start to unfold. So what sort, sort of in that environment, what, what issues began to surface that led to a gap between your leadership and, and a portion of the board that moved against you? So

Dr. Brenda Allen:

I think the problems with me and a portion of the board began really very early on. So there are goals of a president, and then there are goals and, and things you desire from the board. And there was a mismatch from the very beginning. So I had been in higher ed for a very long time. I had seen leadership done up and close. I’ve been a part of an executive cabinet for more than 20 years. And so my board experience was very different than the board experience that leadership of the board here brought. The whole idea of, of, of what our roles were was were quite different. Mm-Hmm. And I saw some of that, um, in the early years in terms of the things that certain portions of the board valued versus what I valued. I also saw a split early on in the board itself between people who were really behind me for my success and those who were, um, sort of cautious of embracing me.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

And so that was happening really early in the presidency. And I think one of the things that, um, I didn’t do was pay enough attention to that. Instead, I put my head down and, you know, worked on reaccreditation that was important. Worked on getting buildings renovated and built, um, worked on moving the strategic goals and didn’t work as hard as I could have on some of the divisions in the board. And the board began to continuously divide among itself, and I was, found myself somewhere stuck in the middle. And so what happened is my first contract was just three years, and I was in my third year. And covid hit at the same time. What Covid did was provide an opportunity to sort of shrink full board engagement and allow a small portion of the board to actually do the majority of the work of the board.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

And so it became really very clear sometime towards when it was time to renew my contract that there was a move among that small group to not renew my contract. Um, till this day, we don’t have any, um, statement as to why that was, except a certain portion of the board felt like the university should be moving in a different direction. And they were feeling like we should be moving in the middle of, in a different direction in the middle of a global pandemic. So that caused some stress for other board members. It also caused some stress for our commonwealth, um, partners, um, who give a significant portion of dollars to the university every year. And so, um, as we sort of moved into, um, this process, this smaller group was able to, um, move to a point where they decided that they would not enter into an agreement with me for a new contract.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Um, and what happened is that they violated a lot of state statutes and they violated some of their own bylaws in doing that, which then led me to say, well, you know, you work at the pleasure of the board, but you’re gonna be treated fairly. And so I’ve sought legal counsel for help. Also, the commonwealth felt that they had violated their statutes and they also put forward a lawsuit. So we went through a ra rather ugly, it was about a month. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I was, I was actually off campus for two, two weeks actually before the judge ordered me back to work. My lawyer went to the judge and said, you know, this is a university in the middle of a pandemic with no leadership. So the judge ordered me back to work, ordered new, um, new new meetings and so on, following all the rules and the statutes. And within a month the board revolted on entering into a discussion with me about a new contract where it was approved u unanimously. And so we survived that up and down, but there was a lot to learn in that process. But mostly, um, the lawsuit was about, um, fairness and following the policies and the governance structures that are put in place.

Joe Gottlieb:

Hmm. What an experience. I mean, how do you, how do, how does one stay focused on results and keep your cool <laugh> in a process like this? That must have been really challenging.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Yes. So, you know, initially before everything fell apart, um, I stayed focused. It, we were in the middle of Covid, right? I had put together a plan for reopening. ’cause we had in the, um, middle of the spring semester, sent everyone home and we’re following the data every day. I’m watching tv, I’m reading everything I can about covid and the spread of covid. So there was no vaccine at that point. There were no therapeutics. So how are we gonna reopen the college? So I, you know, put together all these plans. The plans had to, had to be very flexible. One thing we learned during Covid was that you had to know how to pivot to whatever. And so portion of the board felt like, well, there’s a plan in place so they, you know, they don’t need her. Right. The plan is there. Um, nonetheless, nobody really realized that that plan was changing on a daily, sometime hourly basis based upon where the science was going.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

So I stayed focused on that until I was no longer here for two weeks. And then when I came back, um, I picked it up again because in those two weeks, so much had changed in the covid environment that the whole reopening plan had to be rethought. Um, so I’m just very happy that the judge ordered me back to work when he did order me back to work. But more than that, I went home to North Carolina. My mom was alive at that point. I have two sisters there. And, you know, my mother would engage me and she would just let me rant and rave and get it all out. And I think getting it all out and not holding it in and using cuss words as much as I could, <laugh>, um, really just help me to just stay focused. What I was focused in on was letting the legal system do its job.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Yeah. Um, no one needed me to interfere and tell my own, you know, story. I didn’t really even know what their story was. I had a sense of what it was, but, you know, I really didn’t even know. It really had nothing to do with the job that I was doing. And so it was not about me. I think it was about a larger sense of who’s in charge. And, um, because of that, I just said, okay, boards are in charge. They hire presidents, but we have bylaws and we have statues, and we have governance that we have to follow. Um, and so I was determined to make sure that Lincoln didn’t fall into that category where we ignored the importance of governance structures and we just overlooked them at the whim of, of certain people. Um, I just would add very briefly here that my, um, courage to fight had a lot to do with the fact that I knew that I would be all right.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

So within an hour of people learning that I was not working here for those two weeks, I got job offers. I got job offers back at every place I had worked before. And some people I didn’t know called me up and said, you want a job? Here it is. So when you know you have someplace to land, you have nothing to lose, and you can fight for the fairness that you are fighting for. So I was very fortunate in this situation to have the resources and the, and and the plan B to be able to fight, um, to make sure that Lincoln and his own governance, um, became stronger for having gone through this kind of controversy.

Joe Gottlieb:

Interesting. So you ultimately prevailed and were reinstated, but you know, and I think you alluded to this a little bit before, but what, what did you learn about yourself, your leadership style, and maybe what you might do differently in the future?

Dr. Brenda Allen:

I think more than my own leadership style, I learned the importance of leadership. Hmm. And so, again, you know, a piece of paper can guide you. I can have a strategic plan, I can have a plan to reopen in the middle of a group of pandemic, but someone has to lead those plans. Yeah. And being away for a couple of weeks, all kind of things started to fall apart. And so coming back, there was a, a a a portion of time in those first couple of weeks where I just had to get, get people back in the game. Right. Part of the job as president is you’re a cheerleader. Right. You have to make people feel as if it is going to be okay. And even no matter how bad it is, making people persist and push, um, through whatever controversy or problem you’re pushing through really takes leadership.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Um, what I learned is that I can be a patient leader when I had to be. And so part of just stepping down and just allowing things to, to progress as they should, took a whole lot of discipline for me. And I had to really sit on my hands and close my mouth a lot, um, when I had to. And I learned that I could do that. I wasn’t quite sure I could do that before I had to go through that. And the other thing I learned, I think the most important thing I learned was that you can’t let little things go. ’cause little things turn into big things. Well, you have a, a, a leak in the roof, and if you don’t fix it, it becomes a hole. And like I said, I think some of the issues with portion of my board started very early in my presidency. And rather than addressing them, I just put my head down and thought that my deeds would, would, would show, um, as opposed to confronting the things that may have been small things that ended up being big things that really caused, you know, this schism to happen. And so, you know, going forward, if it’s something small or something big, the quicker you get on it, um, I think the better off it will be in the long run. So those were really important lessons from that episode.

Joe Gottlieb:

Great. Takeaways. And as I think about, while I can’t imagine seeking such an experience as you have endured, do you think it, in addition to those learnings that you just took away that you just shared, do you think it made you more focused on results than you might’ve been otherwise? And, and you, you, you mentioned, well, we’re focused on results was actually in some ways made you look away from some of the small things that may have been developing. But if you could have both, right? Like, so somehow balancing the awareness and the, the engagement, which those items while looking for results, it’s almost as if it’s, this is another dimension of balance one has to accomplish, results are great, but you have to pay attention, for example, to the culture that you are, that you’re living in, that you’re helping to lead, that you’re helping to evolve. And how do we do things around here at all levels? Does that, did that kind of balance emerge for you as a, as a, a new challenge and something you could sink your teeth into?

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, the greatest thing I learned is that, you know, results with the absence in the absence of bringing people along with you, um, cannot be sustained. Right? Right. So, I know I knew it from a faculty standpoint, right? I knew that administration, when administration makes changes without faculty engagement, those changes are not long lived. It doesn’t get embedded in the culture. So having been raised up in higher ed through the ranks of the faculty, I understood the importance of faculty and faculty engagement for all the things we were trying to do strategically. I also had been, um, in places where board members were just so enamored with the presidents that I worked for, that they did all kinds of things to make sure that they were being supported. And I expected that when I got here. And, you know, I didn’t really understand that I had to work to cultivate that relationship as well.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Hmm. Um, I thought that if people hired you, they had faith in you. Um, that was a mistake. I needed to do more to integrate the board into the culture of the university, or at least the culture and the vision of the university that I was pursuing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so even though they unanimously supported the strategic plan, I didn’t realize how much of that they didn’t really grasp in terms of what it would take to get it done. And I don’t think I spent enough time integrating them into the culture of where we were going. And so that is, has been a very big change in my relationship with the board, with the board chair, and with the board members in terms of just how much time we spend discussing strategic direction so that everyone on the board can ask questions and be a part of how the university is growing and moving so that we can all tell the same story about what we’re doing. And I think the university has done a great job and the board has done a great job, um, post 2020 to be on that same page.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, so let’s take a look at that. Uh, let’s talk about how you are balancing different types of results and in particular related to what the future holds for Lincoln University. I know you’ve got a lot of fronts active right now, so maybe hit a few of those.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Okay. So strategically from the very beginning, we, uh, we’re really focused on how do we do a better job in our main campus. So we are primarily a liberal arts institution, high touch, a lot of first generation students who are very talented, but need a lot of guidance. Hmm. So what we were trying to do strategically is to really figure out how do you balance curricular and co-curricular and really put around students the opportunity for that kind of guidance and sometimes handholding first generation students need in order to be able to move forward. But on top of that, we were also concerned about making sure that curriculum itself and scholarship on our campus was really keeping pace with the quality level of education that we wanted to offer. So a lot of our strategic focus was placed in, has been placed in, um, creating more space for our faculty to become better teacher scholars, um, but to also work with staff and with faculty to make sure that we have the kind of support services around our students to help them figure out how to really be good consumers of all the opportunities that we have available on campus.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Um, and then there is also the big, um, sort of way in which universities, especially small colleges, really need to understand what new sources of revenue, um, can be brought into to support the university. So for a small liberal arts college, um, and for many years, a lot of our institutions were keeping pace with their own budgets through enrollment. So we would grow first year classes and able to make the budget that we need in order to run the school. Well, we were faced with an enrollment cliff where especially the students that we serve, number of African American high school students going on to college was shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. And so the idea that we could continue to support growth in our budget by growth and in our enrollment was not, um, gonna happen. It was not a long-term, um, solution to the budgetary problems that small institutions are facing.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

So we began to look for new ways in which we could, um, invest in the university and the curriculum and how we might use technology as, um, a way to do that. But we had to be really very careful in how we embrace technology. It’s not as easy as, oh, let’s offer some online degree programs. We had to really think about what our niche in the online world would be and how might we maximize technology to get us there. And so we’ve made a real focus on adult education. Adult learners are the largest growing student population today. Many people are looking to enter into the workforce either through degree programs or through micro-credentials. Um, and we wanted to be able to put together a very unique approach to workforce development, where we not only use technology as a way to deliver curriculum, but we also used our historical, um, nurturing supportive wraparound services approach to make sure that those adult learners could get through completion.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Um, and, and so what we’ve been able to do is to try to prioritize those two goals. One is really looking at the generation of new resources and the opening up new pathways and workforce development for Lincoln, a very new portfolio for us. Um, and then also looking at how what we are doing and wrapping around our students on main campus, how those things together are impacting things like our graduation rates, our retention rates, our post-graduation success, as well as our reputation. And so we check back at our data all the time looking to see whether or not we’re moving the needle, whether or not these investments are making a difference in our larger strategic, um, goals.

Joe Gottlieb:

Excellent. So sounds like a lot of fronts there, particularly in the way that you’re wrapping your unique approach around workforce development while bolstering the support for your more traditional residential liberal arts college, uh, experience. So, you know how I wanna now talk about strategic planning because we’ve, you, you’ve mentioned strategic plans a few different times, and strategic plans have a reputation for being too lofty, immediately obsolete, not actionable, et cetera. So I’d like to, but there’s the kernel of awesomeness in strategic thinking that it only show often only shows up in this strategic plan because it’s been one of the only methods where it, it has traditionally shown up. But I want to talk about how you are combining strategic planning, cultural awareness, and measurable, measurable results to drive balanced progress across Lincoln’s objectives. I think you’ve got some good examples to share there.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Right. So as I said, um, um, before a strategic plan for me is a guide. Um, I came up through higher ed administration working with presidents where they were just masterful in creating strategic plans that eventually became the language of the campus, right? People talked about everything that they were doing in the context of the strategic goals. And so I wanted that for Lincoln, right? I wanted to set out some goals that were very clear and wanted people to be able to link everything that they’re doing to how those goals, um, how, how those actions were actually, um, supporting our overall strategic goals. So for example, we have, um, one strategic priority is for us to enhance academic quality. And so we’re doing things like working with the faculty to reduce their teaching in order to build more time for scholarship. And why is that important?

Dr. Brenda Allen:

So that we can talk about how the teacher scholar model is the model that really brings new and passionate and exciting ideas to the classroom. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, the more engaged our faculty are in their scholarship, the more engaged they are in their curriculum, the more engaged they engage our students, the better is the quality of, of the education that they offer. We place a lot of resources in student success. We’ve been renamed the area of student affairs to student success, and we have been talking to people in that unit, not as people who are ancillary to academics, but as a part of our academic goals, we want students to have good advising. We want them to have advocates that can help them manage across the different, um, departments so that they stay engaged and they don’t drop out because they don’t have good information. So the resources that we put there, we want people in those areas to be able to talk about how their job as the mental health counselor is really something that has great impact on retention and graduation.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

For example, we’ve also placed a lot of investment in buildings and in technology, wanna make sure that we have the, the, the, the context in place, place campus as a place, um, and have a great effect on how students see themselves as scholars and engaged intellectuals. So making sure that you have basic things like wifi. When I first got here, we were about a decade or and a half behind on, on just technology in and of itself. So really trying to build a more ubiquitous, um, infrastructure for technology to have the kind of buildings and, um, technology in the classrooms that really presented a 21st century way of doing education and making sure that the faculty were trained to be able to use those things. And how all those things, again, come together to impact retention, graduation, post-graduation success and reputation. And so our strategic plan is not one that sits on the shelf.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

It’s not one that, um, we did and we walked away from, in fact, we’re in the fifth year of that strategic plan and in process of reviewing and revising. So we’re looking at everything that we’ve been doing as we have been over the last five years, just making tweaks and changes. But at this point, also making sure that all the folks see where we’re going, that we have, again, consensus that we’re going in the right direction, and that what we’re doing is actually moving the needles that we needed to move. Um, you know, I mentioned that we actually use US News and World Report for better or worse because the indicators that they use to rank you are many of the indicators that are also our big needles. And so, as our big needles are moving in a positive direction, we’ve also seen our ranking in US News and World Report also move, um, which again, is some data confirmation that we are putting our resources in some of the most important places, um, as student success is our major, um, strategic goal.

Joe Gottlieb:

So I just thought of something, and this is a little bit of a, a new thought. Um, I didn’t mention this to you earlier, but when you, when you leverage US news and World Report as one set of metrics, but also even other more explicit metrics like retention, completion, uh, post-graduation success, et cetera, how do you navigate the, the complexity of that and, and the, the the need to not have explicit attribution? IE if we do this one thing over here, it’s gonna translate to this exact move in this metric over here. But instead, if we’re doing these things together collectively and we’re watching our metrics closely, we can feel without the benefit of perfect attribution, we can feel whether we’re going in the right direction or what adjustments we need to make this, to me, in a data-driven age is one of the most elusive sort of leadership and management skill, more of a management skill really. Right? How do, how are you wrestling with that if, uh, if you don’t mind sharing?

Dr. Brenda Allen:

So, so luckily for me, I’m, I’m a researcher by training <laugh>, um, and one who, um, understands that the simple experimental paradigm stimulus leads to a response is never complicated enough to get the response you want. And so I, um, really focus on, if I throw eight balls in the air, <laugh>, many of which need to have some kind of impact, right? There could be nine to 10 different things we can be doing that can impact one variable. And it’s probably a combination of those things. And so we never look at how one thing moves the needle, but we’re often concerned with how are many, um, endeavors combined Mm-hmm. To produce the desired effect that we have. Um, I think in a simple way of saying it, I always believe that solutions to complicated problems have to be as complicated as the problem they’re trying to solve.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

And often we try to do one thing to impact an outcome that is really impacted by multiple factors, right? So for example, student retention and matriculation, some of it is about academic and academic support. A whole lot of it is about finances. If a student can’t pay their bill, they can’t stay in school. Hmm. And if they can’t stay in school, then they can’t persist. But even if they’re in school and you’re paying their bill, but they don’t have the kind of guidance that they need, they still may drop out, right? So you gotta be doing 2, 3, 4 different things at one time. And so it’s not like throwing everything in the sink and seeing what happens, but it’s being very strategic about those things, um, by understanding how they have a combined effect on the outcome that you are trying to achieve. And so for that reason, we have things going on in the curricular and in the co-curricular that we know, um, are confounded with one another in the way that they, um, impact, um, retention and graduation. But we also have a lot going on in terms of infrastructure and in terms of finances, because if we take those four things together, you can greatly increase the student’s ability to matriculate and graduate than if you take any one of them by themselves. So hopefully that makes sense.

Joe Gottlieb:

Very useful. Thank you for sharing that. And, and, uh, I think it’s a good, a good way to, to bring this one to a close. We could talk about that other topic for, for maybe a whole nother episode, but let’s bring this one to a close. How would you summarize a few takeaways to offer our listeners on this, this amazing topic of surviving an ouster through focus on results and as we just discussed, not just results, the balance of results and, and culture and, and, um, and being aligned,

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Right? So as we started out, I think the first summary I would have is that leadership itself in leadership, any type of leadership, there are always gonna be bumps in the road. And you have to remain focused, um, despite the bumps, right? You have to figure out how to maneuver and navigate through them in order to reach your goals. I think a second important takeaway is that it is always important to have a strategic vision that allows you to stay on course. And the strategic vision doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s some blueprint that never, um, gets changed or assessed, but you have a set of ideas that are gonna guide your work. Um, and even if you have to tweak a change or move course, you’re doing it in, in response to a visionary path that is gonna lead you from a to where it is you want to end up.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

And finally, in the 21st century, I believe you have to leverage technology, but you have to leverage it in the context of your particular strategic vision and mission. Not every school wants to open a parallel online set of courses that will be in competition with some other endeavor that they have, but technology becomes a great way to supplement any type of education that you’re offering students. And there are also many niches in, in the world and needs in higher education where technology can be designed to fit the specific goals of the institution that’s employing it. And so that’s what we’ve been trying to do at Lincoln, find our niche and move it towards creating opportunities for the workforce and creating revenues for the university.

Joe Gottlieb:

Great summary. Brenda, thank you so much for joining me today.

Dr. Brenda Allen:

Thank you. It’s been great to, to talk about Lincoln. Anytime I can talk about Lincoln and what we’re doing, I’m happy to do it. So thank you for the invitation

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 the music. 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 at Higher.Digital or Joe at 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 is available wherever you get your podcasts.