Dave Ikenberry 0:13
Welcome to Dean's Council, a podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists, Ken Kring, Jim Ellis and davinberry, engage in conversation with highly accomplished deans and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Deans face in one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the academy. Our guest today, Bill Hargrave, has had a remarkable career. After graduating with his PhD from Oklahoma, state and information systems, he moved to the University of Arkansas, where he developed a passion for radio frequency identification, better known by many as RFID after spending 17 years with this intense research focus, Bill's career shifted into academic leadership as he was tapped to become Dean of what is now known as the ray men J Harbert College of Business at Auburn University. This was an abrupt shift for Bill, as he had little of the traditional academic leadership background that we often think precedes these key administrative appointments during his seven and a half year tenure as dean, Bill was quite successful. Enrollment in the college grew by 50% rankings increased. He secured a $40 million naming gift for the college, the largest gift in Auburn's history, and he deepened the school's scholarship by opening several new centers of study. Building upon that success, in January of 2018 Auburn tapped him to become provost. Thus he was in that role during those stressful covid years. As of this April in 2026 bill will have completed four years as president of the University of Memphis. Over the years, Bill has developed a distinct leadership philosophy, largely honed by his time as dean, but in some ways also informed by his Provost role, all of which he shares with us today. For Bill, leading through relationships and building strong teams is fundamental to being a high impact, effective leader as always. We hope you enjoy this episode with Bill hardgrave.
Ken Kring 2:26
So we are very enthusiastic about this conversation today with Bill Hargrave, who's the President of University of Memphis, came to Memphis from Auburn University, where he was provost and also previously Dean the Harbor School of Business at Auburn. Bill's experience is terrific and very relevant to today's conversation. I will also say having known Bill and have great respect for him for many years, he has had two what you might call covid assignments, having been the provost at Auburn during a very difficult moment in time to be a to be a provost during a shutdown, and then having been made president that had Memphis in 2022 so your experience in dog years is pretty extraordinary. Bill, we'd love just sort of an overview of how you got to where you are, and Dave and I will have lots to probe on.
Bill Hardgrave 3:24
Yeah, look, I'll keep it brief, but, you know, I will start by saying this, of all the jobs I've had in higher education, business Dean was by far the best job I ever had. You know, I knew it at the time, and I really knew it after I moved into being a provost, which, by the way, says is the worst
Ken Kring 3:44
job
Ken Kring 3:46
record. Say that, right? Oh my
Bill Hardgrave 3:50
gosh, it was. It was the worst, you know, it was the longest four and a half years of my life. But, but I digress. Let me, let me go back and talk about my path to be a dean, and how I got to being a dean. I was at the University of Arkansas for for 17 years, and was never a department chair. Was not an Associate Dean. None of those. I was an endowed chair. Started and ran the it Research Institute, and then started a spin off of that called the RFID lab. So I was really working with industry, working with generating money from grants and research, and doing, loving what I was doing. And then I got a call in October of 2009 and person on the other line said, Hey, we're trying to hire the next business dean at Auburn University, and would you be interested in talking to us? And 10 months later, I was in Auburn, Alabama, and had no idea what it took to be a business thing, but, but spent eight and a half years as Dane. Loved every minute of it. It was again, it was by far the best job I've ever had. I loved every minute of it. And. We had a transition a president there. The trustees at the time asked me if I would consider being Provost, because I didn't want to be Provost, but I did because I really loved the university and respected the trustees, they asked me to be provost. And then, of course, covid hit, and so it was a really interesting time. And then a few years ago, University of Memphis called and said, we'd like to talk to you about being our next president. And a few minutes later, I was president the University of Memphis, and so, you know, and I've been here four years before, years in April, I've been here as president, so traditional in some sense, once I became Davis, certainly not to get to that point of being
Dave Ikenberry 5:36
dean, right bill. A lot of people equate the experiences one has as a dean to parallel the experiences that one has as a president. Do you agree with that basic philosophy, and how are you allocating your time relative to how you allocated time as a business school dean, I'm not sure. You know, for example, I'm sure you didn't spend that much time on athletics when you were a business school dean, right? But how is your time allocated now, relative to your your deanship,
Bill Hardgrave 6:14
you know, I think there's a lot more parallels between being a dean and being a president than there is between being a provost and being a president. You know, provost is so inward focused, right? And really deal with the faculty on a day to day basis. I'm glad I actually spent time as a provost, although, as much as I didn't really like it, because it opened my eyes to things across campus that I wouldn't have seen with just, you know, and look, when you're a business Dean, or any Dane, you're really focused on your college right, trying to do the things that are right for it. But the parallels are, you know, you have a lot of external constituents as business Dane, I was out of the office about 40% of the time I was visiting, donors, companies, anybody who would listen to me. I was out visiting with them, very similar to President, you know, I spent a lot of time out. Now, a couple of key differences between the president role and the dean role is that one, I have a much broader set of constituents, legislators that you know, both both state and federal, I spend more time with those than I would as a dean, right? That's a big one athletics. Spend a lot more time on athletics as a president that I then I would as a dean, but from an overall governance perspective and how I approach things very similar between what I did as a Dane and what I do as a president and how I built my teams and how I go about working with those around me, very similar from that perspective, and very different than life as a provost. Talk to
Ken Kring 7:57
us about sort of those categories that you had not been as prepared for and how have you mastered the learning curve in terms of legislative, politics, appropriation, positioning, Memphis in that regard, and then also athletics, which is changing by the moment, and you've got some big time athletics in Memphis. Or how have you, have you scaled the learning curve?
Bill Hardgrave 8:26
Yeah, you know, there's, there's a couple of basic tenants that I've tried to hold true to that that helps a little bit. But although not entirely, you know, one of the things that that, that I learned as business Dean in particular was that, you know, for us to be successful, especially in external fundraising and and, you know, even across the campus, it was really about building relationships, right? Building not transactions, but building those relationships. So that's what I've tried to do with our legislators, again, both state and federal, is just build relationships. So I don't, I don't go and just show up with, you know, with my handout, and say, I'm here to relieve you of, you know, whatever finances that you have. You know, I'm here, you know, how can we partner? How can I help you? And and I was in DC earlier this week, and I visit with every member of our delegation, and that's the way we approach it. I don't go in and say, here's how I need you to help me. I see. Let me tell you about the great things that we've got going on. How can what we're doing at the University of Memphis help you? You know, senator or congressman or woman and and we build those relationships, and we take those the staffers, we treat them to a nice reception at dinner, because the staffers is the one to give work. What are we doing? We're building relationships, right? So that when the time comes that we do need to ask for something, they're going to be open and receptive to that, and so that that's, that's one of those basic tenants that I that I've followed throughout my time as a business Dean. You know, as we tried to build relationships with with business. Is, and with our key alumni, it was about relationships. It wasn't about going in and saying, Hey, I need $5,000 I need 10,000 now. I'm going to build a relationship. And sometime you want, you're going to want to help us at a much bigger rate. So that's, that's one of the things. But now other things I wasn't prepared for, you know, the the you know, athletics is one of those, the fact that in both state and federal politics, sometimes the actions are not logical or reasonable, and it's, you know, and you have no control over those things, right? And, you know, one of the things I liked about Dean was, for the most part, right? You kind of had the four walls as a dean. Could you say, this is, this is my faculty, right? These are my students. This is my facilities. And there was, there was kind of these nice, hard, firm boundaries on what you had as a dean, whereas president, it's like, it's almost the boundaries are fuzzy and like, okay, where does, where does that end? Well, in athletics, where does my role begin and in? Well, if there's no clear on dealing with the political side, where's the role? Well, it's hard to say, right? So those things I've just kind of had to learn and and the other basic tenant in building in addition to building relationships, is building good teams, right? There's no way I do this by myself. I have a fantastic team of people. I think I have the best athletic director in the country. I hired him a couple of years ago, and, you know, I let him run athletics, and then he comes to me and gets my input, and then I have to see how it affects the broader university. Same thing on the legislative side, I have fantastic Head of Government Relations. We hired a fantastic firm in Nashville to help us, a fantastic firm in DC to help us, right? Because, you know, and I just rely upon them. Tell me what you need from me to help you do your job in Nashville and in DC. Bill money comes
Dave Ikenberry 11:56
into public institutions basically through five different channels. One of those channels is the granting mechanism, and the landscape is shifting under our feet as we speak, with respect to federal grants, with the ICI reimbursement rate really getting clobbered. How are you and how are your colleague, presidential colleagues, both in the private and the public's dealing responding to this?
Bill Hardgrave 12:25
Well, that, you know, that's, that's a really good question. It's a very difficult answer, because the sands are still shifting, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, when we started out, this was, you know, obviously, about a year ago, when all the executive orders started coming down, and NSF and NIH and all these funding agencies started shifting. You know, one of the things that that, you know, I've got a great Vice President for Research, and he was trying to, you know, keep everybody calm, and that, look, we, you know, we'll, we'll try to navigate our way through this reality was, we didn't. It's hard to navigate when you're completely in the dark and you have no map, right? I mean, it's just it felt that way, right? You're just in the dark and you have no sense of the boulders that might be in your way or whatever might or you step off a cliff. But we try, we try to stay ahead of things. I spent a lot as a lot of time, as much as time I could with other presidents and meetings I went to I was in DC. Spent more time in DC trying to get a read on what was happening from those areas, and certainly trying to stay on top of any initiatives that were coming along on, you know, for example, the indirect cost recovery on, you know, trying to come up with a new formula. I spent a lot of time talking to our senators and our, you know, congressmen and women about, you know, the damage that those things can do and what it really meant. Because I think a lot of those, they just didn't know what that meant. Ultimately, you know, we as an r1 you know, we took a, we took a pretty big hit, but we had, we got, we caught a little bit of a break in that. A couple of years ago, we had really started putting a bigger emphasis on defense related appropriations through the National Defense Authorization Act in the NDAA and great relationship with the Office of Naval Research and a few other areas, and that was a big part of our funding. And so we were actually immune to some of those things that were coming through NSF and NIH, because we didn't have to go through those channels. But it's been tough. And, you know, we had a last year that the full year continuing resolution meant that anything that was in the budget that was new just disappeared. So we had about 25, 30 million that was in that budget just went poof like that just never happened. So, you know, we try to maneuver too. We've it's been tough. It's been tough. It hurt us about 35 to 40%
Dave Ikenberry 14:55
but at some point you, I'd imagine you have to have kind of a philosophy. About, how are we going to distribute this pain? So one philosophy might be, let's keep the university a universal University. Let's, let's increase the tax rate of everybody so that we can paper over the deficits. Versus another philosophy is, hey, if we lose funding for this corn research, we're just gonna have to shut down the corn lab and and forego that. And of course, then there's everything in between. What has been your philosophy and or even, am I even seeing this correctly?
Bill Hardgrave 15:36
You are, and it was, it was a little mix of both, in that, what we did was we actually kind of took a little bit from everybody across campus. We clawed back 3% across everybody across campus and said, Look, we're going to have to have as almost an emergency pool of funds that we're there. We're going to then take and distribute strategically to make sure that we're either continuing to invest in areas that we need to or to keep areas afloat while we made it through a tough time. And with with strategy number two would be, look, if it gets desperate and this area over here is just not financially viable, then we'll just have to shut it down. Fortunately, we never had to get to strategy too. We had enough from the from the clawback and the redistribution that we made it through without laying off a single person, without without cutting a single center or project on our own. We were actually able to weather that storm, through that,
Ken Kring 16:37
you know, before the last economic downturn 1015, years ago, they used to say the University President's role was to put things on the table. And then it became, and has increasingly become, the idea of taking things off the table and doing it with whatever diplomacy and effectiveness is possible. I would guess that your messaging has to change when you know we're not in a moment of abundance. But in fact, you know their their trade offs and challenges, and then, whether that's you know, the enrollment cliff, the funding sources, you know, even you know, athletic performance, how are you? How have you evolved, and how do you think about messaging and messaging to what's increasingly different and somewhat outspoken constituent population?
Bill Hardgrave 17:35
So first we have a strategic plan. And look, you know, that's one of those things that, you know, we could probably spend an hour talking about, you know, the value of strategic plans, because I know some believe in them. Some do not. I'm a big believer in having a plan doesn't beat that, it can't change. And I have KPIs and in that's how the trustees hold me accountable, and, you know, to make sure that we're on the right track, but, but they are, you know, they're flexible. If we, if we see that we're not headed down the right path, but we do have a plan, and it lays out those things that we ought to be doing now there, there's one of the values of the one of the valuable things I think about a plan is it's, it's gives you a framework to say, you know, hey, this thing that we're wanting to do now looks great, but how does that? How does that help us to get to where we need to go? So it almost gives you a framework to say no, right? Because, you know, in higher education, we, we, we have trouble saying no to things right, especially when it comes to adding things, right? We're a great condition subtraction. We never want to take anything away and and so it is always, you know, he's one of my former days. Told me the opportunity of lifetime comes along about 10 times a day. And, you know, we, you know trouble. You know they could, because they do, right? They just come at us all the time. Oh, we got this great idea and something else for us to spend money on, but the strategic plan helps with that. So we had that in place before really, a lot of the craziness around higher education really kicked in and so so to really hone it in about let's see a year and a half or so ago, again, before a lot of the things that we see happening now started happening was we had a laser focus and communicated a commitment to a successful outcome for every student. And that became our rallying cry. We have a commitment to a successful outcome for every student. And that laser focus, that North Star, if you will, I think has helped us be successful through all the noise that's going on. Because through all the noise, we could focus on that one thing out here on the horizon, right a successful outcome for every student. And if we stay focused on that. And, and we're saying, We got to do this. We got to do that. Where do we invest everything then becomes, how does it help us create a successful outcome for every student? And I know that's, that's, that's really a B, hag, right? I mean, it's a, it's a moonshot, but that's, that is our laser focus. And I think that's helped us, Ken, get through and navigate some of these things where it had been easy, right to kind of lose your focus and chase this or chase this. That's our communication a successful outcome for every student. How does, how does what we're doing, how do we, how does what we're investing help us with that
Dave Ikenberry 20:36
bill? A couple minutes ago, you indicated the importance of team building. And you, you indicated you, you actually felt pretty good about your capability to build effective teams. I was wondering if you could drill a little bit deeper on two aspects of that, because as a as a dean, you know, we have to build teams in the college. And so I was wondering, if you give us some pointers, and along two different dimensions. One is, how do I find that right person in what is otherwise a noisy process? And then, second of all, you know, if I'm making a shift from you know, I need to replace the Associate Dean for Faculty, and I need to find the next one, but you inherited one. You know that that takes a little finesse. How do you think about those two problems?
Bill Hardgrave 21:36
So let me go back and share an example, if I may, and then I'll drill down a little bit more on your question, because it's a it's an incredibly important topic, and I think it's one that that many, especially new deans, miss, and that's the importance of building that right team. You know, I think I was successful as a dean because I had an incredible team. Without that team, I would not have been had the success that we had. But let me share a story with you. When I went into Auburn, there was a structure that one Associate Dean, and there was five department chairs. And I really saw that, that we needed a couple of different associate deans, one for faculty, one for one for research. And then, you know, a department structure that was, that was in pretty good shape, but with some department chairs that probably needed to change over. But we started with the associate deans, and once I split those, the Associate Dean for Research, I got down pretty quickly. But the other Associate Dean, which was really the more senior of the two associate deans, if you will, I wanted to find somebody inside, because I was new to Auburn, so I needed somebody who understood the university and had some experience there, right? Because I couldn't have all new people in my team, because they wouldn't have any any context in for some of the things. And I remember that the department chair of accounting at the time had spent his entire career there was very well respected. But my but, but my style of the way I operate. I came out of, I came out of startups into higher education, which seems like a, you know, a complete opposite of what you think of doing, but, but as a dean, I I had the reputation of it was, it was ready, fire, aim, right? Because I was not afraid to try new things. You know, in higher education, that doesn't always work very well. And so there was this, there was this department chair, and I was hoping that he would apply to be the Associate Dean, because I'd, you know, I'd been there about six to nine months, probably nine months before I started looking at making a change, right? Because I'm not going to come in. Going to come in and immediately and make changes. That's one of the worst mistakes a new leader can do, is come in and in the first two weeks think that they have know enough about the situation to change out the structure and change out the leadership. So I was there long enough I got a good sense. And so this guy had not applied for the job. And I happened to run into to somebody who knew it pretty well, and I mentioned something about this guy, and he said, Yeah, he doesn't want to apply for the job because he's just so different than you. I mean, he's, he was very much, you know, Ready, aim, aim. Okay, let's go back and get ready more. Let's aim, let's aim and aim. Okay, now, aspire, right? And I was very different. And I said, No, that's exactly what I need. And and so, so once we got past that, I actually hired the guy as my associate dean. He served the Associate Dean in that role the entire time I was dean. And in fact, when I moved over the provost office, I brought him with me to be his associate provost. But one of the key things there was he was so different from me, that's what I wanted on the team. And so when I build a team, I purposely try to build a team of people who are not like me. I don't I when I if I have a team of five, I don't need four other bills, right? I mean. I've got one bill already. I don't need four others. I need people who are going to bring a different perspective, have a different style, have a different background, have a Yeah. I want people who are going to think different, who are going to act differently, and we can act as a team, then, rather than everybody just telling me, yes, I think that's the single most important factor. When I look at building the team, obviously you got to have the expertise in the background, but you got to be different. And at the President's level, even more orders of magnitude higher. Because, you know, in my team, my cabinet, I have my senior vice president for advancement, my my chief marketing officer, my chief operating officer and CFO and my Provost, and they're all very different people. And I've hand picked all of those folks since I've been here, and they are all very different from me. And I'll tell you one other quick thing on the on the Deans thing, I'm also a big believer in working toward being a level five leader, if you if you remember, from, you know, Good to Great, you know, and that when, when I left the business school to move over the Provost Office, I'm not sure they knew I was gone, the team did such a great job of running that college. It never, it never sputtered at all. They, they just kept going and going once I stepped away. So that's what I look for in a team right? Build that theme where they can think, think different than you, and they they're going to run the university, they're going to run the college, and if I, if I was out of the picture, they would still continue to run
Ken Kring 26:36
it. In my experience, good team building requires good assessment, and your clear sense that you're not hiring in your own image means it's more of a challenge to assessment. I'm just interested to hear because you have built good teams every place you've been, sort of what that secret sauce is in terms of finding, assessing, you know, franchising the decisions, or what does that look like?
Bill Hardgrave 27:09
There's a couple of buckets that then, you know, I look at when we're hiring anybody for our senior leadership team, and I think, I think, I think institutions should, should at least kind of view it this way. And this is the two broad buckets. I believe people are either maintainers or they're builders. And if you put a builder in a situation that requires a maintainer, they're going to be miserable. And if you take a maintainer and put them in a situation he's a builder, they're not going to be successful. In either case, you've got a bad fit. So that's one of the things I look for, is okay when I'm bringing somebody in. So for example, over advancement, do I need somebody that's going to take and just make sure that we keep doing the great things we're doing, or do we need to completely shake that organization up? That's those are two different types of people. And, you know, and I hired my CFO, by the way, and and my chief marketing officer from industry, because I felt that we needed to re think how we looked and how, you know, how we approach our financial situation and how we marketed to people. I actually didn't want anybody with years of experience in our education, because we're in, we're in a different place, and I wanted us to be thinking differently.
Dave Ikenberry 28:27
We've got just a minute or two left to bill before we need to sign off. Let's just, let's just talk for a moment about succession planning. Are you? I mean, that's kind of a logical progression in what we've been talking about, share a moment or two on the on your thoughts about that?
Bill Hardgrave 28:46
You know, I think that's, it's something that's that in higher education has been, my experience is that there's not a lot of attention given to it, and it should be. And I'll go back to what I talked about earlier, about being a level five leader, right? A Level Five leader develops the organization such that it's not built around the person, right? It's built around the processes and the structure, and when that person is gone, if you're headed in the right direction, the institution can continue to be heading in that right direction. And that's what I think I did, and was successful to do as a dean, was build that team and build the build everything so that it could continue to be successful when that next Dean was hired. And again, you know, go back to what I said earlier about that part of that succession planning is, well, what type of leader do you need see? When I stepped away after eight years, eight and a half years as being dean, they didn't need another bill for the dean, right? Because I came in and changed a lot of things. We were a different college, you know, very, very fortunate being a different college than we were when, when I left. So it was a complete so what you needed was somebody who could take where we are and continue that good stuff, not to come in and shake it up and do something different. So that was a. Part of that succession planning. As President, you know, I've got a five year contract, and, you know, one of the things I'm thinking about as I've as I've approached that fifth year, is what is, what is that succession plan? Is it going to be me continuing on with that, or are we set up for somebody else to come in? Because, you know, maybe that that's we need a different type of leader than what I've provided over the last five years, and I think that as a current leader, you have to be looking at that next plateau, and what type of person do we need, and how do you set that structure and those processes up to get that next person so that to get that that unit, whether it's university level or college level, can be success.
Dave Ikenberry 30:38
Bill, what a fascinating conversation we've had over the last half hours. It's hard to believe that our time is already up. It seemed what was a blink to me, you've touched on so many great, great things. Thanks for your time today. And of course, we we wish you the best as you as you continue at Memphis.
Bill Hardgrave 30:59
Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really honored to be on the show. And I just, you know, for all those right there aspiring to be business deans, aspire to be a business Dean. Opportunity. And look, if I can be successful being a dean, I promise you, anybody can be successful being a date. Because I had no idea what I was doing. Good
Dave Ikenberry 31:18
for you. Good for you, Bill,
Ken Kring 31:21
thanks so much.
Dave Ikenberry 31:29
Ken, what an enjoyable session. That was, what was your kind of takeaway?
Ken Kring 31:36
Yeah, you know, he is a very wise and effective leader. And, you know, I know this actually, but having known him over the years, but know people who know him, and he's so authentic and practical and real, I think that allows him, or even masks the fact that he's kind of a change agent also. And, you know, he's sort of entrepreneurial side of, you know, move move fast. And, you know, get out of bad ideas by starting in a better one, and his respect for people, his respect and sort of building a team of not rivals, but a team that are not your replications of him, very wise and insightful as a, you know, he can lead anywhere. And in fact, you know, when he talked about what he had not had as a president, he there's a lot of things he had to learn
Dave Ikenberry 32:28
to step in and be effective. Right off the bat, really impressive. Yeah, I do think Dave, I he, he came across as such an authentic leader to me. You know, he talked about and he just touched on it, but as soon as he said it, it resonated with me. You know, the job is not transactional, it's relationship driven, and that is so true. Whether you're dealing with donors or legislators or department chairs or or deans, there's just so much of at least, that's my style. I resonate with that, because it's not a one off transaction. We this is a repeated games problem, you know, yeah, you know, you know, my top donor, I don't cash one check. I'm going to cash 50 checks out into the future, and it's not about check number one, for example. And the same thing is true with with legislators and thinking about how to collaborate with them. So I was that whole segment of the of our session was it resonated quite a bit with me, and I really enjoyed him kind of drilling down a little bit into, you know, what does it mean to build a team? I mean, first of all, he reiterated, sometimes we forget how important it is to have a great team. But second of all, how do you actually do that? And I appreciated his approach to that and his, I mean, some people would call it diversity and, and it really is a diversity of thought and a diversity of leadership styles and experiences. And he really, he really lifted that up in a remarkable way that, again, it's not rocket science, but it's so helpful to reflect on that conversation.
Ken Kring 34:19
Yeah, yeah. And you know, they you have to have a strong ego to be a president. You don't need to have vanity and to be narcissistic. He's so he's so real and absent of those kind of challenges to being effective.
Dave Ikenberry 34:37
What did you think about his he expressed appreciation for his Provost role, but he he clearly did not care for it. I was just, yeah, I I was, what was your reflection on that?
Ken Kring 34:53
I really liked his candor. I just think, you know, I really liked his candy. I mean, I think he respected the. It helped him to appreciate sort of the inner workings of the university. You know, frankly, he
Dave Ikenberry 35:08
sure, yeah,
Ken Kring 35:09
relatively rare. We've seen and talked to a number of presidents who jumped from being a dean to being a president. He's relatively rare at having taken that, taken that step, and I think he, in his very practical way, has used it, you know, to his advantage as a credible academic leader. I
Dave Ikenberry 35:29
just wonder whether some of the friction he experienced, there's no doubt, the benefits he got seeing the cross section of the campus, but whether some of the frictions were driven just because of his leadership style, you know, he really he leads with about authentic relationship driven experience that's sometimes really hard to do when so many of the issues that roll into the Provost Office are so sticky and have such a personality dimension to them. And I could easily see that creating a conflict, but I appreciated him sharing that so candidly with with all of us. Great, great episode. Really, really terrific. Thank you for listening to this episode of Dean's Council. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Dean's Council was produced in Boulder Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts for a catalog of previous shows. Please visit our website@deanscouncil.com if you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback@deanscouncil.com and finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so that you can automatically receive our latest show. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to Dean's Council, a podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists, Ken Kring, Jim Ellis and davinberry, engage in conversation with highly accomplished deans and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Deans face in one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the academy. Our guest today, Bill Hargrave, has had a remarkable career. After graduating with his PhD from Oklahoma, state and information systems, he moved to the University of Arkansas, where he developed a passion for radio frequency identification, better known by many as RFID after spending 17 years with this intense research focus, Bill's career shifted into academic leadership as he was tapped to become Dean of what is now known as the ray men J Harbert College of Business at Auburn University. This was an abrupt shift for Bill, as he had little of the traditional academic leadership background that we often think precedes these key administrative appointments during his seven and a half year tenure as dean, Bill was quite successful. Enrollment in the college grew by 50% rankings increased. He secured a $40 million naming gift for the college, the largest gift in Auburn's history, and he deepened the school's scholarship by opening several new centers of study. Building upon that success, in January of 2018 Auburn tapped him to become provost. Thus he was in that role during those stressful covid years. As of this April in 2026 bill will have completed four years as president of the University of Memphis. Over the years, Bill has developed a distinct leadership philosophy, largely honed by his time as dean, but in some ways also informed by his Provost role, all of which he shares with us today. For Bill, leading through relationships and building strong teams is fundamental to being a high impact, effective leader as always. We hope you enjoy this episode with Bill hardgrave.
Ken Kring 2:26
So we are very enthusiastic about this conversation today with Bill Hargrave, who's the President of University of Memphis, came to Memphis from Auburn University, where he was provost and also previously Dean the Harbor School of Business at Auburn. Bill's experience is terrific and very relevant to today's conversation. I will also say having known Bill and have great respect for him for many years, he has had two what you might call covid assignments, having been the provost at Auburn during a very difficult moment in time to be a to be a provost during a shutdown, and then having been made president that had Memphis in 2022 so your experience in dog years is pretty extraordinary. Bill, we'd love just sort of an overview of how you got to where you are, and Dave and I will have lots to probe on.
Bill Hardgrave 3:24
Yeah, look, I'll keep it brief, but, you know, I will start by saying this, of all the jobs I've had in higher education, business Dean was by far the best job I ever had. You know, I knew it at the time, and I really knew it after I moved into being a provost, which, by the way, says is the worst
Ken Kring 3:44
job
Ken Kring 3:46
record. Say that, right? Oh my
Bill Hardgrave 3:50
gosh, it was. It was the worst, you know, it was the longest four and a half years of my life. But, but I digress. Let me, let me go back and talk about my path to be a dean, and how I got to being a dean. I was at the University of Arkansas for for 17 years, and was never a department chair. Was not an Associate Dean. None of those. I was an endowed chair. Started and ran the it Research Institute, and then started a spin off of that called the RFID lab. So I was really working with industry, working with generating money from grants and research, and doing, loving what I was doing. And then I got a call in October of 2009 and person on the other line said, Hey, we're trying to hire the next business dean at Auburn University, and would you be interested in talking to us? And 10 months later, I was in Auburn, Alabama, and had no idea what it took to be a business thing, but, but spent eight and a half years as Dane. Loved every minute of it. It was again, it was by far the best job I've ever had. I loved every minute of it. And. We had a transition a president there. The trustees at the time asked me if I would consider being Provost, because I didn't want to be Provost, but I did because I really loved the university and respected the trustees, they asked me to be provost. And then, of course, covid hit, and so it was a really interesting time. And then a few years ago, University of Memphis called and said, we'd like to talk to you about being our next president. And a few minutes later, I was president the University of Memphis, and so, you know, and I've been here four years before, years in April, I've been here as president, so traditional in some sense, once I became Davis, certainly not to get to that point of being
Dave Ikenberry 5:36
dean, right bill. A lot of people equate the experiences one has as a dean to parallel the experiences that one has as a president. Do you agree with that basic philosophy, and how are you allocating your time relative to how you allocated time as a business school dean, I'm not sure. You know, for example, I'm sure you didn't spend that much time on athletics when you were a business school dean, right? But how is your time allocated now, relative to your your deanship,
Bill Hardgrave 6:14
you know, I think there's a lot more parallels between being a dean and being a president than there is between being a provost and being a president. You know, provost is so inward focused, right? And really deal with the faculty on a day to day basis. I'm glad I actually spent time as a provost, although, as much as I didn't really like it, because it opened my eyes to things across campus that I wouldn't have seen with just, you know, and look, when you're a business Dean, or any Dane, you're really focused on your college right, trying to do the things that are right for it. But the parallels are, you know, you have a lot of external constituents as business Dane, I was out of the office about 40% of the time I was visiting, donors, companies, anybody who would listen to me. I was out visiting with them, very similar to President, you know, I spent a lot of time out. Now, a couple of key differences between the president role and the dean role is that one, I have a much broader set of constituents, legislators that you know, both both state and federal, I spend more time with those than I would as a dean, right? That's a big one athletics. Spend a lot more time on athletics as a president that I then I would as a dean, but from an overall governance perspective and how I approach things very similar between what I did as a Dane and what I do as a president and how I built my teams and how I go about working with those around me, very similar from that perspective, and very different than life as a provost. Talk to
Ken Kring 7:57
us about sort of those categories that you had not been as prepared for and how have you mastered the learning curve in terms of legislative, politics, appropriation, positioning, Memphis in that regard, and then also athletics, which is changing by the moment, and you've got some big time athletics in Memphis. Or how have you, have you scaled the learning curve?
Bill Hardgrave 8:26
Yeah, you know, there's, there's a couple of basic tenants that I've tried to hold true to that that helps a little bit. But although not entirely, you know, one of the things that that, that I learned as business Dean in particular was that, you know, for us to be successful, especially in external fundraising and and, you know, even across the campus, it was really about building relationships, right? Building not transactions, but building those relationships. So that's what I've tried to do with our legislators, again, both state and federal, is just build relationships. So I don't, I don't go and just show up with, you know, with my handout, and say, I'm here to relieve you of, you know, whatever finances that you have. You know, I'm here, you know, how can we partner? How can I help you? And and I was in DC earlier this week, and I visit with every member of our delegation, and that's the way we approach it. I don't go in and say, here's how I need you to help me. I see. Let me tell you about the great things that we've got going on. How can what we're doing at the University of Memphis help you? You know, senator or congressman or woman and and we build those relationships, and we take those the staffers, we treat them to a nice reception at dinner, because the staffers is the one to give work. What are we doing? We're building relationships, right? So that when the time comes that we do need to ask for something, they're going to be open and receptive to that, and so that that's, that's one of those basic tenants that I that I've followed throughout my time as a business Dean. You know, as we tried to build relationships with with business. Is, and with our key alumni, it was about relationships. It wasn't about going in and saying, Hey, I need $5,000 I need 10,000 now. I'm going to build a relationship. And sometime you want, you're going to want to help us at a much bigger rate. So that's, that's one of the things. But now other things I wasn't prepared for, you know, the the you know, athletics is one of those, the fact that in both state and federal politics, sometimes the actions are not logical or reasonable, and it's, you know, and you have no control over those things, right? And, you know, one of the things I liked about Dean was, for the most part, right? You kind of had the four walls as a dean. Could you say, this is, this is my faculty, right? These are my students. This is my facilities. And there was, there was kind of these nice, hard, firm boundaries on what you had as a dean, whereas president, it's like, it's almost the boundaries are fuzzy and like, okay, where does, where does that end? Well, in athletics, where does my role begin and in? Well, if there's no clear on dealing with the political side, where's the role? Well, it's hard to say, right? So those things I've just kind of had to learn and and the other basic tenant in building in addition to building relationships, is building good teams, right? There's no way I do this by myself. I have a fantastic team of people. I think I have the best athletic director in the country. I hired him a couple of years ago, and, you know, I let him run athletics, and then he comes to me and gets my input, and then I have to see how it affects the broader university. Same thing on the legislative side, I have fantastic Head of Government Relations. We hired a fantastic firm in Nashville to help us, a fantastic firm in DC to help us, right? Because, you know, and I just rely upon them. Tell me what you need from me to help you do your job in Nashville and in DC. Bill money comes
Dave Ikenberry 11:56
into public institutions basically through five different channels. One of those channels is the granting mechanism, and the landscape is shifting under our feet as we speak, with respect to federal grants, with the ICI reimbursement rate really getting clobbered. How are you and how are your colleague, presidential colleagues, both in the private and the public's dealing responding to this?
Bill Hardgrave 12:25
Well, that, you know, that's, that's a really good question. It's a very difficult answer, because the sands are still shifting, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, when we started out, this was, you know, obviously, about a year ago, when all the executive orders started coming down, and NSF and NIH and all these funding agencies started shifting. You know, one of the things that that, you know, I've got a great Vice President for Research, and he was trying to, you know, keep everybody calm, and that, look, we, you know, we'll, we'll try to navigate our way through this reality was, we didn't. It's hard to navigate when you're completely in the dark and you have no map, right? I mean, it's just it felt that way, right? You're just in the dark and you have no sense of the boulders that might be in your way or whatever might or you step off a cliff. But we try, we try to stay ahead of things. I spent a lot as a lot of time, as much as time I could with other presidents and meetings I went to I was in DC. Spent more time in DC trying to get a read on what was happening from those areas, and certainly trying to stay on top of any initiatives that were coming along on, you know, for example, the indirect cost recovery on, you know, trying to come up with a new formula. I spent a lot of time talking to our senators and our, you know, congressmen and women about, you know, the damage that those things can do and what it really meant. Because I think a lot of those, they just didn't know what that meant. Ultimately, you know, we as an r1 you know, we took a, we took a pretty big hit, but we had, we got, we caught a little bit of a break in that. A couple of years ago, we had really started putting a bigger emphasis on defense related appropriations through the National Defense Authorization Act in the NDAA and great relationship with the Office of Naval Research and a few other areas, and that was a big part of our funding. And so we were actually immune to some of those things that were coming through NSF and NIH, because we didn't have to go through those channels. But it's been tough. And, you know, we had a last year that the full year continuing resolution meant that anything that was in the budget that was new just disappeared. So we had about 25, 30 million that was in that budget just went poof like that just never happened. So, you know, we try to maneuver too. We've it's been tough. It's been tough. It hurt us about 35 to 40%
Dave Ikenberry 14:55
but at some point you, I'd imagine you have to have kind of a philosophy. About, how are we going to distribute this pain? So one philosophy might be, let's keep the university a universal University. Let's, let's increase the tax rate of everybody so that we can paper over the deficits. Versus another philosophy is, hey, if we lose funding for this corn research, we're just gonna have to shut down the corn lab and and forego that. And of course, then there's everything in between. What has been your philosophy and or even, am I even seeing this correctly?
Bill Hardgrave 15:36
You are, and it was, it was a little mix of both, in that, what we did was we actually kind of took a little bit from everybody across campus. We clawed back 3% across everybody across campus and said, Look, we're going to have to have as almost an emergency pool of funds that we're there. We're going to then take and distribute strategically to make sure that we're either continuing to invest in areas that we need to or to keep areas afloat while we made it through a tough time. And with with strategy number two would be, look, if it gets desperate and this area over here is just not financially viable, then we'll just have to shut it down. Fortunately, we never had to get to strategy too. We had enough from the from the clawback and the redistribution that we made it through without laying off a single person, without without cutting a single center or project on our own. We were actually able to weather that storm, through that,
Ken Kring 16:37
you know, before the last economic downturn 1015, years ago, they used to say the University President's role was to put things on the table. And then it became, and has increasingly become, the idea of taking things off the table and doing it with whatever diplomacy and effectiveness is possible. I would guess that your messaging has to change when you know we're not in a moment of abundance. But in fact, you know their their trade offs and challenges, and then, whether that's you know, the enrollment cliff, the funding sources, you know, even you know, athletic performance, how are you? How have you evolved, and how do you think about messaging and messaging to what's increasingly different and somewhat outspoken constituent population?
Bill Hardgrave 17:35
So first we have a strategic plan. And look, you know, that's one of those things that, you know, we could probably spend an hour talking about, you know, the value of strategic plans, because I know some believe in them. Some do not. I'm a big believer in having a plan doesn't beat that, it can't change. And I have KPIs and in that's how the trustees hold me accountable, and, you know, to make sure that we're on the right track, but, but they are, you know, they're flexible. If we, if we see that we're not headed down the right path, but we do have a plan, and it lays out those things that we ought to be doing now there, there's one of the values of the one of the valuable things I think about a plan is it's, it's gives you a framework to say, you know, hey, this thing that we're wanting to do now looks great, but how does that? How does that help us to get to where we need to go? So it almost gives you a framework to say no, right? Because, you know, in higher education, we, we, we have trouble saying no to things right, especially when it comes to adding things, right? We're a great condition subtraction. We never want to take anything away and and so it is always, you know, he's one of my former days. Told me the opportunity of lifetime comes along about 10 times a day. And, you know, we, you know trouble. You know they could, because they do, right? They just come at us all the time. Oh, we got this great idea and something else for us to spend money on, but the strategic plan helps with that. So we had that in place before really, a lot of the craziness around higher education really kicked in and so so to really hone it in about let's see a year and a half or so ago, again, before a lot of the things that we see happening now started happening was we had a laser focus and communicated a commitment to a successful outcome for every student. And that became our rallying cry. We have a commitment to a successful outcome for every student. And that laser focus, that North Star, if you will, I think has helped us be successful through all the noise that's going on. Because through all the noise, we could focus on that one thing out here on the horizon, right a successful outcome for every student. And if we stay focused on that. And, and we're saying, We got to do this. We got to do that. Where do we invest everything then becomes, how does it help us create a successful outcome for every student? And I know that's, that's, that's really a B, hag, right? I mean, it's a, it's a moonshot, but that's, that is our laser focus. And I think that's helped us, Ken, get through and navigate some of these things where it had been easy, right to kind of lose your focus and chase this or chase this. That's our communication a successful outcome for every student. How does, how does what we're doing, how do we, how does what we're investing help us with that
Dave Ikenberry 20:36
bill? A couple minutes ago, you indicated the importance of team building. And you, you indicated you, you actually felt pretty good about your capability to build effective teams. I was wondering if you could drill a little bit deeper on two aspects of that, because as a as a dean, you know, we have to build teams in the college. And so I was wondering, if you give us some pointers, and along two different dimensions. One is, how do I find that right person in what is otherwise a noisy process? And then, second of all, you know, if I'm making a shift from you know, I need to replace the Associate Dean for Faculty, and I need to find the next one, but you inherited one. You know that that takes a little finesse. How do you think about those two problems?
Bill Hardgrave 21:36
So let me go back and share an example, if I may, and then I'll drill down a little bit more on your question, because it's a it's an incredibly important topic, and I think it's one that that many, especially new deans, miss, and that's the importance of building that right team. You know, I think I was successful as a dean because I had an incredible team. Without that team, I would not have been had the success that we had. But let me share a story with you. When I went into Auburn, there was a structure that one Associate Dean, and there was five department chairs. And I really saw that, that we needed a couple of different associate deans, one for faculty, one for one for research. And then, you know, a department structure that was, that was in pretty good shape, but with some department chairs that probably needed to change over. But we started with the associate deans, and once I split those, the Associate Dean for Research, I got down pretty quickly. But the other Associate Dean, which was really the more senior of the two associate deans, if you will, I wanted to find somebody inside, because I was new to Auburn, so I needed somebody who understood the university and had some experience there, right? Because I couldn't have all new people in my team, because they wouldn't have any any context in for some of the things. And I remember that the department chair of accounting at the time had spent his entire career there was very well respected. But my but, but my style of the way I operate. I came out of, I came out of startups into higher education, which seems like a, you know, a complete opposite of what you think of doing, but, but as a dean, I I had the reputation of it was, it was ready, fire, aim, right? Because I was not afraid to try new things. You know, in higher education, that doesn't always work very well. And so there was this, there was this department chair, and I was hoping that he would apply to be the Associate Dean, because I'd, you know, I'd been there about six to nine months, probably nine months before I started looking at making a change, right? Because I'm not going to come in. Going to come in and immediately and make changes. That's one of the worst mistakes a new leader can do, is come in and in the first two weeks think that they have know enough about the situation to change out the structure and change out the leadership. So I was there long enough I got a good sense. And so this guy had not applied for the job. And I happened to run into to somebody who knew it pretty well, and I mentioned something about this guy, and he said, Yeah, he doesn't want to apply for the job because he's just so different than you. I mean, he's, he was very much, you know, Ready, aim, aim. Okay, let's go back and get ready more. Let's aim, let's aim and aim. Okay, now, aspire, right? And I was very different. And I said, No, that's exactly what I need. And and so, so once we got past that, I actually hired the guy as my associate dean. He served the Associate Dean in that role the entire time I was dean. And in fact, when I moved over the provost office, I brought him with me to be his associate provost. But one of the key things there was he was so different from me, that's what I wanted on the team. And so when I build a team, I purposely try to build a team of people who are not like me. I don't I when I if I have a team of five, I don't need four other bills, right? I mean. I've got one bill already. I don't need four others. I need people who are going to bring a different perspective, have a different style, have a different background, have a Yeah. I want people who are going to think different, who are going to act differently, and we can act as a team, then, rather than everybody just telling me, yes, I think that's the single most important factor. When I look at building the team, obviously you got to have the expertise in the background, but you got to be different. And at the President's level, even more orders of magnitude higher. Because, you know, in my team, my cabinet, I have my senior vice president for advancement, my my chief marketing officer, my chief operating officer and CFO and my Provost, and they're all very different people. And I've hand picked all of those folks since I've been here, and they are all very different from me. And I'll tell you one other quick thing on the on the Deans thing, I'm also a big believer in working toward being a level five leader, if you if you remember, from, you know, Good to Great, you know, and that when, when I left the business school to move over the Provost Office, I'm not sure they knew I was gone, the team did such a great job of running that college. It never, it never sputtered at all. They, they just kept going and going once I stepped away. So that's what I look for in a team right? Build that theme where they can think, think different than you, and they they're going to run the university, they're going to run the college, and if I, if I was out of the picture, they would still continue to run
Ken Kring 26:36
it. In my experience, good team building requires good assessment, and your clear sense that you're not hiring in your own image means it's more of a challenge to assessment. I'm just interested to hear because you have built good teams every place you've been, sort of what that secret sauce is in terms of finding, assessing, you know, franchising the decisions, or what does that look like?
Bill Hardgrave 27:09
There's a couple of buckets that then, you know, I look at when we're hiring anybody for our senior leadership team, and I think, I think, I think institutions should, should at least kind of view it this way. And this is the two broad buckets. I believe people are either maintainers or they're builders. And if you put a builder in a situation that requires a maintainer, they're going to be miserable. And if you take a maintainer and put them in a situation he's a builder, they're not going to be successful. In either case, you've got a bad fit. So that's one of the things I look for, is okay when I'm bringing somebody in. So for example, over advancement, do I need somebody that's going to take and just make sure that we keep doing the great things we're doing, or do we need to completely shake that organization up? That's those are two different types of people. And, you know, and I hired my CFO, by the way, and and my chief marketing officer from industry, because I felt that we needed to re think how we looked and how, you know, how we approach our financial situation and how we marketed to people. I actually didn't want anybody with years of experience in our education, because we're in, we're in a different place, and I wanted us to be thinking differently.
Dave Ikenberry 28:27
We've got just a minute or two left to bill before we need to sign off. Let's just, let's just talk for a moment about succession planning. Are you? I mean, that's kind of a logical progression in what we've been talking about, share a moment or two on the on your thoughts about that?
Bill Hardgrave 28:46
You know, I think that's, it's something that's that in higher education has been, my experience is that there's not a lot of attention given to it, and it should be. And I'll go back to what I talked about earlier, about being a level five leader, right? A Level Five leader develops the organization such that it's not built around the person, right? It's built around the processes and the structure, and when that person is gone, if you're headed in the right direction, the institution can continue to be heading in that right direction. And that's what I think I did, and was successful to do as a dean, was build that team and build the build everything so that it could continue to be successful when that next Dean was hired. And again, you know, go back to what I said earlier about that part of that succession planning is, well, what type of leader do you need see? When I stepped away after eight years, eight and a half years as being dean, they didn't need another bill for the dean, right? Because I came in and changed a lot of things. We were a different college, you know, very, very fortunate being a different college than we were when, when I left. So it was a complete so what you needed was somebody who could take where we are and continue that good stuff, not to come in and shake it up and do something different. So that was a. Part of that succession planning. As President, you know, I've got a five year contract, and, you know, one of the things I'm thinking about as I've as I've approached that fifth year, is what is, what is that succession plan? Is it going to be me continuing on with that, or are we set up for somebody else to come in? Because, you know, maybe that that's we need a different type of leader than what I've provided over the last five years, and I think that as a current leader, you have to be looking at that next plateau, and what type of person do we need, and how do you set that structure and those processes up to get that next person so that to get that that unit, whether it's university level or college level, can be success.
Dave Ikenberry 30:38
Bill, what a fascinating conversation we've had over the last half hours. It's hard to believe that our time is already up. It seemed what was a blink to me, you've touched on so many great, great things. Thanks for your time today. And of course, we we wish you the best as you as you continue at Memphis.
Bill Hardgrave 30:59
Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really honored to be on the show. And I just, you know, for all those right there aspiring to be business deans, aspire to be a business Dean. Opportunity. And look, if I can be successful being a dean, I promise you, anybody can be successful being a date. Because I had no idea what I was doing. Good
Dave Ikenberry 31:18
for you. Good for you, Bill,
Ken Kring 31:21
thanks so much.
Dave Ikenberry 31:29
Ken, what an enjoyable session. That was, what was your kind of takeaway?
Ken Kring 31:36
Yeah, you know, he is a very wise and effective leader. And, you know, I know this actually, but having known him over the years, but know people who know him, and he's so authentic and practical and real, I think that allows him, or even masks the fact that he's kind of a change agent also. And, you know, he's sort of entrepreneurial side of, you know, move move fast. And, you know, get out of bad ideas by starting in a better one, and his respect for people, his respect and sort of building a team of not rivals, but a team that are not your replications of him, very wise and insightful as a, you know, he can lead anywhere. And in fact, you know, when he talked about what he had not had as a president, he there's a lot of things he had to learn
Dave Ikenberry 32:28
to step in and be effective. Right off the bat, really impressive. Yeah, I do think Dave, I he, he came across as such an authentic leader to me. You know, he talked about and he just touched on it, but as soon as he said it, it resonated with me. You know, the job is not transactional, it's relationship driven, and that is so true. Whether you're dealing with donors or legislators or department chairs or or deans, there's just so much of at least, that's my style. I resonate with that, because it's not a one off transaction. We this is a repeated games problem, you know, yeah, you know, you know, my top donor, I don't cash one check. I'm going to cash 50 checks out into the future, and it's not about check number one, for example. And the same thing is true with with legislators and thinking about how to collaborate with them. So I was that whole segment of the of our session was it resonated quite a bit with me, and I really enjoyed him kind of drilling down a little bit into, you know, what does it mean to build a team? I mean, first of all, he reiterated, sometimes we forget how important it is to have a great team. But second of all, how do you actually do that? And I appreciated his approach to that and his, I mean, some people would call it diversity and, and it really is a diversity of thought and a diversity of leadership styles and experiences. And he really, he really lifted that up in a remarkable way that, again, it's not rocket science, but it's so helpful to reflect on that conversation.
Ken Kring 34:19
Yeah, yeah. And you know, they you have to have a strong ego to be a president. You don't need to have vanity and to be narcissistic. He's so he's so real and absent of those kind of challenges to being effective.
Dave Ikenberry 34:37
What did you think about his he expressed appreciation for his Provost role, but he he clearly did not care for it. I was just, yeah, I I was, what was your reflection on that?
Ken Kring 34:53
I really liked his candor. I just think, you know, I really liked his candy. I mean, I think he respected the. It helped him to appreciate sort of the inner workings of the university. You know, frankly, he
Dave Ikenberry 35:08
sure, yeah,
Ken Kring 35:09
relatively rare. We've seen and talked to a number of presidents who jumped from being a dean to being a president. He's relatively rare at having taken that, taken that step, and I think he, in his very practical way, has used it, you know, to his advantage as a credible academic leader. I
Dave Ikenberry 35:29
just wonder whether some of the friction he experienced, there's no doubt, the benefits he got seeing the cross section of the campus, but whether some of the frictions were driven just because of his leadership style, you know, he really he leads with about authentic relationship driven experience that's sometimes really hard to do when so many of the issues that roll into the Provost Office are so sticky and have such a personality dimension to them. And I could easily see that creating a conflict, but I appreciated him sharing that so candidly with with all of us. Great, great episode. Really, really terrific. Thank you for listening to this episode of Dean's Council. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Dean's Council was produced in Boulder Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts for a catalog of previous shows. Please visit our website@deanscouncil.com if you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback@deanscouncil.com and finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so that you can automatically receive our latest show. You.
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