 and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books, Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, and it's about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the highly respected leader of Shamanad University. She is President Lynn Babington, and today we are going beyond college programs. Hey, President Lynn, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Thank you so much, Rusty. It's such a pleasure to be here. I've enjoyed your show and the folks you interview and learn lots about leadership every time, so it's a pleasure for me to be with you today. President Lynn, it's an honor for me to have you on the show today. You've been doing such great things leading Shamanad University, but can I first ask you if you can share about your background and then your journey before becoming President at Shamanad? Oh, I'd be happy to share that with you. I have a rather unusual background for a college president. I'm a nurse. I went to the University of Michigan and obtained a nursing degree. And from there, I cared for patients and critical care units in several places in the country. And eventually, I went back to school and I realized that what I really wanted to do was to be able to provide an environment for nurses to care for patients. So I earned an MBA and a Master's of Nursing Administration from the University of Washington and then moved on to running from a patient care services some major health care systems in San Francisco in Seattle and then in Boston. But always wherever I was, I always affiliated with a local university and I would teach health care economics and finance for many years to grad students and mentored graduate students. And at one point in my career, I was asked if I would come to a special project. So I took a leave of absence. I had formed a nonprofit organization for community health care settings in Boston. So I took this leave of absence and went to Northeastern University and did a special project and decided to sort of switch careers and go into academics as a faculty member, eventually a Dean of Nursing at Fairfield University, where I also was the Chief Academic Officer or the Provost. And then it was such a privilege for me to take on this role here in Hawaii as the President of Shamanide University of Fort La Lunga. President Lynn, we're so happy to have you here. It's just amazing hearing your journey up until this point. And can I ask you what lessons you learned as a nurse that really helps you as President of Shamanide? Well, I think as a nurse, you have to authentically care for people and be their advocate. And those particular skills are particularly advantageous for a leader anywhere to authentically care about the community. In my case, it's our students. They are first in everything we do. And advocate for our students, for our faculty and staff to be able to provide an environment where our students can learn the best. So I just think that there are so many synergies between being a nurse and being a college president. I can totally see that. And President Lynn, Shamanide University, you have such a great campus location with a beautiful view. Your faculty and students must absolutely love that, right? Well, they do absolutely love it. I will say one thing, though. It's not the beautiful campus they come here for. It really is our education. Our students from Hawaii, and that's where most of our students come from, and the Pacific Islands. Of course, they love our beautiful campus. And I must tell you, Rusty, the one thing they do complain about is the hills. And I always tell them, good exercise. You're not going to gain that extra weight in college if you're walking up and down the hills. So I feel no empathy, particularly, for people walking up and down the hills. But for our students from the mainland, they may come to Hawaii because of its beauty and, of course, the beaches. But they learn. They meet other folks here from Hawaii and from the Pacific Islands. And they make friendships. And they really learn about our culture and our history here in Hawaii. And it makes a difference in their entire lives. So we are so fortunate here to have such beauty. But it's really to set the stage for good learning in this Aina-based place that we live that's so important to us. You're so right about the hills. I mean, it's perfect exercise there, for sure. And President Lin, why are your undergraduate masters and doctoral programs gaining in popularity? Well, I think part of the reason is because we are a community-first institution, meaning it's important for us to partner with the community to be able to provide the programs that are needed. For example, when I first got here, formed a hui of health care professionals in hospitals, insurances, community health care settings that said, what do we need? And they talked about what we needed. Thus, we grew a program at the undergrad level in community and public health. And this was pre-COVID. And also our Doctor of Nursing Practice program. There's a primary care shortage of physicians and nurse practitioners and physician assistants here in Hawaii. And we are doing our part to educate family nurse practitioners and mental health nurse practitioners. So it's really looking at what the community needs and how do we have the expertise to be able to stand up a program that really meets workforce needs and provides a good work environment for our graduates to stay here in Hawaii and have good paying jobs. Now, I know so many people that got master's degrees, doctor degrees from shamanad, and they all told me how much they absolutely love the experience that they had at shamanad. And I want to ask you, President Lin, what are some of your top priorities as president? Well, I think my, you know, I'm a president of a wonderful university here and all of the universities in Hawaii, we're in the business of transforming lives through education. So here at shamanad, we are committed to providing access to a wide variety of people here in Hawaii, the Pacific Islands, some of whom may not have had the opportunity to go to college. That means we partner with our community colleges for some people starting at a community college and transferring is the right way to go. We have programs on all the islands with very easy transfer agreements and early college for a variety of schools, both the DOE schools and some private schools. So we're really looking towards providing affordable education and access. And I don't know if you recently heard about it, but we just launched the Hawaii Guarantee Program starting next fall for any students from Hawaii, we will match University of Hawaii Manoa's tuition for four years. We will also provide a pathway for those students to graduate in four years. So they'll be able to plan with their families the entire cost of their college education. We're very proud of that. Wow, that's so incredible. I love hearing that. And President Lin, some leaders, they seem out of touch or disconnected, but I think you're very successful in part because you know the vibe and the pulse of the university and you seem to be very accessible, right? Well, thank you, Rusty. It's very important for me to get to know our students, our faculty and our staff. When I first began here, I had to allay people's fears because I walk around all the time and I would walk into somebody's office and they go, oh my God, what are you doing here? And I'm like, I just wanna get to know you and what's important to you. Same with the students. I sit down often and talk to students over lunch or when they're taking a break about what concerns them? What are they worried about? How can we be helpful? And sometimes people just need someone to listen to them. That's the beauty of a campus like ours. It's a small community that really cares for each other and we're all in the business of education here. So, you know, most people think of faculty and advisors as being critically important to student success. And yes, they are, but all of our staff here, whether it's the person in the business office that you're paying your parking pass for or it's the athletic trainers and helping our student athletes, we all are very committed to our students' educational success here at Shulmanad. Now, President Lin, what do you see as some of the greatest things that the greatest leaders do? Well, for me, I think it's really important to be authentic in who you are, to be honest with people. And I am a strong opponent of team building, mentoring others and really helping others succeed. So, for me to feel like I've done my job is when I work with my administrative team, faculty and staff, and I see them accomplishing their goals, I see them being successful and I'm helping them to achieve that. I think that's one of the, the greatest thing a leader can be is to give others the opportunity to shine, provide them with the tools that they need to be successful. And that's what we try to do here at Shulmanad. Now, how would you describe your leadership style? I would say my leadership style is very supportive and hands-off. One of my, one of the things that the folks that report to me will say is I try to provide the environment and the tools and the resources they need to be successful. But when they come to me with a problem, they say, we better come with a solution because she always asks, well, what are your plans for addressing this problem? So I think that's, helping other people develop the confidence and also recognize that they can figure this out. And I'm here rooting for them as they figure out a problem they have or they move forward with developing new ideas and new programs. You know, you're so right about that because even for me, when I was a coach, I would have tell my players that, hey, when you come to me with a problem, also come to me with some solutions to that problem because I wanted them to be thinking what we deal with as leaders or coaches on our side, just not for them being one-sided, seeing things from their perspective. But President Lin, you guys also provide a lot of financial aid to your students, right? We do. About 95% of our students receive financial aid. You know, some of it's federal aid, programs they qualify for. We have lots of scholarships and a good portion of our operating budget goes towards providing student aid. As I indicated before, our goal really is to provide accessible education to a wide variety of people, particularly here in Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. And so we're committed to what that takes to get folks there. And President Lin, I noticed that you guys are also receiving some really high rankings nationally. Can you tell me more about that? Well, we continue to work hard. You know, some of the rankings are, you know, US News and World Report, there's mixed whether or not that's a good way to rank schools. That being said, we've moved up in the rankings for the Western region here. One of the things we're very proud of is social mobility. That means that folks, students that come to us young students as 18 to 22 year olds, they are able to increase their earnings compared to their family's earnings, their ability to get well-paying jobs. We are committed to providing the skills so that our students leave here and can support themselves and their families in Hawaii. And we all know how important that is. We always get a high ranking for a beautiful place. Yes, this is a beautiful place. But also the friendliness of our campus and the inclusivity, that's critically important to who we are as the Marianist University. We believe in educating the whole person and we believe in accepting and supporting all different viewpoints in life. No, I really like that you guys are a Marianist institution. And President Lynn, what are some of the important qualities you expect your graduates to possess? That's a good question. I think we are committed to providing our students with experiences and skills so that they're excellent communicators both in writing and in oral presentations. And we built that into the curriculum. Also, critical reasoning. People talk about critical thinking. That's fine. You can think through things, but you've got to reason your way to the next step. And experiential learning is critically important. It's built into our programs. That's why they're in the classroom. We have service learning programs. So you might be in an accounting class, learn accounting, but then you go help people fill out their tax returns. So you're getting that experience. And that's built in all our classes. Plus we guarantee internships that are related to a student's area of study for all of our students. So those experiences are critically important. And team-ready, people say to us that our students, because they've worked in internships, because they've had these experiences in the workplace while they're in school, they come to the workplace as new employees and they know how to work on a team with other people who view things from a different lens. And an example of that might, we have a core curriculum. All our students have a broad humanities background. And you might be in a philosophy class with a computer scientist, a data analyst, a nursing student, and an English major. And they're all sitting on a group working through a philosophical problem. And they learn to understand how people in those disciplines think differently. And that makes them a better team player when they go to the workplace. I like hearing that. I mean, yeah, I like when there's different perspectives and it really enhances the team like you said. And President Lynn, you have both of my books and I wanna ask you if you like the books and then what are some things that stood out to you in the books? Well, I think your books Rusty are an excellent, particularly the first one is an excellent introduction to what's important in leadership in a way that people can relate to. When you talk about people, obviously as a leader that's the most important thing are your people. And I talked about mentorship and developing people and teamwork, developing trust and loyalty. A leader earns that and they earn that through their authenticity and their support of their people. And then setting things up so people can succeed and that you can measure the success. It's nothing's better than for a team to work and know when they've succeeded. What does success look like? It doesn't always look like winning. It can mean a whole variety of things. So from that standpoint, I think that the book was very, very helpful. I actually have the opportunity to speak to people in all different forums. I'm speaking at the Wahini forum on women's leadership coming up in November. I talked to the Hogan entrepreneurs and your books are good examples of an approach to leadership that can be very helpful to them. Tonight, I'm going, we have a prison. We have a associate degree program in one of the men's prison here on Iowa, associate degree in business. And I've been asked to come talk about leadership and I'm gonna bring your books. I mean, it's critically important, particularly the first book we have some copies of it to distribute to the men, you know, they will leave prison and while they're developing some business skills, they need to be thinking about what it means to be a leader because they have a lot to offer as well. Ah, that's absolutely wonderful to hear. I love that you're going to be speaking at the prison and President Lin, tell me about Shamanad athletics and will you be adding any more sports teams this coming year? We will be. First of all, I think athletics is an important part of the college experience, not just for the student athletes who have the opportunity to, to merge their athletic goals with their academic goals, but for all students, it creates camaraderie for people to go cheer their team on. And also the student athletes, our student athletes work incredibly hard. Every year we rank at the very top in our division for academic achievement and we are proud of that. They are students first and athletes second and we merge that well. We are so pleased to be able to launch baseball in the fall. This year we have just finalized a coach contract and we'll be announcing that very soon. We have a coach for the baseball team and we'll begin recruiting for that. Again, this enables young men from Hawaii to stay in Hawaii and play baseball. Our teams in our league, both HPU and UH Hilo, are thrilled that we're launching baseball. That allows all of us to attract more teams to come for tournaments, et cetera, into Hawaii. Also, Beach Volleyball. Our volleyball team was ranked 25th pre-season this year. Our indoor volleyball team, we last week, we are four and O in our division and we also were a team of the week last year, a natural extension to provide the Beach Volleyball. Now, it's a little different. Obviously our coach is amazing and she will, her and her assistant coach will coach both teams. So we're really happy about the addition of both those teams. Wow, that's absolutely terrific to hear. And President Lin, you guys, the Maui Gym Invitational for basketball, I mean, it's absolutely amazing how many top teams in the country come to play in that every year and that's upcoming again, right? Yes, it's Thanksgiving week, the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, right before Thanksgiving. It is such a fun tournament and we haven't been able to because of COVID being Maui for a couple of years, everybody's thrilled to get back. It's such a nice community and the Civic Center there is a perfect opportunity for these Division I teams to come and play. And every few years, Shamanad beats one of those teams and that's a wonderful opportunity too. I'm a big basketball fan, so it's always thrilling for me to come and for our young men to have the opportunity to play against Division I team players and also just the camaraderie they build as a team while they're in Maui. Yeah, we're always cheering for the Silver Swords, President Lynn. And I know that you are a very active member in the community. Can you share what boards you're on as well? Yes, I'm a member of the Hawaii Business Roundtable. It's just an important group here in Hawaii and I particularly focused on the Educational Subcommittee and we work across all institutions and across sectors to try to stand up programs that will address workforce needs and to keep our students here in Hawaii. That's one of the groups. I'm on the board of Girl Scouts Hawaii, again, transforming girls' lives through education and we are building a STEM Center out in the North Shore which will have the opportunity, actually it's finished, the opportunity to provide STEM education internationally for girls. I'm on the St. Francis Health Care System Board, again, important for our caputa in our here on Honolulu and providing hospice care and home care and skilled nursing and independent assisted living. That's an important board. I'm also on the PAC Board which is Pacific and Asian Affairs Council and this provides high school students the opportunity to learn about a global world and have experiences in international travel, particularly in the Pacific region. So, I'm involved in some others but those are the boards that I'm on. They're wonderful groups. There's just an impressive array of nonprofits here in Hawaii that play an important role in our community. Well, I don't know how you do it all. It is very impressive what you do, President Lynn and can you share what are some of the challenges that you deal with as president? Well, I think in higher education today some general challenges is there's a declining birth rate. So, not as many young people coming up that are eligible age to even go to college. Secondly, here in Hawaii we have had unfortunately rather a decline in the number of students seeking higher education in any form. And we're working on that. We think it's important not just college education but work training, workforce development. These are all important for our economy and for our citizens here in Hawaii. And then of course we all face just the declining confidence in the value of the college education. And that's kind of nationwide. Some of it's political, some of it's not. Is college education important, critically important? Is it expensive? It is expensive. And we're dealing with this right now. All of the data ever since they started collecting it shows that those with the college education are happier in their lives. They have a much greater income throughout their life. They use less resources, public resources of any kind through their life. And they're bigger contributors to their community in terms of not just charitable giving but their opportunity to be involved in their community. So we believe strongly in a college education many ways of getting there. But those are some of the challenges today. Well, I completely agree with all of that there because it's so important to receive a college education. And President Lin, when you reflect back on your life so far what's a valuable lesson you've learned? I think the lesson that I've learned is to always look for the positive in your circumstance, in your environment, in your interactions with people, in your relationships. I do believe in being authentically honest. And sometimes that doesn't always work to your favor but I'll stand by that every single time. And caring about people. At the end of the day, we're all people and we have way more in common than not. And if we can focus on what we have in common we could approach and solve some of these very challenging problems that we have particularly in our country but across the world. I completely agree again. I always say positivity is a choice. And President Lin, what would you say was the best advice you've ever received? I think advice that I received early in my childhood from my parents but particularly my father was always to, he's a very positive, he was a very positive thinker to always look for the best in everything you do and work your very hardest to achieve whatever your possibility is. So he taught us to reach high but he taught us to think positive about our situations, about our environment, about our relationships. I like it. And President Lin, I wanna ask you one more question before we wrap up. What's a future goal that you'd like to accomplish at Shamanad University? I think continuing on the trajectory of people recognizing here in Hawaii that we are, we provide an excellent education that and the types of degrees that people can graduate and work here and stay here and raise their families in this beautiful environment. We wanna be a community partner. We wanna be a school that anyone can access through all of their life. We are a lifelong learning is the key to anybody's personal success and to our community success. So we have to provide education at the associate degree level in a prison, for example, as well as doctoral degree level as people transition and change. Young people today, they don't know what jobs are gonna be available five years from now. We teach people how to think, how to think about what they need to retool, to upskill, and those are the kinds of things we wanna be known for. Well, President Lin, I really think it's amazing your background in nursing and how it's really helped you as president. And I want more President Lin's in the world and I wanna thank you for really taking time to be on the show today. Thank you so much. It's been a privilege for me, Rusty. Thank you, President Lin. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that President Lin and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. 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.