Full Transcript for Dr. Wayne Frederick, former President, Howard University

to be around them. And so that human interaction, which I think is essence of the human condition, is extremely important. And today, with all of the political divide, et cetera. I think we're living in a time where we're passive about other people's humanity. If somebody disagrees with us, we think it's sufficient to just ignore them and to stay away from them. I often say to people, it's great to be a leader who can make sweeping changes, come up with great ideas. But the reality is, every day, when we get up and be navigate on days, whether it's meeting somebody in an elevator and just simply saying hi, how are you, you know, asking someone what, what their name is. 00:06:48.875 --> 00:07:54.769 It gives it a little bit more to each of us each day to to figure out how to do that. We're lucky to have you participate in our house summit back in 2022 and talking about some of these challenges that we're up against, you gave a wonderful quote that reads as this, we are trying to solve sometimes problems that are big and global and we don't recognize the role that we play. Some of the big problems we want to solve are really solved on a personal, day to day basis, and when we talk about morality and compassion, we don't have to go solve world peace before we can solve something for the person in front of us. At the HOW Institute, we often talk about humility and letting our purpose lead when we're solving problems. Maybe you could help us understand how you instill that kind of a mindset for people that are in or emerging to both being having formal authority but also moral authority in shaping an organization's culture? 00:07:55.370 --> 00:08:15.995 Yeah, you know, I think it's a great question. I think for young people, it's often a challenge because they see people in peril based on major news events, based on, you know, major global events. And oftentimes they fail to recognize what is happening right in their backyard, right? 00:08:16.475 --> 00:09:15.049 And the example I use for that is how the university is in the nation's capital, a black woman who is pregnant in Washington, DC is three times more likely to die during her pregnancy or during giving birth than in so many other countries around the world. But when we talk about black maternal health and solving that problem, we have students who go on missions to Haiti and be very concerned about a pregnant woman in Haiti, but right there in ward seven and eight in Washington, DC, they would ignore that. So I think we have an opportunity every day if we open our aperture wide enough to see what's right in front of us, because sometimes our appetite gets so focused on, you know, wars that are so far away from us, or people who are in famine so far from us, but yet, still we drive by people every day, who are poor, who are hungry. We almost ignore them. It's almost like we can't see them, because our appetite is an open wide, you know. 00:09:16.370 --> 00:09:23.990 So I like you know, the way

that you're phrasing, how we can act. 00:09:18.409 --> 00:10:02.659 Some people use the word Glocal when we have these big global, global challenges, but how do we also be sure we're paying attention locally? And in that I know that this is hard work, and sometimes people get fatigue or burnout, and you in particular, right taking on these big challenges locally and globally, what is how you balance or integrate or harmonize tackling some of these challenges to ensure you're kind of good tired at the end of the day? And you know, how do we kind of approach. Approach life as a marathon, not a sprint. 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:20.585 Every day, when you get home, you should ask yourself two questions, what did I do today? And what? How well did I do it? How much better can I do tomorrow? And the second question should be, what didn't I do today that I should be sure to do tomorrow? 00:10:15.919 --> 00:11:00.710 Part of it is, you know, to some extent, despite my sickle cell, I've been blessed with what I like to describe as a joy that comes and that brings you a stamina. And that joy for life is something that gives you almost an interminable clock. I think, I think if you could get up every day and be curious about almost everything around you, every taxi, cab ride, every plane, ride the person next to you, everything. I think in life I come across I'm curious about, and I think if you I try to live with that openness to learn from the everything around me every day, but also to be willing to engage, you know, in every way. 00:10:56.629 --> 00:11:03.049 And I think I asked myself that every evening, you know, what could I have done better? 00:11:03.470 --> 00:12:01.325 And I love that, that you accept that we as humans are imperfect, and yet you in your striving to be better, each day, I hear an underlying level of gratitude too for the opportunities that you've been given. This question I'd like to ask next goes back to your time as the Howard University president, where you had so many stakeholders, faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, friends, also in the Washington, DC area, I'm sure you could add to that list of people where you were interacting with. And so you must have a framework that has helped you navigate through these multiple challenges that you faced, including the covid time period, funding challenges, protests. I mean, I know the list goes on for you. How did you approach those types of situations? What frameworks were useful for you? 00:12:03.065 --> 00:12:58.054 Yeah, you know that there were a few things, a few principles I tried to use, because, especially being a university president, I think there's so many constituents, all of whom want something different. I think that's the key, and that's what that's part of what makes that job difficult. But I tried to use a few principles in the middle of a crisis, one of my principles was that I always try to maintain equanimity under duress. It's a surgical principle. If I'm operating and, you know, patient starts bleeding or something goes wrong, I don't get the two instruments and, you know, have have a fit, as it were, I have to get very focused in the middle of a crisis. It's almost like you need to slow everything down in the operating room, and I tried to bring that same principle to managing and leading people to recognize that we all need to take a deep breath sometimes and just step back, especially in today's world of social media and communications, everybody wants to put out a message quick. 00:12:54.995 --> 00:14:02.809 Everybody wants to get ahead of the news cycle when it's in fact what we should be focused on is a problem at hand. The second thing is recognizing that everybody is in a critical part of the team, and whether this is a myth or not, I've heard a story told several times about President Kennedy being at the Space Center and running into a janitor who was cleaning the floor and asking him, what does he do? And he says, I send people to the moon. And so I always try to recognize and elevate all the members of the team so that they see the importance of what they do, the person who is the security guard who's cleaning the floor there at Howard University to provide students an education. And you know, this is the week of graduation, and that week of graduation, I always say to the staff especially, I want you to enjoy this just as much as the parents do, just as much as the faculty do, because you've contributed to making the world a better place by providing people with an education, and that's ultimately what we do. So having everybody in the organization be appreciated, but also see the bigger picture is important. 00:14:03.230 --> 00:14:10.835 I love the term equanimity under duress and how you scale that. 00:14:06.169 --> 00:14:38.960 It reminds me of that parable of of the brick layer, the building a wall or building a cathedral, and and how you do that, one of them it sounds like, is to recognize those you know what it looks like at all levels. How do you ensure from the top, like your moral authority and being in a position of moral authority, hopefully, the two together. How do you ensure people at the lowest levels, including your students, embrace that? 00:14:38.960 --> 00:15:23.570 Yeah, you know, I think part of it is that they have to see you as humane as possible. For many, many years, I did not talk about my sickle cell or my dad committing suicide, because I felt that as a leader, I needed to exemplify strength and that, you know, when you did those things. Was people didn't necessarily see the humility in you. They see, you know, they see weakness. We have to bring our full selves to work, and we have to make people realize that. And we also have to recognize that we're fallible, and have people recognize that even as your leader, there are times that you're not going to get it right. And you you have to be comfortable admitting when you don't get it right as well.

00:15:23.820 --> 00:16:09.899 And certainly, your journey helps us to see and love you more as who you are and why you are and what makes you tick. And that's true for all of us, and that's a wonderful message. I want to shift a little bit, if we can, into now the difficult place that higher ed is in that epicenter of cultural debates and even world debates. And as a university president, especially for the length of time you served in our nation's capital, there's so many stakeholders that you needed to shepherd through a lot of divisive debates, difficult, courageous kind of conversations. Share with us what you learned about framing conversations at Howard University as a university president. 00:16:11.129 --> 00:16:23.340 Yeah, you know, it's complicated, because I often describe Howard University as the most public, private institution. We're one of two non military institutions receive a federal appropriation. 00:16:20.039 --> 00:17:09.180 So as a result, I had to interact with everybody on both sides of the aisle. When we have a full house of 400 and something, congressmen and women and all 100 senators. And that created an incredible opportunity for me to see the full spectrum of the ideology, but to also recognize that for the most part, 99 plus percent of the people are trying to do good. They're coming from a different perspective. They have different biases, and my role, I often felt, was to find a way to connect with them. I remember going to speak to very conservative Republican who was part of the Freedom Caucus. 00:17:04.470 --> 00:18:39.390 Because, you know, every year, I would try to speak to as many of them as possible to make sure they supported Howard's appropriation. Understood why Howard was there and why it was one of America's best investments. And during the conversation, I remember him saying to me, you know, how do your students of single mothers, do you know, in terms of graduation and retention? And I thought it was a strange question. And as you can imagine, my own bias was, where is he coming from with this? So I went back to the university. I had my team pull data on it, and showing up, I had some surprising results, I called them up, and I said, Listen, you know, I was curious about your question. I didn't have a full answer. I had a theory. And I said, but I found something out that you'd be interested in. And he's like, Okay, well, what did you find out? And I said, the students who come from single parent homes where the mother is a single parent actually graduated a higher rate than my students who come from two parent homes. I'm not sure where he where his question came from, and I knew where my curiosity, to go back and look at it came from, but it left us connected around an issue that we both probably had very different thoughts about initially, and I think that's an example of, you know, trying to make sure that when you hear people, you really listen to them, and you don't just hear what it is you want

to hear, that your filters and filtering, you know, the part of the message. And so it was critical. 00:18:39.630 --> 00:19:03.539 So there's a lot of empathy there, in terms of perspective, taking curiosity about what other people's feelings are. I'm curious if there's a time where you have felt judged, where people didn't treat you with that same kind of empathy and and how you how you try to shape and build that shared empathy in a culture of engagement. 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:15.539 Yeah, I would say all the time I feel like I felt like that all the time. Being a university president is a fishbowl. People are constantly judging you - an email, really, I was in the middle of doing several things. 00:19:15.539 --> 00:20:00.450 I was actually out of town, and it was about a housing issue, and I wrote her back and I said, you know, I don't understand, I don't like your tone. Antenna to an antenna was something I spoke about a lot. So my point was that we could express ourselves aggressively, but we could still maintain people's dignity. And I know in an academic environment, some people feel that that's censorship. Anyhow, she would take an excerpt from my email and basically put it on social media, and people would be like, Oh my gosh, a student is asking about housing, and you are, you know, you know, being paternalistic, talking to her about antenna to antenna. What most people don't know is there was a story behind that. That same young lady a few months before, would ask me about getting her scholarship. Back. 00:20:00.509 --> 00:21:46.349 She had lost a scholarship, had filed an appeal, didn't get it approved, and I had published a financial aid office, especially since I was a student working in financial aid, that I would never overturn any of their decisions. And I remember calling the director and saying, listen, you have to forgive me, but I have to give the student her scholarship back. I think her grandmother died. I just felt an empathy, and so when I did that, that she looked me back a very nice email. I said to her, the one thing I always want you to remember is to pay it forward. Treat people well, even when you're in difficult circumstances, you know, try to communicate the people in a way that would make them feel better. And she said, Oh, anything I could do to help, please let me know. This would be the same student who would basically blast me on social media, and, as the young people say, would drag me, etc. And I remember going to my board when the whole thing kind of blew up, and I said to them, listen, this is the story behind the story, story I would not tell publicly while she's a student, and they were, you know, I could tell they were disappointed, etc. A few months later, this probably happened in February or March. A few months later, in the summer, guess who would contact me again via an email, same student making the same request, and I quietly told the team that we were going to give her back a scholarship again, and they were looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. And I said to them, it was an educational institution. If young people can't come here and make mistakes or errors in judgment, then we should close because it means that we've decided who they are already. We have a pre fabricated notion of how they should behave, and we don't have an interest in influencing them. 00:21:46.994 --> 00:22:44.625 And that really seems to align with the core values that you have at Howard University, which is really about the growth mindset, not a fixed mindset, as we in higher ed like to quote Carol Dweck, work and your your values were excellence, leadership, service and truth. And I guess my question now is to provide for us your perspective on, how do we best develop people with moral authority to hopefully go into positions of formal authority so that we do have, and maybe the the end of the story of the young student that you gave a second chance to, how that evolved into maybe someone who has a bit more moral leadership that hopefully will aspire to formal authority positions and pay it forward as you have in your life. 00:22:45.464 --> 00:22:50.625 Yeah, you know, most of that moral authority lays lies within us. 00:22:46.724 --> 00:22:55.289 It is what we do when no one is looking, and ultimately what she would do with that experience. 00:22:55.289 --> 00:22:58.170 She's the only person other than me that would know that story. 00:22:58.410 --> 00:23:57.000 We have to continuously be open to educating our young people in an honest way. There are truths and facts. There's no doubt about that, but there also are interpretations of truths and facts. They lived experiences that challenge our truths and facts, and I think we should always be willing to recognize that, and as we lay out those truths and facts to young people, we should always say to them as well, this is what we know it to be today. Let's be very clear. Part of the reason you're here there was a challenge here is to make sure that you know you see it from a different way, and that when you close your door and you by yourself, and you have to make those tough decisions, that all of those things that go into factoring you know how you make those decisions, and that ultimately, is where the ultimate moral authority comes from. It doesn't come from the big speeches. It doesn't come from the big grand ceremonies. 00:23:52.740 --> 00:24:10.484 It comes from those quiet moments when you're alone and you have to make that tough decision and you can't explain every single factor in that tough decision, but you know, ultimately, you've made that tough decision, you've made it to that moral authority that resided within you. 00:24:11.325 --> 00:24:28.049 President Wayne Frederick, I have one more question for our listeners as we round out this, HOW Conversation on moral leadership, and that is with everything happening in the world. You know, moral leaders, ultimately, are purveyors of hope. What at this moment in time is giving you hope for the future? 00:24:28.470 --> 00:25:19.500 Hope is the anticipation of tomorrow and at every day as a cancer savior, what we get to do is to grant people hope, regardless of how slim led hope is. We see people in peril, people who have the world against them, people for whom tomorrow may bring pain knowingly, and who still want to anticipate that tomorrow. And ultimately, that hope is what we want to breathe in young people, I continue to have that optimism and that hope because of the two young people that I've had the opportunity to wear. And I have a 19 year old son who was at Duke and doing very well, and my 17 year old daughter, who's just committed to Columbia she wants to be an orthopedic surgeon, those two young people in my house, I think, are anticipating her tomorrow, where other people have their humanity amplified, and so I will never lose hope. 00:25:20.400 --> 00:26:04.470 I want to say thank you for the hope you've instilled in each and every one of our listeners, doctor president, Wayne Frederick, thank you so much for what you are doing to elevate humanity. I know that our listeners and I included, are elevated to go pay it forward and to be part of this wave of moral leadership, you have been a terrific contributor and continue to be for the HOW Institute for Society. So on behalf of our founder and our chair, Dov Seidman, and the entire HOW team and all of our listeners, thank you very much, and we wish you all the best in this sabbatical transition. We know you're going to keep making great contributions, and we are eternally grateful. 00:26:05.369 --> 00:26:07.019 Thank you. 00:26:05.369 --> 00:26:07.019 Thanks for having me.