Note: This interview in the Weekly Wisdom Series originally aired on February 7, 2022 as part of the University Innovation Alliance’s Innovating Together Podcast, appearing live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The transcript of this podcast episode is intended to serve as a guide to the entire conversation, and we encourage you to listen to this podcast episode. You can also access our summary, along with helpful links and audio from this episode.
Michael Rao:
You know, it's "lonely" at the top. Well, it is and it can be, but the reality is that part of how we function and how we continue to develop optimism is through our relationships with other people. So I think it's important for us to have those, those venues. The other one I wanted to mention, too, is last year I had the privilege of being chair of our Statewide Council of Presidents. So Longwood University, University of Virginia, and by the way I have the privilege of being able to tell you now, we have the best group of presidents I have ever worked with in this state.
Bridget Burns:
Welcome to Innovating Together, a podcast produced by the University Innovation Alliance. This is a podcast for busy people in higher education who are looking for the best ideas, inspiration, and leaders that will help you improve student success. I'm your host, Bridget Burns. Each week I partner with a journalist to have a conversation with a sitting college president, chancellor, system leader, or someone in the broader ecosystem who is really an inspiring leader. And the goal is to have a conversation to distill their perspective and their insights gathered from their leadership journey. Our hope is that this is inspiring and gives you something to look forward to each week. This episode my co-host is Inside Higher Ed co-founder and CEO Doug Lederman.
Doug Lederman:
And this week's guest is Michael Rao, who is President of Virginia Commonwealth University, a research and teaching institution, major research and teaching institution in Virginia. Welcome, President Rao.
Michael Rao:
Great, thank you very much, Doug. Thank you, Bridget. It's an honor to be here.
Doug Lederman:
And Bridget has a little news to share.
Bridget Burns:
Yes, so for those at home, know that the University Innovation Alliance is a collection of institutions who are scaling innovation to eliminate their equity gaps, and actually improve outcomes, and graduate more – produce more high quality graduates across the country. And that group is very limited, but we have added a new member, and it is Virginia Commonwealth University. So we are very proud to welcome President Rao and VCU into the UIA family.
Michael Rao:
Great, thank you. This is a real honor, and a privilege, and hopefully we'll be able to learn lots and add lots.
Doug Lederman:
I'll ask the question that Bridget probably already knows the answer to, which is what attracted you, and what do you think attracted UIA to you? Where do you see them – the fit, and what are you hoping to gain for it for your institution?
Michael Rao:
Yeah, so I mean, it's a lot of very like institutions with a lot of the same kinds of complexities. The sort of public nature of our institutions, but we have a lot in common. I think the presidents actually have a lot in common in that we're really motivated to make a difference. As Lyndon Johnson would have said, "What's the presidency for?" I think we all think about that. I think we think about how do we use these presidencies to advance these institutions and the mission that we advertise on all our websites? How do we make that become more real for more people? The other thing is that we are mostly research institutions, too, and I think we're really geared toward research that matters to people. Translational research that can be used right away.
And yeah, the other thing, Doug and Bridget, is that nobody has all the ideas. We know that, right? And so no matter how large our institutions are, and many of ours are huge, of course, but you just won't have all the ideas. And you want to be in an environment where you have regular contact, not, not the annual conference, but very regular contact with colleagues in a comfortable environment where you can talk about things, and talk about errors, and things that go wrong that you messed up, or need to rethink. And do that with colleagues who really matter, so I think we all want to lift this country, and lift the people who have not really been able to be as much a part of it.
Bridget Burns:
That's great. Yes, so I mean, part of – Doug, I don't know if I've talked to you about this, that the way that we have identified institutions is we actually have analyzed all of them – all R1s and R2s across the country. Based on their data initially, we wanted to look for institutions that really took seriously the idea that you could be large and good. But you also had to be educating a large – a disproportionately large population of low-income, first-generation students of color. And then we also analyzed essential speeches, we looked at initiatives, we looked at how they showed up as collaborative partners in other organizations. So we could kind of get a sense of who shared our values, and VCU was easily one – was an easy front-runner coming out of the gate. And part of it, I would say, because this ends up being about the presidents, is President Rao's relationship with the UIA presidents, because he's already demonstrated that he's someone who is willing to talk about the hard stuff. Who is really – when he says something, he means it, and is willing to move his institution in the direction necessary for the future economic competitiveness of the country. So yeah, for us it was a no-brainer. And we're just really delighted to move forward with them as one of our new partners.
Michael Rao:
Thanks, so well said.
Doug Lederman:
I'm curious, because not what you've focused on in terms of collaboration and sort of cross-institutional fertile – cross-fertilization across institutions isn't so much how higher ed had historically operated. And I would say still probably doesn't quite as much as some of us who sit on the outside or near it think it ought to. I'm curious kind of what you – why you think that's so important for a place like VCU? Where do you see you having the most to gain, you and the institution having the most to gain from learning from other institutions?
Michael Rao:
In our case, we have made great strides. So we were under 50 percent in terms of our six-year graduation rate when I came. We're approaching 70, but we've hovered in that zone. And so I feel as if there must be – there are things that our colleague institutions are doing that we haven't learned yet, or we haven't quite understood yet. I think you have to parallel a lot of these things that you do because our populations are so diverse, even within our own institutions, and so you may bring certain groups along. But which groups have you got to continue to work on? And that's where your colleagues that are doing definitely different things than you are can really be helpful.
And so, I think having that network of institutions that has a mindset already, cultural mindset that we do share, and we include in that sharing things that we didn't do well, so that you don't repeat the mistakes of others, I think is really very helpful. I think it's really important for us to think about the fact that we are all human as well, Doug. And we're made up of energy, and a lot of that energy is impacted by the energy of the people around you. And so, one of other things I think we as presidents sort of expect to gain from each other is sharing that positive energy about what's possible, particularly when you hit, like, a block or when you feel like you're not making as much progress as you wish you could make.
So, I mean, I could go on and on. The bottom line is you've got so much to gain by working together. And we all have to learn, too, that as resilient as higher education has been so proud of being for centuries, literally, I'm not proud of that because what it's done is it's left a lot of people out. I think we all have that same mindset as well. What is the real purpose of public education? It's to lift the lives of others. It's really to help achieve the American dream, so let's tie it all back to why this country exists. We wanted to bring people here together so that when they worked hard and became a part of what we were trying to achieve, you can be as successful as you want. You can realize all the potential that you have.
So I'm really excited about working together with Michael and all of these other folks who share that same optimism and excitement. If I'm not in that environment I'm not – I don't have the same level of energy. I'm not excited. If I feel like I'm improving more lives of others, not just the same number of lives I may have helped be a part of improving last year, then I'm not as excited. I want to leverage the presidency more and more and more every year that I'm doing this.
Bridget Burns:
So I'm curious about, in general, the benefit of collaboration as a president. So my observation is that we have big associations. We have the NCAA. There are certain things like the CIC, or the Big Ten Academic Alliance. There are some places, although that one is more provost, there are some places where presidents can get together and team up on shared challenges. And I would love to know, for you, of all the various collaborative things that you've been a part of in the past, what things do you think have been the most critical for you as a president to be successful? Are there any particular collaborative endeavors prior to this that have really helped you solve a problem or that you think is – it's just an essential place that – for presidents to be having those kinds of conversations?
Michael Rao:
Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I think about every year there were some of these things. So one good example, Bridget, is that I was on the NCAA board. And I thought, "Oh boy, another board, a lot of travel, et cetera, et cetera." It was worth every second I put into it because I got so much back. And what I really got back out of that was somewhat during the board meetings, but even more importantly in between meetings when I could chat with a president who was dealing with a similar issue, whether it be athletics, or closely aligned to that. And frankly say, "Hey, what do you think?" And those relationships are critical. The fact of the matter is people love to say, and it's absolutely true, it's "lonely" at the top. Well, it is and it can be. But the reality is that part of how we function and how we continue to develop optimism is through our relationships with other people. So I think it's important for us to have those venues.
The other one I wanted to mention, too, is last year I had the privilege of being chair of our statewide Council of Presidents. So Longwood University, University of Virginia, and by the way I have the privilege of being able to tell you now, we have the best group of presidents I have ever worked with in this state. I mean, these people are so collaborative, so interested in sharing with each other. There is a lot that we do together, frankly, and I think everyone treats everyone with tremendous respect. I'm very, very proud of the Virginia presidents. But in the middle of COVID, frankly, in the beginning of COVID, I mean, we were actually literally getting together sometimes two, three times a week. First by phone, and then we of course, like the rest of the world, started doing everything video as well. We put our – we put subgroups together. There are things that we rolled out that we could never have done unless we had done it together. But a lot of it is relationships and trust. And the more you – you know, we're human. And so you're going to develop more trust when you're with people more. But when you get – when you go back to your institution, which can sometimes feel like an island, you can get lost in a lot of things.
And it's one of the worries I have about presidents going forward. A, we need to develop a very new – we've got to develop a class of presidents ready to come in, because at some point we're all going to age out. And as we do that we've got to teach them to stay in that space that is important for presidents to stay. If you let everything around you control you, you will be involved in everything that doesn't matter to the presidency, really. I mean, the vision is critical. Having a plan that goes with that vision that everyone can interpret and make sense of, putting the right people in place, hiring is huge. It's one of the biggest things we do. I don't just, like, interview people. I take them to dinner, and I do a ton of reference checking. And I've had search consultants say, "Well, we do all that." I said, "No, no, I want to do it myself. I want to hear people tell me what they think of this person." Sometimes I even go to where they are so that I can find out whether or not the match will be right.
Hiring is absolutely key, but spending our time on those things that are part of our vision, those strategic things that improve your graduation rate, that truly put the needs of students and, in my case, patients first, all of those strategic things that you need to be doing are critical, but a lot of where you get the ability to do that is when you're talking to other presidents. And you're saying to these other presidents, "These are the things I'd like to achieve." A lot of those strategies for me get shaped by those conversations with other presidents, because a lot of them are better at some of the things that I'm doing than I am. And they've already been through it, so I can learn from them.
Bridget Burns:
That's great. I mean, I – so when people always talk about isomorphism in higher ed, I frame it as that's the justification for collaboration, because if we are all designed the same, that means we have the same problems. And the idea that our problems are special and different and we can tinker in silos to solve them is such a waste. When in fact most of the time, every place I go, it's the same kind of problem. It's a different flavor, a different color, a different height, but in general it's the same kind of stuff. So creating spaces for presidents to talk to each other is essential because otherwise I don't think that people understand that, often with the presidency, most of the time a president will go through their entire day, 15- to 30-minute increments, and the only interactions they have are with people who either want something from them or who work for them.
Michael Rao:
Exactly.
Bridget Burns:
And it can be a really dangerous space, because it becomes somewhat of an echo chamber. There can be a space where you have almost like, at times, sycophants in the echo chamber where people are just telling you how great you are, and how great the ideas are. And that you don't have a space to actually go to figure out whether or not what you're doing really is that great, or getting an honest assessment from another president, being able to actually figure stuff out together. I did want to talk about a place where collaboration was needed, and you had shared with me about what it was like to work with a long-standing president around the idea of politics. But can you share a bit more about why that would be a space that would be really helpful for presidents to team up?
Michael Rao:
Oh yeah, sure. So there was a time when a lot of us were really only seeing each other at these annual conferences. And by the way, Bridget, to your previous point, just a quickly appended comment, I found that what those things were doing annually is we were all talking about problems. And then we'd say, "OK, next year when we get together, we'll talk more about solutions." So what you and Michael and others have built here is really valuable because you're getting together often. And by the way, a lot of groups got together. I chaired the Urban Serving Universities Group of APLU last year, too. And we got together every week, it was super valuable. By the way, tremendous overlap with the UIA with that group as well.
But to your point, a lot of times during the breaks, frankly, not during the sessions, I would get together with my colleagues, a couple in particular who had been around longer than me. And I'd say, "Hey, I've got this really challenging board situation with these two board members, or X number of board members who just can't seem to get along." And one of my jobs, I always said, was to keep my board a team that's focused. But as you know, boards are usually appointed by governors, and those governors can be from one party or another party. And then you end up with a collection of board members from two different parties, and of course you often will get board members with sometimes big personalities and significant needs to be recognized and all of that. I really don't have that now, thank goodness. I'm so grateful at VCU, but I have dealt with that where it's been very difficult.
And I talked through this with a couple of presidents. And it really helped me go back calmer, because one president in particular, he basically said, "Mike, you're letting it get inside of you and eat you alive." And he said, "It's really their problem. It's not your problem. And so you need to somehow find a way to flip it back to them, and just let them talk. And find the right place and venue, and put them together and have them talk." And sure enough, his solution worked, as opposed to me being the type A, responsible one who thought I had to solve everybody's problems, which I still have a bit of that disease. But I'm working on it. And he was very helpful, but it was a lot of stuff like that.
The other was, candidly, one of my big jobs was to start a new medical school at the other institution from which I had come. And I teamed up with a president who had started a new medical school and was just literally a year or two ahead of me. But I went and visited him and his team, and I came back with a very clear plan, including team members that I needed to hire, a very clear conceptual framework for a medical school that needed to address very, very serious health disparities in our communities. And also just access. There were just no doctors anywhere to be found anywhere near us. So I mean, there were doctors, but a lot of new people moving in couldn't get doctors. And it was a real challenge. So I could not have done it without the help of that colleague president, who was a huge help.
Bridget Burns:
I guess this is a naive question. Is there a consortium of presidents that have medical schools? Is there, like, a space where it's just having conversations amongst senior – among presidents and chancellors with a medical school?
Michael Rao:
Not really presidents, it's mostly deans through the AAMC. But it's a good question. It's something that I basically tried to start when I was at APLU. We'd get together every so often. It was mostly focused on universities that had large medical centers, because a lot of us have a university. And let's say our university is a billion and a half dollar institution. Medical center in our case is another 3.5 billion, right? So it's even larger and more complex, and of course it's all hanging together. And if one part of this place falls apart, the rest of it's going to feel it. And so yeah, we did get together a bit, but I think at some point that just sort of dissipated. The deans of medicine – medical schools have largely sort of been the most connected.
But when you have, like, my institution that started as a medical school and is very much a specialized oriented institution, you need those connections. And so I try to reach out to presidents that are presidents of major medical – academic medical centers, just so that I have their views on, frankly, how you get from being as much academic as we've been to being much more patient centric and competitive with private healthcare systems.
Doug Lederman:
Well, that's where you'd need to – you'd need to cross the public-private nonprofit divide there, because you've got a lot of private institutions, some of which are very wealthy and might not feel like they're peers of yours. But then you've got a lot of big major Catholic universities that have them. I mean, so you'd have a – it would be an interesting conversation – set of conversations I'm sure.
Michael Rao:
Well a lot of them sold their –
Doug Lederman:
Exactly, yeah.
Michael Rao:
– things off, and a lot of us have not. And fortunately, we have not. I think it's made our purposes much clearer with regard to students training in these institutions. We have five health sciences schools, and you add to that social work and engineering that all have major connections through our medical center in terms of research that we do. But yeah, and staying competitive is very, very difficult, very tough.
Doug Lederman:
Can I ask a slightly offbeat question that just occurred to me because I've been – some conversations we've been having here? Whether you think – and I actually raised it with some of your ACE colleagues, I know you're involved in the ACE board, about ACE has – hasn't been doing up to now the polling, the public opinion polling that it was doing pre-pandemic. And maybe even early in the pandemic, and I was asking what we thought may have happened as a result of the pandemic to the public perceptions about higher education? And whether it had been – because I had a – we had Kim Hunter Reed, who is the Commissioner of Higher Education in Louisiana, was in our office a couple weeks ago. And she was talking about how she thought that the – her institutions roles in their communities around the pandemic had – she thought had increased the way – the positive way that people were – in her communities were looking at institutions. And so anyway, I was asking a question, but I am curious whether and especially with that dual role and the role – important role that hospitals and others have played, do you have a sense of whether VCU's role in its community has changed as a – during the pandemic?
Michael Rao:
Oh, that's a great question. I think it absolutely has. I think it's risen dramatically. I think there is a level of understanding about our role and how important it is to everybody, not just certain people who people I think perceived it to be needy and who had our need – were in need of us. But yeah, I mean – Doug, honestly I think that what's happened, although we haven't really scientifically measured this, I think we could probably predict that this is really in many ways a great time. In that it's a difficult time because of COVID, but COVID really shed light on where our people in this country are, and where in this country our people are not. And so a lot of the changes that we see are focused on more inclusively engaging people who have not been a part of what's going on.
I think there is also this need for us to really increase candidly what it means to be a public good, and to restore faith in what we can as public entities do, because I think a lot of people got cynical about that. And frankly, I'll tell you as a president for 27 years or so, I mean, one of the things that you're up against is the politics of people in power. And the people who have that power, sometimes their interests are, let's just say not so nobly focused on everybody, but more certain groups, and that sort of thing.
So one of the things I said to our freshmen, they were so excited to come back, and we had, like, literally I'm not kidding, I don't know how it happened, but we did an outdoor event which we call Freshman Convocation. It used to be indoor. There are supposed to be 4,000 people there, so that's the number of freshman that we have. And I know there were more than 4,000 people there in this huge central park that we have on our campus. And the number of students who came to me and said, "Thank you for not shutting us down. We couldn't look at a screen for another minute." And there were others who said, "Can you get more stuff online for us, because we really like that option?" But more who said they wanted to be in-person. But one of the things I said to the larger crowd is, "There is more information out there than there has ever been. But there are also more agendas than there have ever been. And you've got to develop your own sense and your own gut of what you believe in, what are your values. And decide whether or not what you're hearing matches to that instead of just reading something and assuming that it is what is, because it may not be what is. And it may not be what we need to be thinking about going forward."
And so anyway, I'm a little off of your quest – the context of your question, but I think our communities are really looking to us. If you can't look to a public university for the truth, where can you look? And so we've got to be really disciplined about being sure that we are these places that people can look to for the truth. And frankly, sometimes we're telling the truth about different things, and it's amazing to me that people will say, "Oh well, you're just making that up." I'm like, "Well, actually we're not. This is what data and facts actually show the truth to be." But then I listen more closely to them and I say, "Well, why not? Why do you not agree?" And then listen to them, and I realize, "Oh, you have an agenda, and it's not matching to your agenda. That's what it really is. So I'm sorry that the facts don't line up with what you want to see, but that's just not going to happen."
Bridget Burns:
That's a great quote that I just wrote there. So the last question I want to ask you is, you have your State of the Union coming up in, like, a week, right?
Michael Rao:
Yeah, yeah.
Bridget Burns:
And I am just curious, as someone who has watched and read many of those, what is the mindset of a president coming into the State of the Union? Do you feel like you have to tell everyone everything that's good? Or do you have to introduce an entirely new agenda? Do you have to frame the institution? Like what is the – if you felt like you had a mandate for your – for writing your State of the Union, what do you feel like that is?
Michael Rao:
Yeah, yeah, I mean, for me it's always been, particularly being in these huge organizations, it's that one time when you think you can probably get everybody's attention for half an hour or whatever. And so I always make it a "Hey, listen, I've been watching. I have kept count of all the great things that you have done collectively. I appreciate them, and here they are." I try to talk about them. I try to say, "Look at what you've done to the graduation rate. Look at how many more students you've pulled forward. Look at how many more patient – patients' lives we've saved. Look at this program or that program that made a huge difference." And so that's part of it. But I think a bigger part of it is people are always expecting if you get this pattern going, and this is what I do, is I always make sure that I have something big to announce that's new.
So one of the big things that I'll be talking about is the UIA, and being a part of that. And what that means to us, and how that gives us a greater opportunity to catalyze this great work that we've been doing, and leverage the ideas and thoughts of other institutions like ours. But then the other thing will be huge for us, so I will make an announcement that is probably the biggest – in addition to the UIA, I will make an announcement that is the biggest announcement that I have made, I would say, in 20, 27 years. So I'm really excited about it. It will have a tremendous impact on human health, and it will really put a shape to VCU and our role in healthcare that we have never had before. So it has a clinical aspect to it, but it's a very heavy research aspect. And it will have a very important educational aspect to it, too, not just to the community, but to our students and especially our medical students. So I think students leaving VCU will be known for this particular thing that I'm going to be talking about. It's very exciting.
Doug Lederman:
Wow, cliffhanger.
Bridget Burns:
Yeah, you're really leaving us – we're on the edge of our seat. We're going to have to tune in. That's actually very strategic PR on your part.
Michael Rao:
Yeah, I hadn't quite made – I didn't intend to make it sound like such a cliffhanger, but I'm glad it came off that way.
Doug Lederman:
Sure, sure.
Bridget Burns:
Well, President Rao, this has really been wonderful to have you here today. Thank you for making the time, and we're again delighted to share the news that the UIA has now its newest member of VCU. And we can't wait to continue our work together that's already been very exciting. The team that you have assembled is really exceptional. And we're delighted to work with them. So Doug, as always great to see you. We were just chatting, and I don't know, for folks at home, about our upcoming panel in about a month at South by Southwest, where we actually unpacking kind of the where's higher ed in the context of post-COVID? How we're going to recover, and what this means for the future. So if you feel like tuning in just know that we will actually be in person elbow bumping, and it will be great. But otherwise we will see you all very shortly, and have a wonderful week.
Michael Rao:
Thank you.
Bios of Guest and Co-Hosts
Guest: Michael Rao, President, Virginia Commonwealth University
Michael Rao, Ph.D. became the fifth president of Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health System in 2009, the first Asian-American president in the university’s history. Under Dr. Rao’s leadership, VCU’s place among national research universities continues to rise. Guided by its current strategic plan, Quest 2025: Together We Transform, the university is focused on student experience, strengthening educator and researcher compensation, increasing national prominence through research, and improving patient experience. VCU educates and graduates more Pell-eligible and first-generation college-going students than its Tier III counterparts in the commonwealth combined. Dr. Rao has overseen one of the largest expansions of VCU’s footprint through the construction of living-learning environments, academic meeting spaces, and state-of-the-art clinical and laboratory facilities. He serves as chair of the Virginia Bio+Tech Partnership Authority and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities. He is also is a senior executive advisory committee member with the Northern Virginia Technology Council and vice chair/chair-elect for the American Council on Education. Dr. Rao’s career in higher education began in California in 1992, when he became president of Mission College. At the time, he was the youngest college president in the nation. He went on to serve as chancellor of Montana State University - Northern and president of Central Michigan University. A tenured professor in the VCU College of Health Professions, Dr. Rao holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida and a Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida. He and his wife, Monica – a watercolorist and graphic designer – have two sons.
Co-Host: Bridget Burns, CEO, University Innovation Alliance
Dr. Bridget Burns is the founder and CEO of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA). For the past decade, she has advised university presidents, system chancellors, and state and federal policy leaders on strategies to expand access to higher education, address costs, and promote completion for students of all backgrounds. The UIA was developed during Bridget’s tenure as an American Council on Education (A.C.E.) Fellowship at Arizona State University. She held multiple roles within the Oregon University System, including serving as Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor, where she won the national award for innovation in higher education government relations. She was a National Associate for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and has served on several statewide governing boards including ones governing higher education institutions, financial aid policy, and policy areas impacting children and families.
Co-Host: Doug Lederman, Editor and Co-Founder, Inside Higher Ed
Doug Lederman is editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed. With Scott Jaschik, he leads the site's editorial operations, overseeing news content, opinion pieces, career advice, blogs and other features. Doug speaks widely about higher education, including on C-Span and National Public Radio and at meetings and on campuses around the country. His work has appeared in The New York Times and USA Today, among other publications. Doug was managing editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education from 1999 to 2003, after working at The Chronicle since 1986 in a variety of roles. He has won three National Awards for Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association, including one for a 2009 series of Inside Higher Ed articles on college rankings. He began his career as a news clerk at The New York Times. He grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and graduated in 1984 from Princeton University. Doug and his wife, Kate Scharff, live in Bethesda, MD.
About Weekly Wisdom
Weekly Wisdom is an event series that happens live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also becomes a podcast episode. Every week, we join forces with Inside Higher Ed and talk with a sitting college president or chancellor about how they're specifically navigating the challenges of this moment. These conversations will be filled with practicable things you can do right now by unpacking how and why college leaders are making decisions within higher education. Hopefully, these episodes will also leave you with a sense of optimism and a bit of inspiration.
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