 Let me welcome everybody welcome to the Future Trends Forum. My name is Brian Alexander. I'm your host I'm the organizer. I'm your guide to the next hour. I'm a cat herder for today And I'm delighted to see so many of you here today to meet another terrific guest talking about a vital subject We've been covering the subject of equity a great deal over the past year in the Future Trends Forum We've had many guests who have been exploring it from a wide range of subjects and positions and different institutions We've had scholars. We've had activists. We've had researchers. We've had academic leaders And one of the questions that keeps coming up is how we can lead an institution from the top to achieve greater equity in the academic experience Dr. Franklin Gilliam is the Chancellor of the UN University of North Carolina at Greensboro And he's been doing this in some really exciting interesting ways So I'm actually without any further ado. I'm actually delighted to welcome you to the stage and let's bring it up Hello Chancellor Good. It's very good to see you. Good to see you. This is your campus office. I hope Well, I didn't think I'd steal into anyone else's Well, you have some opportunities for that How is everything there? Warm humid and drippy That sounds like North Carolina right about now That's pretty classic. I hope you stay cool Chancellor I have all kinds of questions to ask and the first one is to introduce you to folks And the way I'd like to do that is to ask you what will you be working on for the next year? What are the big projects? What are the big ideas that are uppermost in your mind? well Of course, the obvious issues that plague higher education, whether it's COVID Budgets the existential threats to higher ed in general We've been thinking about how we can use the pandemic to slingshot our way past our competitors in other words I think the natural tendency has been to try to ride the pandemic out and Get back to what people would call a state of normal or something like the new normal We're saying How can we be different when we come out of this pandemic? How can we slingshot? And so we're looking at three new initiatives Among among many others, but I'll talk about three real quickly Not surprisingly. We're very much interested in integrated student success. We've been I say integrated student success and that means integrating The academic side of being a student With the business side of being a student With student well-being as sort of a three-legged tool Integrated now this is presents a challenge for those In higher ed may recognize Getting Cross-functional collaboration is not the easiest thing in the world to do with a university And so actually is one of the things we learned from COVID That where we had to have cross-functional unit By cross-functional committees and task force working on COVID people discovered g was maybe it's not such a bad thing working with folks outside of my unit And so we've been trying to imbue this into the culture Of the university and one of the areas we've tried to do it is an integrated student success We're typically focuses on the academic part of being a student the counseling course selection of credits and all that But we found that that is related to the business of being a student Turns out students don't know when their bills are due and they'll know what kind of financial aid is available to them And so on all the things that are tied up in the business of being a student and the third thing is Is their well-being As we know probably and i'm sure you've covered on previous shows mental health And the stresses and strains on students staff and faculty that here talking about students Really can't have a corrosive impact on their Academic performance the idea is this interrelated model of student success. So that's one thing we'll be focusing on Just one just one After that, we're going to cure cancer. But the second thing that we're focusing on Is hoping a new facility we call tate and gait which is marrying art and technology in the interstitial space between campus activity and community activity The idea here is to Create a third space a space where creative activities Can lead to a new way of thinking acting Engaging with our community and with our campus providing opportunity for our students who are building this facility 20,000 square foot facility That my admonition is I didn't want it to look like a university building whatever you do Don't make a I am sort of a child of the 1970s university architecture, which most of us despise appropriately And so I said, don't make it look like that. I don't make it look like a university building. And so we're rethinking both Space in terms of design, but also the kinds of things that go on in this space we have a We are a campus that does well in the arts particularly performing arts But the creative arts work generally and so we're using this The object based inquiry Improved to improve learning outcomes across a number of ways. So we're using the museum actually And now this adjacent Tate and gate facilities we call it To really engage our students to improve learning outcomes and to provide opportunities for campus and the community To engage in new artistic endeavors And then the third thing we're doing Again, among many others but One that's been interesting We are developing an e-sports program and we uh now I say this uh with some Deserved degree of humility because the last video game I played was pong Oh And that might have been in whenever pong was invented part being I know very little about video games But I do know it is a thing And we are building Some people call it arena. I said it's a little bit overstated and we're building a significant space on the campus Actually, I'll open this fall. We are Developing and we'll be able to offer badges and certificates in e-sports and the related Activities around it and more importantly perhaps We now are looking very seriously at how we deal with it in our curriculum and how we deal with it in our search If I actually have one research grant by our human performance folks Looks like they're getting but uh everything from communication arts to computer science to uh Music turns out scoring for these video games is a thing. Yes a very strong music program So these are three of the things that um, we think plays that play both to our Strengths on the campus on play to student interest and also we're going to have an impact on our broader community Well, fantastic. I mean those are three very different, but they sound in some ways Interestingly connected and that they're interdisciplinary and they have to do with space As well as on all three of them student success Yeah Friends if you're if you're just joining us right now, we are hosting a chancellor frank juliam. I'm sorry. It's gilliam, right? The heart Yeah, yes. Thank you. Uh, who's the uh chancellor at UNC greensboro He is a just telling us what he's gonna be working on from the next year And the theme for the today is to discuss equity in higher education and how to bring this about through leadership The feature transform stands ready for all of you I have a raft of questions But the more important questions are the ones that you would like to raise So again, remember just on the bottom strip of the screen There's the raised hand button if you want to join us up here And I promise you can join us even if you don't have a mustache and beard Although that does seem to be a dress code for today And click the q&a box if you've got any questions And as I say that we've got our first question and we just flashed this on the screens that everyone can see This is from david hul at national university And david asks could you speak more about how your campus intends to measure success within degree of student success And what could other universities and colleges do to mirror your success? Well, that's a good question david Let me let me speak to it in a couple of ways And if you can leave the question, can you leave the question up for me, brian? Absolutely. Hang on. I'll put it right back up So the typical typical things Whether it's time to degree We're really trying to encourage full credit hour Taking full number of credit hours It turns out at our university the things that typically predict student success Don't at most universities don't predict them at ours income family background and so What don't seem to predict them is how much support we can give the students Our first generation students. We have 40 or 50 percent collogial population I think uh We we've eliminated the black white achievement gap We our first year retention rate is around 80 so So for the population we're dealing with and some of this has been reported out in In the chronicle as well as other other report ed trust gates foundation We continue to think the secret soft if you will Is it is integrating and having integrated oversight Over these three elements we think comprise student success In other words, it's easy to focus on we need more counselors or we need more guides. We need more particular counselors Part of the story, but that doesn't solve the problem if your student hasn't sort of figured out How to pay their bill who wear resources or where to get emergency funds from or if they're having mental health struggles Who they can go talk to may have nothing to do with their ability to complete courses um But it does in many cases matter that our students have the kinds of uh educational and counseling support It's unfortunate because state at state universities state appropriations don't cover the very thing We think really matters You know god forbid you with me Matters and outcomes Times of degree degree efficiency retention Particularly first year second year. We're working hard We find that a lot of the students Stop out with Having difficulties with math Taking a lot around that And we have a very diverse student body probably approaching again 50% non-white And so we're finding that even within the broader model we're having to have some sort of micro micro Modules if you will for different groups For example latinx students present a different set of issues in the african-american students do then the rural white students do But all require The things that many that that a duke student probably comes Built in with when they show up on camp. Yeah. Yeah Well, that's uh, thank you. That's a that's a detailed indeed meticulous answer to a really really good question Uh, so thank you again Chancellor and also thank you for our question If you're again, if you're new to the forum, uh, david's question is a classic example of the q&a box So if you have any thoughts any questions you'd like to put to our guest Just hit that box type in it and we'll proceed accordingly. And if you'd like to join us on stage Again, just hit the raise hand button We have one recommendation came from the chat box from keenon solanero Who recommended a a non-profit in oakland, california called game heads? And I just can I just tweeted that out so people could see me And so that might be one one good source If anyone in the audience is interested in gaming and education We've had a series of sessions with different people over time Including with the a brand new esports unit at texas college at austin college Um, so while people are coming up with questions Uh, Chancellor gillian, I I'd like to ask one of my own really quickly You mentioned in passing that you had eliminated the black white achievement gap And I had a brief coronary moment because that happened so quickly. I wanted to come back to that Can you tell us? How did you do that? So many schools are are striving on that front, but how did you manage to put that in the rear view mirror so fast? I think there's a few things One, I think it's recognizing that our african-american students are black students Requiring different set of supports than some of the other students. I mean it should make sense, right? that if if Folks are coming from a different cultural experience that they probably are going to require a different approach to how they Proceed to their education experience So that's one of it Secondly, and I don't I would I don't I don't attest To any great scientific support for this But I do believe the psychic benefit of having a threshold of black students on campus makes a difference So even if you aren't Even if you are one of the only black students in a particular class When the class is chained You walk out the door and you see other people who look like you and you probably know somebody And as as a person who went through the opposite experience The only person in the classroom and the only person when you walk out the class walk out of the classroom They could be terribly isolating And that sort of has a compounding effect third, I think that are Because of this threshold students get involved and feel like they can make a difference There's sense of belonging and style So It is what we're doing in terms of student support, but I think it's also due to the Also, there is a psychological variable That I think plays a role But what is that psychological variable? I think it's just I think it's just threshold I think it's a threshold if you look around there's enough people who look like me that I feel like I belong Right in other words if you walk out the out of your classroom We're the only person of color in the classroom and then you walk out in your for your building that you're in And everybody's moving about to go to class and nobody looks like you You go gee do I belong here? I mean it's it's you know, some of these things are simple And you know the academy as is our want Wants to start with everything with well, it's really complicated. Uh-huh. Well, no, you've made it complicated Let's boil it down to some first principle. So Hmm Well, thank you. Thank you. That's a that's a For everybody else. That's a solid takeaway that everyone can can learn from right away and apply Uh, thank you. Thank you for that Um, we have more questions coming in and we have one from a good friend and uh Author Steven airman. We put this up on the screen for everybody Equity and quality are often mentioned together. What does educational quality mean to you regarding UNCG? And how is UNCG working to improve it? And how does that relate to UNGC efforts to improve equity? So I assume, um, well I assume he means the quality of instruction and pedagogy. Yes one hand and and equitable outcomes for students on the other um So We have introduced a model. We call embedded inclusive excellence It's a mouthful and we probably should come up with a more elegant name for it But we we've borrowed a few things we've borrowed the concept of embeddedness from economic theory Can talk about that We all sort of have our versions of what inclusiveness or inclusive And the last part of it is the part that speaks to Last part of it excellence speaks to his quality question But the pursuit of excellence and whether it's in those instructing the students Or in the students themselves pursuing excellence in the classroom This is about quality education high quality education This is not teaching to the world's common denominator, and it's not accepting that And so it's far from a place where an expectation or an excellence both in the classroom and in the students performance But embeddedness Is a different kind of is a different take on this. Well, what happens at universities? They and believe we have been doing this since 19. I was I think my first The professorship was in 1983. So I've been doing this a while Um Let's say University of Wisconsin Universities have done over these however many years. I've been in this business again. We get this call Every 10 15 years or you got to do something about diversity equity and so on So the university goes, okay We're going to hire a chief diversity officer We're going to give them an administrative assistant Give them with some money and we're going to tell them go over there and solve our diversity Now Believe me there's nothing against chief diversity officer at first say They can play a pivotal role if done right But I think it's easily easier and the evidence is it's much easier to marginalize those activities at universities The equity piece is around embeddedness. You have to embed equity in the DNA of the institution And you have to embed expectations Into the university That there will be improvements And so you therefore get at the professorial levels assistant associate school at the Anal level for leadership by chancellors vice president senior officials You get people who are becoming embedded in the university who Adhere to this value of inclusiveness. They understand the benefit of the to the institution of having a more inclusive search if you will for Particularly in this case I'll speak about faculty for example for faculty position You know, you can't pursue excellence if you by definition limit the scope of your Search to just people you know If you are Yeah white And it's not enough to go and ask your Your your colleague of color down the hall. Hey, do you know anybody? It doesn't serve the institution well Let's formally expand our aperture open it up to say, we're the best people now Go back to excellence Diversity for diversity sake is is actually harmful You just don't hire somebody because they're a person of color or they're a woman LGBTQ and by the way, we're talking about black white here But for me diversity and inclusion is across a number of dimensions I don't hear at this university So this embeddedness. What is it? What do we do? We there's three elements to embeddedness cultural embeddedness This can come from the top because rhetoric Is an agenda setting tool Right if the chancellor or president says, you know what? I won't be searching to be inclusive and don't bring me slates of just The same old folks from the same old places all the time So what I tried to do when I first came here from the first day I got here was to change the culture and to say We're going to be inclusive And we're going to pursue excellence so we build the culture around inclusiveness and we do it from a Leadership point of view with rhetoric. Secondly social embeddedness. So how social networks Can turn to collective action and they have to build them and it has to happen at the local level So this is a tree talks grassroots model if you will and we embedded them in research groups the faculty learning circles My pet project is leadership development. I think you need to develop the leadership That's the only thing by the way universities do when they want a diverse track They go out of the faculty they go out of their butts a bunch of assistive I think at a disadvantage when they come and they can fire them if they don't want them So I really press on full professors or tenure professors Deans associate dean The third piece of embeddedness is structural embeddedness You have to change the policies practices and systems You have to have goals and metrics you have to hold leadership accountable You have to train them how to search you have to think of a new curriculum You have to train your trustees So the idea is this again this three-legged stool of cultural embeddedness social embeddedness structural embeddedness as a way to pursue both uh quality and equity splendid paper on this coming out in metropolitan universities No, I'd love to be able to share that when it comes out. Yeah, metropolitan universities journal. Yeah, metropolitan universities journal. Yeah Thank you. Thank you And steve, uh, thank you for the excellent excellent question As always again, if you're new to the forum, this is the kind of quality questions that we get as well as the wonderful quality of answers So please feel free to throw questions in the q&a box or to join us on stage We have another questions come in from uh, kenan, uh, solonero That reimagined science and kenan asks i'm interested in your third space We have a third space event. We've used to create co-creative space and prompt action I'm interested in learning more about your design Uh, that's a good question. Kenan. Um, we are just beginning the design of the design Mainly because we just got the money for the building um, and I would encourage you the new director of the Weatherstone art museum here on campus is meeting this project a woman named juliett bianco He got her from the hood museum at dartmouth And she is really um Spearheading this project about these co-creations spaces One of the things that we're now looking at is developing low latency networks You can have uh simultaneous performances Somebody who takes a guitar lessons on zoom. I know that um the The lag makes these before Simultaneous performance is impossible So that's one of the other things we're doing and the idea is also to put these low latency networks throughout the community But I would encourage people to get in touch with juliett who can give you Much more specific information thing about being chancellor is you know a whole lot You know a very little about a whole lot of things so I'm expiring my knowledge quickly on some of these things I appreciate that. Uh, are you a internet to campus by any chance? Uh, I think we are That would help That would be uh, that would be great if for in terms of low latency. That's that's pretty solid Um, we have questions that are just coming in now and uh, we have uh video questions Um, including one from a long-term friend of the program george station at cal state monterey bay Let me bring him up here Hello, george Okay. Uh, hi, brian uh and chancellor. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah Great. Thank you. Uh, thank you, sir. Okay. Um, so, um, you said something when you were talking about that structural lag of embeddedness That caught my ear and I was trying to get a question together anyway about How you and your colleagues are doing after last summer's unrest the killing of george floyd Every president and chancellor. I know of put up a statement They were some of them were pretty flat some of them were very good But everybody said they were being anti-racist. That's great. Um this year Almost everybody said something when Derek chauvin got convicted And all that's great too. Um, so and but when you said Metrics accountability and training of trustees The training of trustees is what got me there Because it's like, okay, that's pushing uphill a little bit. I'm sure in some cases. North Carolina Yeah And I'm I'm in the cal state system And I'm California, North Carolina, whatever, you know, uh, it's there are some similarities. So my question is How are you think you and your colleagues are doing? With all those great statements about anti-racism any progress since last year? I appreciate some of the things you've said, but Maybe if you'd also add in how do you think some of your colleagues are doing and where do does more work need to be done? So a few things and thank you for the question, George and I Many colleagues in the cal state system after spending 29 years in the uc system. So well, um First of all, let me just speak to goals and metrics Just just for because then I see a couple other people have Have uh Have asked about that. We're holding the and from the terms of faculty. We're holding the deans accountable and their reviews depend on how they're doing And the cobalt is all over them if you will So that's one of the ways they understand this is important and that's why the cultural embedded in this part the rhetoric from the top matters as a turn to struggle the trustees just had a retreat uh A week or two ago And they had got edi training And got it from a really good good group who I think and we have uh, they are I see some of the people talking about their political appointees And they're appointees here by a board of governors who are really Driven by the by the legislature and um But it turned out to be pretty well received Now we'll see there's still you know one training is not going to i'm not naive I'm not going to change everything But it's the first time there's ever been a training And and I what did george? About me it has to be the drip drip drip, you know You just have to keep after it and what typically happens is Universities do it or some administration at university doesn't the administration changes and they don't do it anymore So While it the conversations were uncomfortable to some degree You know, we have a student body that's approaching 50 non-white. You better have the conversation and um, so Word, you know, look, uh Listen, this is a An empirical question of how much? Well, if you make a we've taken down names from building We you know and we've used them as teachable moments And uh, we've done it with a conservative board. So it can be done But I think it requires I think it requires a leavening of our rhetoric from those to fashion themselves to be on the left and public form we're in so I don't want to Out myself a whole lot, but Political rhetoric in these discussions talking about the kind of cultural rhetoric I was talking about from an institutional point of view Uh exacerbates The problem So we said look folks, this is an issue. This is an issue. We probably need to address and solve It's not going anywhere. Here are some ways to think about it And I think I think it was more received The search training by the way for Search chairs in the university has gone pretty well A lot of people Have said they just didn't know You can take that for what you will george. I wish I had my glasses on so I could look out over those glasses Yeah, because uh, yeah, I've been in uh the cal state system for 20 years and I was in the Navy before that. So I've been on a couple of committees and yeah I appreciate Maybe not knowing how to do things well So those search faculty search trainings and dean search trainings because for those committees can really help if they take the training to heart Obviously But you know, it's one thing about I mean people in leadership into positions Which is I can tell them that we're not going to smile favorably upon you if you resent training But we've been we've increased minority faculty by I don't know 30 over the last four or five years and we've hired over 400 new faculty 100 of them new net new meaning not replacements And our research productivity has gone up by 43 percent. So Clearly they're not having Love to use that as an example. In fact, I will be taking that back as an example Thank you. Uh, so, uh, I'm just one quick follow-up on the training for trustees just to Dig in just a little bit on on that um Given that it's the first training and I and first in whatever that becomes um I'm wondering because of all the rhetoric again that Emerged over the last year during the pandemic Unequity issues but also on just the summer of unrest and everything that led went from that um Did the training actually go there with What we now call anti-racism or did it was it more like a 101 just to get the trustees feet? What to get started because they just you know, I think I think neither And um, I'm going to say something that is probably going to be unpopular but um Well, I I'm already in trouble so please join me I don't know if I can afford to be Let's just say um I uh, I don't know. I don't know about the efficacy or the Um And uh, I don't know about anti-racist any Yeah, I'm I and actually I hear you on that which is the part that gets me in trouble. So, um, I So I'm wondering what is going beyond the traditional edi dei. However, you know, What what went beyond it? I guess is what I'm really asking history of some things. Yeah, just didn't know the adults 78 years just didn't know because part of the problem. We don't teach it in the schools They didn't know things that had happened in north carolina. So you think of the Tulsa Uh People in Tulsa didn't know so we had it as you know here probably Wilmington in the early parts of the 20th century What is not taught in the north carolina school system? So you would think but so there's and and There are empirical patterns that you cannot deny there's data that you cannot deny Mm-hmm. And so part of it is showing the data Yeah, not not but not starting the conversation with You are to blame. I want you to renounce your privilege That's a not conversation non-starter It just is whether you think it's a good thing to do or not. I don't know but it's a In a group of well-hilled white folks to tell them to start any conversation by renouncing their privilege And and admitting their complicity is just not a good conversation started I'm interested in the outcomes Yeah, personally, I'm interested in students. I care about doing better faculty. I care about doing better communities I care about doing better That's what I'm interested in. I'm not interested in You know having a big kumbaya moment. Yeah, I yeah, I uh am I'll concur with you and not looking for that moment Uh, I think we've had moments like that where nothing else changed But everybody did say the proper kumbaya. So I'm not really looking for those um I'm hoping that there is some pathway in there where uh, essentially the folks you just described could actually um as Whether we go all the way and say we need a truth and reconciliation process or something else It's like at some point somebody's got to admit they did something wrong because otherwise they will It's like, yeah Okay, so Yeah, yeah, we might we might because I'm more instrumental than that I'm instrumental I want stuff done for people I care about so I started We want to be how do we get the prosperity for everybody? How do we get we do not want prosperity for everybody? You only want it for something that's hard to say. I yes. I only wanted for some people Yeah, I engage you in a conversation about okay. What's the future prosperity of North Carolina look like? And nor can this can the structure survive with large swaths of the population Be unhealthy and uneducated What's that? Imagine what that future looks like and what does it cost you? Yeah, okay, so I'm gonna actually get off stage and let other people come up, but I want to Leave you with an example of a university That actually admitted they did something wrong and that's Georgetown, which is where Brian is And so basically I know it can be done In conversation with white folks and so I'm going to get off stage and let other people continue But I'm thinking the Georgetown example might be something to look into it look into Thank you for the uh, thank you for the question and thank you for and for that last thought and all the questions George Thank you and thanks Brian for bringing me up on stage and chancellor. Good to meet you. Nice meeting you Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure We have we have more questions coming in and again if you're new to the forum You can see that we have deep questions and conversation goes in all directions Including back and forth and opposition and in a very ultimately positive way We have another Questioner wants to join us on stage and this is professor Jennifer Lee Gagné She's going to correct me if I've massaged her name completely and she's coming to us from mount st Mary college in the upstate new york Hello professor Lee Gagné. How close did I come? Actually, you did really really well Oh, thank you I'm impressed Well, um, it's good of you to join us. Welcome board. Um, what would you uh, what would you like to ask uh chancellor gilliam? um, I was really interested in the um In the comment that you made about accountability for the people in leadership positions And that to me resonated because it's something that we're struggling with at my small private liberal arts institution That is just getting on the dei um, the dei train and so One thing that i've been hearing a lot from students other faculty staff is how And who can hold the people above us accountable? when they Don't step up. They fall short Um, and so that was really exciting for me to actually hear someone in your position say Oh, no, accountability is something for for all of us. And so i'm interested in The real kind of tangible ways for which accountability can be Um, experienced for those people and also just as a side note. I'm team truth and reconciliation commissions So I just want to put that out there. So as someone who does restorative justice work I'm all about I'm not mad at you I do and I think it's important that people do that work. I'm not gonna do that work That's a fair point You know what because I feel like there's other stuff like within my field like I'm gonna leave that to people And I'm just gonna go ahead and handle this stuff over here. So I I totally get on that but if you can tell me Or give me some examples about ways that we can actually hold A president of a university or college accountable like that to me Would be revolutionary. Yeah, you know, it's that's a hard one. That's a hard one for me professor because I'm that guy You know I don't know how to tell some other presidents. They need to be accountable. Look they report to their boards Right and I don't know who sits on the board amount st. Mary's and What extent they're even interested in these topics, but it is a question it would seem to me to be fair to ask Of the board of trustees and say, how are you holding? First of all Are you holding the president of the university accountable? for tangible outcomes Not rhetoric not doing something on martin luther king day Anything something I mean look at that. I'm being a bit facetious here. They'll they'll get me wrong. These things are important, but tangible outcomes not Are the faculty you have one? People of color you have faculty of color. Are they progressing at the same rate? Are there is there is there are there pay equity issues? You have folks in leadership. Do you have a pipeline to get deans department chairs? Do you have a way to compensate people? For chairing the dei committee? Okay, you speaking right now to me because that's what i'm doing right now and having those same conversations like what is That's what i'm saying I've been there. Look, I did it at a time when we had nobody And we they you had to do it, you know, they came to you do fix it do it and we did it all at least I think there are There is a network a national network of folks at least where you could get some support um but but So for example, you're doing all the dei work. Are you getting an ad? Are you getting ad pay for it? Are you getting course release for it? I had to fight for the course release, but I didn't know you did But that's that's where we're at, right The chair your department has to support you I mean, it's tough. I look at a small liberal arts school. I mean I get it and You're fighting against a pretty strong headwind Out there and you're trying to you're trying to you know, take care of your own career. Yeah, right. I get that too. Believe me Been there been there um But at least you can raise the questions I think you know, I think you've got to as as a group as and and if you have allies great. I'm not against allies I think that what's interesting is the the board of training the board of trustees training that you talked about And I think that's kind of the level that we're starting at where I think that we need to have that level of training not just for Our incoming faculty or established faculty, but also for all the levels up to and including the board of trustees because I think that you're right that our level of accountability for the president is that board So that board has to know what they need to do and expect from him In terms of these issues and he needs to know what he needs to do and what's expected of him So I think that that might be a place for us to start having a conversation is what are we doing for the board of trustees and then kind of Working it that way while simultaneously Try to do all of these other kind of training So I appreciate that I really do and I think it's interesting And I know that we're apples and oranges in terms of all aspects of institutions from size of location and history and background But I do think that's a common thread For those institutions that are still struggling with trying to figure out how to do this and how to have equity But I do think The leadership is what's going to be important and thinking about how we get the board of trustees on board as well. So thank you Well, thank you so much professor Lee gunny and um, please say hi to mount st. Mary's right. I will thank you Welcome to welcome to the forum Friends we're we're at the very very last five minutes of the session and this gives you all Your last shot to put in a question or comment And as the moderator and host i'm going to fully take advantage of that opportunity to ask a question of my own But first I do want to share a comment that's come in from the chat back and forth About trustees. Um, it seems like the importance of training trustees is there Phil cats mentions that's tough to train them when they're political appointees As opposed to donors or or alumni supporters, which is a which is a good problem um, I guess a question I have for you chancellor gilliam is Trying to imagine this Work in the future And you've described closing the black white achievement gap. You've described hiring minority faculty by increasing the numbers by 30 percent Which is tremendous And it what happens if if this work goes on For say 10 years, what does what does the university like greensboro look like after all this has been done? That's a good question. I mean, you know I think what we hope for Quite frankly is that we Becoming modern university Right not an anachronistic university In higher education impulsions are anachronistic They all want to look like princeton in 1950 And we have to change the model Of what a modern University in a multicultural democratic society looks like And we cannot cling to a 19th century version of a 17th century european model universities are And um It means we're probably going to be organized a little differently I try to make i'm trying to make our organization flatter Therefore a bit more Uh a bit more democratic Uh, we need to distribute decision making Uh, that's hard. We need to have people somebody wrote in the chat. Well, let me say I thought it was interesting comment that well people You can get two different people who whether this is a lot of diversity Let's see how can you claim diversity in two people who look different and come from different countries yet? They're born into the same same milieu. Well, the idea is that you try to get a diversity of lived experience Now grant that is all in a western democratic capitalism. I mean, I get all that But there's a really quite different lived experiences within that milieu And that gives you different leverage different leverage on what we can be And so for me We look like a modern university not a not an anachronistic one So we think about the u.s. Census report that just came out And we think about uh how the changing demographic makeup of the united states how that's what ungc we went cg should look like instead of like uh, well, and it's not just the demographics. It's just how we approach higher education Right It's in everybody's interest You know, this is how we move together forward or this thing that's going to unravel And it's a bit tattered right now if you ask me I agree. That seems to be our conclusion after years of doing this Um on twitter you have a shout out from one jack shaw who is uh the avp for campus services at shepherd university Who says quite clearly and simply glad to see the g and the lead on this So good to see that Um, we are uh, also in the lead of being at the top of the hour once more We have run right through 60 minutes and incredible speed um chancellor gilliam Talking to you. I feel like i'm not just talking to a chancellor from Modern universities, but a chancellor from a future university And the kind that we should aspire to be What's the best way for people to keep up with you and your work and to find out about how your center and all these projects come along Well, I saw my my media folks from my university on the on the uh In the audience, so meeting or why or one of you if you want to put something in the chat that Uh, they don't trust me to do any of this brian. I screw it up You know, you don't it's a bad question to ask me I have some folks who are much more depth at this than I But I think they're still in your audience and They can up there. You put our twitter handle You can tell if it looks like dad twitter like that's actually me If it looks like real twitter, it's my twitterers responding Well, see that's a that's a great answer. That's a that's a chancellor's answer You point to the people who are doing the work. Yeah, I mean I do tweet, but I usually screw that up, too So Yeah, don't trust the leader. Yes That is correct You know, I never trust the man. That's what I say I am the man Well, and well, you're doing a great job as the man Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing an hour your experience your thoughts and for taking all of our questions So deeply and so seriously. Thank you very very much. Thank you Uh and and we look forward to seeing where where you take the g over the next year and we've hopefully Hopefully bring you back Thank you. All right. Thank you But don't go away friends. Um, I need to point out where Where the forum is going over the next bit and make sure you can see that And I do want to repeat my thanks to all of you for the fantastic questions so far and in the chat, by the way we've got uh edenbloss and uh Who is sharing some links as well So just looking ahead We have sessions coming up on education in a post-truth world We have sessions on active learning stem and equity open access scholarship Rethinking learning rethinking the whole university If you'd like to keep talking about these questions about how to train trustees and dei issues About what the purpose of a truth reconciliation commission might be on campus Or how to build and program something that connects stem and art We're happy to keep these conversations going on twitter. Just use the hashtag FTE you can tweet at me brian alexander You can bring in shindig events and of course on my blog. We'll be glad to hear from you If you'd like to go back into the past and look at our previous sessions covering a wide range of these topics Just head to tinyurl.com slash f t f archive where we've got about 270 recordings on all these issues And otherwise The fall semester is about to come upon us. I know things are scrambling right now because of coveted and delta I hope all of you stay safe and take care Keep thinking about these issues and we'll see you next time online Bye. Bye everyone