 Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German or Turk or Japanese, but anyone from any corner of the earth can come to live in America and become an American. Welcome back to A Nation of Immigrants, a new talk show program featuring the lives of immigrants, knowledge, diversity, and inclusion, created by Saint Tank, Hawaii, and the Kingsfield Law Office. We invite renowned immigrants to discuss their life stories, immigration adventures, and contributions to cultural diversity. Today is our distinguished honor and a pleasure to have Mr. Stephen Traktunberg, President Emeritus of Georgia Washington University to be our distinguished guest. Welcome, President Traktunberg. Thank you, Professor, I appreciate being here. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation to be our guest. You have a very long and accomplished career. If we do it normal way, read the guest biography, it takes five days, so I'm going to read just, with your permission, we just read a shorter version of your biography. Stephen Traktunberg is President Emeritus and a university professor of public service at Georgia Washington University. He served as 15th president of the GWU for nearly two decades, from 1988 to 2007. He came to GWU from the University of Hartford, where he had been president for 11 years. Before assuming the presidency of Hartford, he served as eight years at Boston University as vice president for academic services and academic dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Earlier in Washington, DC, he was special assistant for two years to the United States Education Commissioner, Department of Health Education and Welfare. He has been an attorney with the US Atomic Energy Commission and the Legislative Aid to former Indiana congressman, John Brandemas. At the GWU, Mr. Traktunberg started a full scholarship program for DC public school students, increased the national profile of the university and fostered the observance of school traditions such as Georgia Washington, Georgia Washington's birthday celebration. During his tenure as president of the university, he created five new schools, public health and public services, public policy and public administration, College of Professional Studies, Graduate School of Political Management and Media and Public Affairs. The university renamed the School of Public Policy for Mr. Traktunberg, calling it Traktunberg School of Public Policy at GWU. He is author of numerous books, including the art of hiring in American colleges and universities, thinking out loud, reflections on higher education, speaking his mind and big man on campus, among others. Mr. Traktunberg received 16 honorary degrees in greeting an honorary degree of law degree from Columbia University, a doctor of public service degree from the Georgia Washington University, an honorary doctor of public administration degree from South Korea's Kenji University and another doctor of law degree from Hanyang University, an honorary doctor of community degree from University of Harvard. Mr. Traktunberg is also a recipient of Alice Island Medal of Honor. He is a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Welcome again. This is just a shorter version of your bio. Thank you. President Traktunberg, your life spans several decades. There are so many accomplishments and we can only name just a few. But today, our topic is you, obviously, including your career, but we also want to talk about you, your family and your life. So I understand your second generation, you're cleaning America. Could you please tell us a little bit about your family and how did they settle in the United States? Well, they came after the, they came shortly after the revolution. And... 1918-1919, something like that. And they came in bits and parts. I mean, my grandfather came and then he brought other members of the family over. And of course, there were different stories on my father's side and different stories on my mother's side. My mother's family came from Odessa and the Ukraine, first to Palestine. It was then British Mandate Palestine. And frankly, they lived in a tent in Tel Aviv, back in the day. My grandfather tried to make a living, was not successful, came to the United States, opened a hand laundry in the Bronx and slept in the back of the laundry. And ultimately saved enough money to send for his wife and children, among them my mother. My father's family came also originally from Odessa but they came directly to the United States and my parents met in New York at some sort of social event. And here we are. So you grew up in New York? I grew up in Brooklyn. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. We lived in a one bedroom apartment in an apartment house. My parents, for obvious reasons, took the bedroom and I slept on a fold-out cot behind the piano in the living room. That's quite a story. You were born in the United States and but you have this very strong cultural background. So when you grew up, were you feel like you have a different cultural heritage or you were just very much mixed in this big app already? Well, I grew up in a community of first generation young people. Almost all of my friends were first generation. Their parents came from Turkey. They came from Russia. They came from different parts of Europe, Lithuania, France. But my age group were all first generation and with the exception of my wife, it was third generation and claims that she's the authentic American in the family. But everybody's parents had some kind of an accent. One of my best friends was a kid named Richie Anderson whose parents were Scandinavian and spoke with very thick accent and when my mother and his mother used to get together, you needed an interpreter to understand what they were saying to each other. And his father had a fishing boat out of Sheepside Bay. My father sold life insurance. So we were all sort of lower, lower middle class. Nobody was missing any meals but we didn't have a lot of money. Understood. From my heavy accent, you can probably knew that I'm from also without the part of the word. But when I hear people speaking accent, I understand that they learned the language by reading and I have a respect for that. But obviously there are some people when they hear people speak in heavy accent or even a slight accent, they close their ears and they find it's very difficult to communicate. So I'm delighted to know that you grew up in an immigrant's community. But out of these communities, you have an amazing career and you are one of the most successful descendants of immigrants I've ever met. You have been the leader of three very prestigious organizations and you honestly, it is my belief that you transformed George W. University in a profound way and make George Washington University a world-class university during your tenure. And you also are a very accomplished scholar and author, you published five books. And I really appreciate the two copies you gave to me and I read it with great interest. Among all these books, which books is your favorite? Oh, well thank you. First of all, for your very kind words, I really appreciate it. I think you're being too generous, but I'm gonna take the compliment. I think speaking his mind is probably the most interesting book, the books I've written. The others tend to be sort of professional, they're books about higher education. So as a professor, of course, you would appreciate some of what I've done and others in the business, so to speak, if I can use that word about the academy, would as well. They are largely observations about what I think are shortcomings or virtues of American universities. And many of them are speeches that I've crafted into book chapters, which I gave at various events and occasions. But speaking his mind is in the nature of an autobiography or and I think regular non-professorial people would find that the most interesting. Thank you very much. I definitely will. We'll read that book with great interest as well. You mentioned that some of your books are about professional, which I take as you talk about the higher education as an administrator and the leader of higher education. And some of a book, at least one book of yours mentioned the hiring for the university and college leaders. Yes. I understand that they are, normally there are two methods to choose an institutional leader, not limited to higher educational institutions, whether it is a university or a company. So method one, hire someone with leadership experience from another institution. That I think look at your career is very much like your case. You were vice president of a major university, then you became a president of another university, then you became a president of a third university. That a second method is elevate somebody, normally a dean or a vice president from the institution then promoted her or him to be the leader of the institution. Yes. What are the advantages and disadvantages or what's your general comments of these two different approaches in choosing leaders? And or are there any other way to choose a leader? Yes. Well, I think each institution is going to have a different fact situation. Different things are gonna be happening at different institutions at different times. And therefore there is no one solution. There's no answer, I guess that's really right for your question unless you know more about the context in which the question fits the institution that's seeking the president. So you can imagine circumstances in which it's important that they hire somebody that they know because there's some crisis on the campus and it's gonna be reassuring to pick somebody who has been there for 10 years or 20 years and that they've come to trust and who knows the ins and outs of that institution. Or you may have an institution that is desperately in need of change and they really need to bring somebody in who has had vision at another institution has seen other institutions and experienced how they have done things and will bring a new perspective, a new lens to the institution. So I don't have a specific answer, but obviously you look for people of character, you look for people of vision, you look for people ultimately of courage. This change is very daunting. People like progress, but they don't like change. And so if you come to a university with some notion that you're going to change it, you're gonna discover that the nice professors, students, alumni, staff are gonna be against it. They don't like it, it makes them uncomfortable. It forces them to reinvent themselves. And therefore, you need to bring that sort of experience with you in order to be able to be persuasive and you need people skills in the end. I have never believed that university presidents had to be the smartest people in the room. I leave that to the faculty. I am modest about my own academic abilities. They were good enough, but I was never marked to be a Nobel Prize winner. And what I had were political skills and they went back to grade school. I was president of something or the other at PS 254 in Brooklyn and then president of the student body at James Madison High School. And my skills could have been applied in various contexts. I could have been in hospital administration. I could have been in politics. And I think that's true in picking university leadership as well. And in fact, I think a university president who thinks that he or she is the smartest person in the room is likely gonna head into a problem because the faculty are likely to have somebody who is smarter than you are. Very well said. Thank you so much. Is that there are a lot of, you know, to digest. I'm going to think it through because, you know, I always think about what to be a leader means and how do we choose a leader? And now we get to some on the lighter side that, you know, my wife went to George Washington University. I have a big George Washington University and Foggy Bottom have occupied a big place in our hearts. And I always want to ask the question about to the leader of the university, why Hippo? The Hippo has been chosen as an unofficial mascot of George Washington University. You know, we have a golfer at the University of Minnesota and why Hippo? It's a Hippo you'll favorite animal. Hippo Pondimus actually are very vicious animals. We should, okay. And I think they are responsible for more deaths of human beings than any other animal in Africa. So they are not sweet. Do not think that of Hippo Pondimus. The answer is, it was totally accidental. My wife and I were sailing in Rhode Island and she was then the vice president of WETA, the Public Television Station in Washington. And they had some crisis and they called her up and said that we need you. And so she got on a plane and went back to Washington to deal with the problem. Leaving me as she likes to put it unattended. And so I was wandering around in Providence one morning and I came on a lot where they were selling remnants from buildings that had been torn down. And the vendor, the man who was running this place was very hospitable and he invited me in and we ended up spending most of the day together sitting in his workplace, having a couple of beers. And now the day was winding down and I got up to leave. I thanked him for hospitality, but I felt bad that I hadn't bought anything. So I looked around, I looked around his, the money had and I saw this Hippo Pondimus and so I bought it. And ultimately he shipped it to New England, from New England rather to Washington where I was living. And when it arrived, my wife turned it down. It was meant to be a surprise gift for her. She was so surprised that she didn't want it. So he said, look lady, I either have to leave it here in the street or take it back to Rhode Island. I can't just, you know, so she said, take it over to the university and give it to my husband, he ordered it. So my assistant, a woman named Rhoda Fisher, did a search around the campus and ultimately it found itself on a little pedestal in front of one of our buildings. And she said, what do we say about it? So we made up a story, absolute fiction. We made up a story that George Washington and Martha used to like to sit on the plantation at Mount Vernon and look at the Hippo Pondimus is swimming in the Potomac Group. Now, of course this is absolutely untrue. But we made up a bronze plaque that said that and we put it in front of the Hippo Pondimus. It was a grand practical joke. We had some fun. We thought we'd have the Hippo Pondimus there for a few weeks and then it would disappear again. And we'd give it to somebody to put in their garden or something. In any case, the students liked it. It became part of the mythology of the institution. And it sits in front of the Lisner Auditorium to this day. Yes, I saw it did fantastic story. It's a thank you so much for telling me that because I have been wondering that for years. And I'm surprised to learn that Hippo is quite a vicious animal. My favorite animal is dog. And I believe the dog is an angel sent by God to make us a better human being. But I think a hippo will be difficult to relate. Anyway, thank you so much for telling us the story. That's very, very funny and very, very interesting. I appreciate you. You call me professor. Yes, I'm a part-time professor and I was still teaching and I still have affiliations with several higher education institutions. But of course, my major is the talk show host in addition to practicing law and teaching. But my student has been always divided on the statement, the statement I'm going to read. The goal of education, particularly legal education is to preserve the status quo and perpetuate the hierarchy. So as an educator, what I want to ask you, the leader of higher education, what do you think is the goal of education? We went to law school. Law school don't want to train revolutionaries. We don't want to train any rebels. Though the progressive, there are exceptions, but everybody should know the law, thinking like a lawyer and to be a part of the system. But what about the whole educational system, the higher education? What's the primary purpose in your view? I think your students are right. I think the purpose of education, once you get past the basic skills of teaching people how to count and how to read, is to support the society, that the community that those students are being brought up in. Different countries have different goals. Different countries have different histories. They have different origin stories, different lenses that they are using. But I think basically every country, whether it's France or England or Russia or United States, its own national story is the purpose and maintaining that is the purpose of education. Now, obviously that's too simplistic left by itself. So there are different aspects of education that are addressing different parts of our agenda. Medical education, legal education are going to serve different parts of our society and the sciences are gonna be different than the social sciences, different than the humanities. They're gonna vary by communities. So, I would think that a university like Howard in Washington DC is going to have a commitment to America's African-American story and Julia is gonna have a commitment to music and art, dance and that's gonna be distinguishable from MIT or Caltech, which are devoted to engineering and the sciences. And so on and so on. So I think higher education and education at large serves so many different functions. But basically it's the support of the culture and the needs of our society, yes. Very good, thank you so much. Now I'm clear, there's no argument. We don't need to debate on a topic anymore. And we are running out of time but we normally end our program with two questions to our distinguished guests. The question one, if you were giving some advice to you in 20s, early 20s, the fresh out of college, what would you say? That obviously you are a little bit older than me and I do have a lot of advice I want to say to my early 20s myself. And as a second question, I want to hear your advice to yourself, your time travel permitted. Second question is, are there any particular books or movie you're enjoying these days you want to recommend to our audience? Okay, well the first thing I would say is you're going to get older and therefore you're going to get to a point in your life when you cannot work. I say this as a man who's going to be 85 in December and you're going to need money. And therefore if it's at all possible, you should start saving and you should start saving as young as is possible steadily, even if it's just small sums of money because the single most extraordinary thing in the world is compound interest. And if you are diligent about it, even small amounts of money will compound over time and be extraordinarily helpful in your later years. And since most of us don't want to be dependent on our children or on society to the extent that we can, we want to feel that we've made our own way in the world. I think that that is something that you want to have a young person understand. Compound interest is actually a magical idea and can transform your life. Thank you. Now, I read widely. I read three newspapers a day. I read the local Minneapolis newspaper. I read the Wall Street Journal. I read the New York Times. And I read everything from the Bible to essentially trashy contemporary mystery novel. When I was younger, I used to like to go into the bookstore and pick up a Robert Parker, for example, and I could read it standing in the bookstore. I would go through the book and until the bookstore man would say to me, hey, fella, he'd say, this isn't a library. He said, you know, buy it or put it back. So I think just general reading, but interestingly enough, I find reading the New York Times book review every Sunday. Oh, yes. The very satisfactory, is a very satisfactory experience. And it keeps in your mind, even as you get older and you start forgetting things, the names of authors that you've enjoyed in the past and books that you've read, because they are inevitably being referenced in one way or another in the book reviews that are being written about contemporary books. And sometimes I find I go back and reread books that I haven't read in many years. A book that you can read every year and never completely master it is Moby Dick. Yes, I agree. Yes. It's a tough one. Yeah, it's tough and it's long. And there are mysteries to be found in it constantly. Thank you so much, the president, for your wise advice and for your terrific recommendation. And most importantly, thank you so much for your time. It's really our distinguished honor and the pleasure to have you on our show. I look forward to continuing our discussion because there are so many questions I want to ask you about, about higher education, about the leadership and about the reading. So thank you again. Have a wonderful afternoon. Thank you. See you next time. Take care. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.