E44: Virginia State University Builds Careers Through Relationships Rather Than Degrees

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And now, from the Blue Ridge PBS Studios in Roanoke, Virginia, it's the Virginians of Interest Podcast with your hosts, Brian Campbell and Carthen Curran.
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Hello, and welcome to the Virginians of Interest Podcast.
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My name is Brian Campbell.
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I'm here with my friend Carthen Curran, who will introduce a special guest.
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Thank you, Brian.
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We are delighted to have with us today Jonathan Young, who happens to be an old friend of mine who is currently with has been for many years with Virginia State University.
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Welcome, Jonathan.
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Carthen, thank you.
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And Brian, terrific to see you too, my friend.
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Thank you.
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Give us a little background, Jonathan, on where you grew up, where you're from, and then we'll get into your your your role at uh VSU and also the history of the university.
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Yeah, thank you, Carthen.
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Yeah, St.
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Mary's baby, born, raised, lived my entire life right here in Richmond, the city.
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Uh spent four years undergrad down at William Mary, four very special years, then came back to town to go to grad school at Virginia Commonwealth and um and have never departed.
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No really interest in uh in living anywhere else.
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I love um I love Virginia and the city of Richmond to uh to my core, even in the the bad days uh uh that we can all recall.
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I was still champing, advocating for uh for the city when I think few few others were.
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But uh yeah, spent uh spent a lot of time in politics, uh staffing the office of the governor, ran for office, um uh did did that for uh for a long time, running political campaigns, uh uh ran for office, served myself, and um for the last uh almost two decades been at Virginia State University and um thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy my experience there, partnering with some very special young people to uh to make extraordinary things happen.
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Tell us a little bit about your job at VSU, and then we'll break into some other stuff.
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But tell us what what your title is and how you would describe what it is that you do for VCU.
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I also I would like to how how that how did that path start uh your VSU?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, uh well the truth the truth is in in 2007, went down to VSU and uh and the gentleman that I interviewed for, he was uh he's since retired, but our then our chief operating officer, and he looked at me, he said, Why are you why are you coming here?
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And uh and uh I retorted in the only way that I knew how, which was to be honest and authentic, and I said, I wanted to go somewhere where I could go all in and uh and truly take ownership.
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I'm an INTJ, and so uh if you know anything about uh us, we're um we uh we're we're we're entrepreneurs in everything that we do.
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And um and so director of corporate relations at Virginia State University, it's um opportunity for me to to uh to really matchmake.
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If um if in a in a word or two, uh how would I describe my job?
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It's to leverage my relationships with uh with with persons in industry, industry for the benefit of our students.
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So uh, for example, in a semester of yours truly, we'll host over 250 companies in the classroom, uh, but not to not to stand in front of the room to to lecture, to give a presentation, but instead to uh to interface in a really intimate way with with young professionals.
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Uh and the objective really in everything that I do, whether it's uh talent acquisition or marketing or or taking students off campus uh to mix it up with persons in industry, I'll be doing that in in just an hour from now.
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Um my objectives are threefold.
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It's one to refine our students' soft skills or interpersonal skills, two, to augment their career awareness, and then three, to develop their real real world skills.
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Uh gentlemen, I probably don't need to tell either of you that uh this generation, uh, God bless them, uh the Z, uh they have a lot of headwinds uh against them.
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Um it's uh I'm particularly concerned uh because of what, for example, artificial intelligence is is already materializing in um uh as it relates to, for example, job displacement for young people, for persons just starting their career right out of school.
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Anyhow, that's probably a subject for another day.
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But my point is to say that um I truly, truly believe to my core that uh someone who lived about 2,500 years ago on the other other side of the planet, Confucius said it this way said, I hear and I forget, I see, I remember, I experience and I understand.
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Uh Jonathan, uh so you grew up in Richmond, uh and that's yeah, yeah, that's right.
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Yeah, St.
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Mary's baby.
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In fact, on the campaign trail at somebody at his door, I think I even met the nurse, uh, she retired, of course, but uh who delivered me.
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Uh that's uh the benefit of Richmond.
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Uh, you know, it's uh I've always said it's um it's a large enough town, but not not too large.
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Um and while you never talk bad about anybody because you surely uh you'll surely uh bump into somebody who's friends with them.
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Uh yeah, I'm a Richmond boy through and through.
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Uh grew up in the city, lived my whole life here, excluded four years, down in Williamsburg for undergrad.
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Uh came back to grad school at Virginia Commonwealth University, uh, worked in politics for a long time, uh staffed from the office of the governor, uh ran political campaigns, ran for office, served myself, and for the last two decades been down at Virginia State University uh and uh thoroughly enjoyed every every moment of it.
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Tell us your title at Virginia State and what it is that you do at Virginia State.
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Yeah, thank you, Brian.
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Director of corporate relations, and in a few words or or less, my objective is to matchmake.
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Uh I believe in experiential education and uh and everything that I do pertains to three objectives.
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One is to refine our students' soft skills or interpersonal skills, two, to augment their career awareness so that they're more savvy consumers, relevant to all the kind of career opportunities out there.
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And then three, to develop real world skills.
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So, how do we do that?
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Well, for example, uh yours truly, uh, this semester we'll host over 300 companies in the classroom to coach, to facilitate.
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Uh, I really take hold to a uh quote that uh somebody a lot smart smarter than me uh 2,500 years ago said, um, halfway across the planet, specifically Confucius, when he said that I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I experience and I understand.
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Uh so part of uh what we're doing at Virginia State University that uh that candily is a radical departure from other education models is to afford our students access to hundreds of persons representative of all kinds of careers.
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And in doing that, our objective is to afford them a kind of education that comports with uh what that uh what that wise scholar and and philosopher said 2,500 years ago.
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Uh my my personal opinion on this subject is that uh the education in in Virginia is broken.
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Uh and that's uh that's not limited to K-12 and or higher education.
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Too much of uh what we're doing is uh chalk talk.
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It's somebody standing in front of a room, it's lecturing, it's uh it's not meaningless the students, i.e.
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the customer where they're at.
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Um and it's all nonsense.
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And uh and candidly, um you need not look at any um anything more than some of our uh some of our score data.
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Um it's uh it's trash if you compare us vis-a-vis the rest of the industrialized world.
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Um we've gear trailing nearly everyone uh as it pertains to uh as it pertains to critical thinking, math, science, uh writing, uh reading.
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Uh so you know how do you um how do you flip the script on that?
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It's to um allow people to see uh my my my opinion is it's allow allow folks to see how to score a touchdown, right?
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Um I share with my students all the time that if you don't know where the end line is, you probably are not you're probably not gonna get in the end zone, right?
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And too infrequently do we uh as educators um do an adequate job of articulating uh what they're doing in the classroom and how it connects to uh what their objectives in life pertain to.
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As a follow-up, Jonathan, can you can you tell us what what your what is Virginia State doing differently that perhaps other institutions of Virginia aren't doing?
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And and I would say uh the vast majority of your incoming class would be first generation.
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Is that a fair statement, college?
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Yeah, that's right.
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Uh so uh b both of you gentlemen know that we were founded in 1882, or a historically black college and university in southern southern Chesterfield County, Etric specifically on the Appomattox River.
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And uh about 70% of our students are Virginians.
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They come from right here in the Commonwealth, uh, and a significant percentage right here in 804, uh central Virginia.
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Uh so on average, uh on average, a little over four out of ten of those students are first generation.
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They're first in immediate family to attend college.
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A significant percentage of those students are originating from uh from households, very uh very modest um socioeconomic background.
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And um, and so what are we doing differently?
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Uh, I can tell you a reference that the top of the hour, I went to one of the most lead institutions, if I may brag, on the alma mater, uh in the world.
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Um William and Mary, 1693.
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Um I can't say enough complimentary things about um where I went to school, but the truth is the culture at Virginia State University and William Mary are radically different in this way.
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Um when I was at William and Mary, uh I didn't I didn't have I didn't have a uh I didn't have a faculty or staff mentor.
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Um I don't know that any of my my colleagues really um benefited from a kind of culture like at Virginia State University where it's open door culture.
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You just walk in and you can loiter in somebody's office and benefit from uh from from their from their years, their more uh tenure on the planet.
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Um so what are we doing differently?
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We have a we have a kind of approach that uh that meets people where they're at and introduces them to industry in a way that uh that that I only wish more institutions of higher learning would emulate.
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It it really relates to, I'm unsure if I addressed our three objectives, um i.e.
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to refine our student soft skills, to to augment the career awareness, and then to develop real world skills.
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Uh the truth is that um the modern the modern classroom looks radically different than what uh what uh any of the three of us had any familiarity with when we were in in either uh K-12 or higher education.
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Uh and uh I'm unsure that folks fully comprehend, uh I know I cannot, how the world is is going to change in just the next few years.
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Uh artificial intelligence, automation, robotics is uh machine learning is going to transform how each of us interface with every part of uh what we do in a day in day in and day out.
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Um and what does that mean for the workplace?
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Um I you know my opinion on the matter is it's gonna be radical.
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We already are experiencing uh an increased unemployment.
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Um I'm not referring to Virginia State University, but just nationwide, uh, of persons uh who are graduating from four-year schools and experiencing some difficulty in securing employment because of because of AI.
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Um that's a that's a long uh that's a long subject.
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I could get on my soapbox.
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Um, but to the point is it's all about relationships.
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I invite all of my students, day one, to finish a sentence for me.
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It's not always what you know, but it's and they know it, it's who you know.
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Um Jonathan, tell me a little bit about, you know, I think at right now there's a lot of questions, the value of higher education.
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Um, how is it you go to work every day at a historically black college and deal with not only the value of higher education, but also trying to place these really talented students?
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Yeah, well, first let me begin by affirming your assessment.
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You're 100% correct as it relates to Americans have lost their faith and confidence in higher education.
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If you look at any public opinion polling, uh the percentage of Americans who say that a four-year degree is worth it have diminished significantly.
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And uh and why, for example, right now, Virginia is among the places that uh that are uh looking at three-year degrees in lieu of four four-year degrees.
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So um stay tuned.
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Um that's that's on horizon.
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Uh yeah, so um how do we address that?
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Uh by uh doing something radically different, by uh sharing with young persons and their parents and their guardians that if after four years a young person, their son or daughter, uh, graduates from Virginia State University with just a degree, we will truly will have failed them.
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Instead, we want them to depart with the degree and of course all the knowledge, skills, and abilities that accompany it, but what's more with a portfolio of persons, hundreds of persons that know them and they know them in return, i.e., our objective is to introduce young people to hundreds of persons representative of all kinds of careers.
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And in doing that, when they leave, they never have to stand in line at the front door waiting for a job.
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Instead, our objective is to facilitate matchmaking, to open that side door or even back door to afford persons an opportunity to go right into the kind of careers that they that they pursued when in when in school.
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So my point is to say that yes, uh, if you just leave with the degree, uh then I'm unsure that um that that value proposition makes makes sense anymore.
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But if instead you leverage the opportunity to instead uh meet all these kinds of persons and uh obtain internships, shadow to uh take on leadership opportunities, often volunteer, then the value equation is something very different.
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One one last follow-up on that is how many students are there in Virginia State?
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And you obviously can't serve every student, so who are the students that you end up interacting with?
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Yeah, 5,500.
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So on average, um we anticipate for this semester about 5,500 students.
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We're predominantly undergrad institution.
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We do have graduate programs, including uh a newly launched MBA.
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Yours truly will work with at about a thousand.
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So about a thousand students are responsible.
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And those are counting and finance and management and marketing and uh information systems, I IT, uh HR, so mostly business students, and uh and then other folks who um who because of their uh uh their determination and discipline and uh and uh their enthusiasm to to meet folks in industry.
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Uh the truth is uh if if you're on the Virginia State University campus and uh and your objective is to is to meet persons in industry, then then I want to know who you are so we can plug you in.
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But about a thousand of them, Mustard.
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Uh and most of the student body was Virginian.
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Is that a fair statement?
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Yeah, that's right.
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That's correct.
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That's correct.
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So 70%, about 70% of our students arrived from right here in the Commonwealth.
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Uh a large percentage right here in A to Four.
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And but um but yeah, we um mostly, as you would guess, uh from Northern Virginia, Richmond, and and Tidewater.
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Uh the balance I'm sorry.
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Oh no, I'm sorry.
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Uh the uh the the balance um mostly northeast, a lot of folks from from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, um, some folks from the Carolinas, but um but correct.
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Uh seven seventy percent of our students are Virginians.
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Jonathan?
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So Jonathan, you were describing the uh big capital uh improvements and growth with new buildings and renovations of Virginia State, and you indicated most of the student body is lives on campus, your residential campus, and I would tell our listeners that it's a it's a beautiful campus.
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Um especially the older part of the campus is really very special.
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But if you wanted to describe that, then I wanted to get into a little bit after this uh all the growth and uh wonderful excitement that's happening in Petersburg and how the university is a part of that new growth, a new spirit of uh business development.
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Since 1882.
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Uh, but I can tell you I've been there nearly two decades at Virginia State University, and uh it's an unprecedented expenditure relevant to capital.
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$700 million.
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Uh we are experiencing a boom.
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5,500 students and more than half uh reside on campus.
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As relates to Petersburg, yeah, uh we are proud partners.
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Uh in fact, uh former uh former governor uh you know had an initiative called Partnership for Petersburg, and Virginia State University played a uh a key role there too.
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But uh between what is being done as it relates to, for example, the pharmaceutical initiative and um and Virginia State University's role therein, or right across uh right across the Appomattox from us at uh the Hotel Petersburg.
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The point is that Virginia State University is invested in seeing Petersburg do well, and uh we couldn't be prouder of our relationship with uh with our friends um across the Appomattox.
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And and I should add that look, a lot of my colleagues uh they are playing a big role there too.
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Uh one of my colleagues uh at Virginia State University that I regularly work with is is on city council.
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Another of my colleagues you regularly uh work with, see every day.
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She's uh she's on the school board.
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Uh so we uh we're hand in glove with what uh with what City of Petersburg is aiming to achieve.
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And uh we're uh we're super proud of their uh their many achievements and uh and uh we know they are of ours.
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When Petersburg does well, Virginia State does well, and conversely, when Virginia State well does well, Petersburg the same.
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You know, talking about the investments, uh historic investments, some of this has been in the last five years a bit of a renaissance with HBCUs, where um the UC some people like McKinsey Scott and other folks has part of been your the the rebuilding or the the sort of investment in um Virginia State been both private money and state money.
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Yeah, that's that's correct.
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We have that Virginia State University really benefited from an acknowledgement that uh that Virginia State Universities needed now more than ever.
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And it um it really speaks to uh what we addressed a moment ago, i.e., what is the value proposition for higher ed in 2026 and going forward?
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Uh so to your point, yes, we have been able to uh deleverage uh a lot of public dollars.
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Uh obviously we're a state institution, but uh we've been able to benefit from uh a lot of philanthropy and folks uh putting um putting their money where their mouth is and putting and uh really investing in Virginia State University in an unprecedented way.
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And um and what materializes because of that uh is student achievement.
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You touched on McKenzie, Scott Bryan.
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Didn't you uh receive uh a grant from Herb, uh nonprofit.
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We we we we did.
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We did.
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Um that would be uh a modest way to uh describe it.
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Yeah, we uh tens of millions of dollars and um and we were um we were able to put those those monies to to use immediately.
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Some of uh some of those dollars obviously um we're investing for the benefit of of scholarships and other other dollars uh we're leveraging for um for improving our infrastructure and um and instruction.
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Um even just last week, um yours truly uh spent some time in a brand new academic innovation center, and uh we're super proud of uh of what we will achieve.
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Uh both of you gentlemen have um a lot of experience in um in working with higher education, and you know that too frequently in the past, institutions of higher learning were often guilty of operating in silos.
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That's not limited to higher ed, but the point is the right hand often not knowing what the left hand is doing.
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But um schools become better when there's cross pollination, when you've got folks that are working, for example, when persons that are engineers are working with folks in business, or folks that are working at an agriculture or are working with uh with engineering.
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And so uh we really uh are attempting to shift the needle, move the needle in a big way.
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And um and there are a lot of there are a lot of paradigms or models for how to to do this.
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But at Virginia State University, we're very entrepreneurial.
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And like any good entrepreneur, you got to um you got to tinker underneath the car a little bit and um and see what works.
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We're doing uh we're doing that with a lot of success.
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And folks, uh Brian, to your point, they're acknowledging it and uh and they're investing in us accordingly.
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Let me ask one quick follow-up.
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You said something a minute ago that I found interesting and that was uh you know a lot of your kids are from Virginia but you still have this pipeline to the Northeast.
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Isn't that a historic thing amongst uh historically black colleges, particularly in the South, that the perception was that there was this really great that they did a great job of branding, particularly with uh folks in the Northeast that send your child to to the to Virginia or North Carolina and receive this not only a good degree, but maybe they thought the environment was also more conducive for them.
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Is that historic and can you explain that a little bit?
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Yeah, you're you're correct.
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I swear I think one in ten of my students are from Brooklyn.
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Just Brooklyn?
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Just Brooklyn.
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Yeah.
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Yeah it is historic.
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It's um it it it really relates to uh that there really aren't historically black or there are fewer historically black colleges and universities as a percent uh as a percentage of people in the in the Northeast.
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And so yeah uh for uh forever folks have uh sought to uh depart the um uh the busy the busy life of uh New York City or other places and come to a more tranquil place um down south i.e.
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in etrick virginia and uh and because of it um we uh we we do have a pipeline i think that's the appropriate nomenclature um if um and yours truly i've i've uh participated in uh recruiting events in in new york city specifically and uh when you meet people they tell you oh yeah we know about virginia state university my cousin went there or uh my my my aunt or uncle and so uh it's um it's something that a few years ago to be honest uh yours truly was a little concern was a little concerned about only because uh the new yate legislature adopted some uh new laws that incentivize new york state students in a big way to stay home uh but uh we've been able to continue to bring people down here and uh and i i I really I uh I say in I guess a little just one in ten but it's it's darn close to that I think are from just from uh the borough of uh of Brooklyn.
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That's fine.
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In fact I was at a dinner at your beautiful convocation center several months ago it was with the Russell Solomon uh dinner which is a Brunswick count excuse me Brunswick County organization.
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Anyway there were some students there and the two that were at my table from both were from uh Brooklyn which Brooklyn that that's uh uh I I wish uh I wish I had a nickel for uh for every uh my students in the last two decade two decades who I think the world of and uh that are from Brooklyn indeed um I uh we have uh a lot of very very special people from uh from Virginia and um a lot of uh extraordinary superstars too from uh from New York and New Jersey and and Maryland but also uh other places that you probably wouldn't would be surprised by for example we have a pipeline from Chicago we have a a a a I wouldn't describe it a pipeline but we regularly benefit from students from Las Vegas I just met a young person who get ready to start in uh in a couple of weeks from uh from um from Sin City so yeah we um we we got students uh like you would guess from the obvious spots but also from from all around the country but also from all around the world we have a lot of students from West Africa a lot of folks from the Caribbean uh so um it's um virginia state university has a has a lot of diversity as it relates to place of origin and where folks are coming from well the next time you do a uh travel trip to Brooklyn let Braun and I know we could we'd love to go with it surely will yeah uh real quick a little backstory on the McKenzie Scott gift what how did that how how did that develop what's the backstory on how it developed I mean did she just call one day if you're at liberty to say if you're at liberty to say right right well I I I think I'm at liberty to say because our president said it publicly uh so um so I'll do it on the podcast.
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Um uh our president mikola abdullah um we've benefited from his leadership for a decade now um and uh the university is experiencing unprecedented growth uh and we can attribute that in large part to his leadership uh received a phone call and uh it it was um news uh that um uh from McKenzie Scott that um that uh she would like to uh she would like to donate a significant sum uh tens of millions of dollars to Virginia State University.
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So uh I you know uh one kudos to uh to our team at Virginia State University uh to um the picking up the phone and saying yes um but um an enormous uh thanks and gratitude to uh McKenzie Scott and to her team for acknowledging the value of historically black colleges and universities in particular we uh I mean to be candid we were surely not the only HBCU that um benefited from uh from her uh her gifts um but uh it is uh an affirmation that um that we're doing some something right um many somethings right at Virginia State University.
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Speaking of which did she uh I can't recall did she do something for Hampton University or Virginia Union University or was it just BSU Yeah if um yeah Mara correct yeah if my recollection is correct um yes there were multiple HBCUs in in uh in the Commonwealth that benefited from uh from from her gifts uh so we um we're uh we would we would like to think that we were first and foremost among that list uh but um uh truth is um like John F.
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Kennedy uh said um so many decades ago uh rising tide lifts all all ships and so we uh we recognize that um historically a lot of college and universities are playing a critical role in um in what's gonna constitute this uh this this new this new world and um a world where um because of machine learning um it's more important let me s let me say it uh this it's more important than ever that historical black college universities in our culture that prioritizes relationship building matchmaking open door culture uh customer is always right uh that institutions of higher learning that uh that understand that it's not just a degree but it's also that portfolio of people that you meet when in school that matters uh in a world where the computer can do just about everything faster quicker and better than a human the one thing that artificial intelligence cannot yet do better than a human is be a human.
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Let me uh and that's why yeah go ahead I'm gonna um we're gonna wrap up here in just a second but I'm gonna ask a quick question I'm gonna make a statement and you tell me whether I'm accurate or not.
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I used to work at Iowa State the Morrill Land Grant Act which was just after the Civil War sold a lot of federal lands to fund a uh university system across our country primarily focused on agriculture mechanical things as we began to foresee what became the Industrial Revolution.
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Isn't it correct that in Southern states there was the requirement that there that there also be a historically black land grant school in addition to whatever the primary land grant school so in Virginia that was the Virginia Tech and Virginia State is that correct?
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That's correct and uh and the truth is that even to today a lot of folks uh are not familiar with that relationship.
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Uh Virginia Tech and Virginia State University are party to something called the Virginia Cooperative Extension and we share the same mission uh and that uh that mission has not diminished um since the 19th century one bit.
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Uh specifically Virginia Tech they um they do a lot of the big cattle farming folks have perhaps more familiarity with um with what they're doing in agriculture but Virginia State University's role is no less for example we are the preeminent aquaculture school a lot of folks do not know that Virginia State University has a farm and not just a farm but we've got more than 400 acres of a farm we've got something like 60 ponds and tens of thousands of pounds.
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Let me say that again tens of thousands of pounds of catfish and tilapia and freshwater shrimp weird.
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So if you're in the if you're in the fish business um Virginia State University is um is is is your school um land um land grant pertains to our small agreement um so uh that's that's the goats the sheep uh so yes um it is um uh uh folks that reside in Virginia should know that um that Virginia agriculture and forestry constitute our principal export uh still to this day and the BSU and Virginia Tech are instrumental there too.
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Well let me ask my final question then I'm gonna turn over to Carson for his final question then we'll wrap up who's the biggest rival for Virginia State in sports Union.
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Virginia Union for sure okay yeah virgin Virginia Union um is uh is is our um biggest competitor in the CIAA but if um if you the the truth is outside of the conference if you uh talk to any of our students andor alums they'll tell you it's it's all it's all about Norfolk State.
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We uh we play him we play him every year and uh and every year darn it we seem to come up like a field goal short uh but uh but perhaps uh that that'll that'll turn soon great cart and Brian and I look forward to coming to a football game with you Jonathan yep sir we can let me know when talk about that later uh my final question is the all the exciting things that I mentioned earlier about Petersburg and what's been happening the pharmaceutical uh growth the emerging pharma uh presence there but also I think it's the Cornish development company that's developing a uh casino project a large one just south of campus does VSU have a hospitality major are you all uh interval involved with that development and will have a part to play we do yeah uh first as it relates to pharmaceuticals um yeah um the the the kind of capital that's being invested in tri cities in the city of Petersburg um in particular but uh but really all across uh Virginia is um uh is is really means for enthusiasm and um we're super excited about Virginia State University and are plugged in uh we do have a hospital management program and uh and yes we are partnering at uh one of my one of my favorite students uh Brian just inquired about football he he he he was a running back on our team taekwon evans a accounting major um just finished his MBA uh was just hired as a uh as uh as an accountant a revenue manager down there at the casino uh so yes uh they are on our campus they're recruiting and um and we are uh uh ensuring that they have access to uh the human capital um so that they uh succeed in uh in increasing coffers for the city of Petersburg thank you very much Jonathan we very much appreciated you being with us today on Virginians of interest and we look forward to having you back sometime in the future Brian well that's it gentlemen the pleasure all mine thank you Jonathan thank you for listening to the Virginians of interest podcast if you've liked what you heard today please like and subscribe this podcast thank you for listening to the Virginians of interest podcast to hear other episodes of this podcast head to Virginiansofinters dot com