Weekly Wisdom Episode 12: Transcript of Conversation With Ana Mari Cauce, University of Washington President

Note: This interview, Episode 12 of the Weekly Wisdom Series, originally aired on July 13, 2020 as part of the University Innovation Alliance’s Innovating Together podcast, appearing live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Click here to access our summary, along with helpful links and audio from this episode.

Bridget Burns:
Welcome to “Innovating Together,” podcast produced by the University Innovation Alliance. This is the podcast for busy people in higher education who are looking for the best ideas, inspiration, and leaders to help you improve student success. I’m your host, Bridget Burns. 

You’re about to watch another episode of “Start the Week with Wisdom,” which, for those of you who are at home, if you have not seen this before, these are our weekly episodes where we conduct an interview with a sitting college president or chancellor. And we want to talk to them about how they’re navigating the challenge of this moment. We’re in a really unique time, and we want to focus on their leadership and unpack how they are making decisions, how they’re navigating, and hopefully it will leave you with a sense of optimism, a bit inspired, and give you a bit of hope. 

Rick Seltzer:
Hi. I’m Rick Seltzer, projects editor of Inside Higher Ed. And this week we’re delighted to bring you a conversation with the president of the University of Washington, Ana Mari Cauce. She has a deep understanding of U.W. While she’s been president of 2015, she’s been at the institution since 1986, and she previously served in the role of provost and executive vice president there. 

So to start off, President Cauce, how are you doing?

Ana Mari Cauce:
Thank you for having me. 

Bridget Burns:
Welcome. And how are you doing?

Ana Mari Cauce:
Well, there’s a new word that I saw recently that’s called – what is it called? Corona-coaster. And that pretty much describes how I’m feeling. Depends from moment to moment, and day to day. Just the incredible craziness from one moment feeling on top of the world and like, you know, we’ve got this, to next feeling like, “Oh, my gosh.” I mean, if I think about this last week, for example, you know, absolutely when we first heard about the new regulation affecting our international students, that was just absolutely crazy making. The degree to which our students were nervous, upset, panicked – and for good reason. And so, how were we going to react to that, etc.? 

And then another day having a town hall talking about our plans for reopening, having some great conversations with students and you’re feeling on top of it. So it has been a corona-coaster. 

Rick Seltzer:
One of the challenges I think right now for a lot of presidents seems to be how to communicate most effectively. You mentioned town halls. There’s a lot of complicated information coming out. Most students, most parents, don't think about what does a hybrid semester look like? That’s something many probably have never even though of. And yet, here you are, trying to communicate: "We’re going to go to X, Y and Z." Can you talk a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, about what strategies have worked for you to communicating where you stand and what went into your considerations?

Ana Mari Cauce:
Well, you know, I think that there are times when you worry about over communicating, and this is not one of them. And what we’re trying to do is communicate in various modalities. So, you know, the emails to students and to their parents letting them know. But then also town halls. We’ve also created, for example, a video that gives them a tour of the dorms and what the dorms are going to look like – so, trying communicate in various different ways. Because, like I say, you can’t communicate enough. 

And then, also, and I think this is a challenge as well, is always making it clear that every single one of our communications comes with an asterisk. So we’re talking about what we plan to do, but we also know that, hey, we have to have contingency B, C, D and E. It’s no longer a Plan A and a Plan B. There’s got to be a Plan C, D, and E. And I think that that is one of the things that really is hardest, is that people want to hear consistency in communications, and the truth is that every single one of our communications has a huge asterisk because, as much as I’d like to think that I’m in charge, right now coronavirus – COVID – is in charge. 

Bridget Burns:
That’s helpful. I agree with you about the email not being sufficient. I know that students are definitely overwhelmed by that. I just was going to try and ask you about, for those who are struggling in the midst of, you know, we have not just the pandemic. We also are dealing with national reverberation around the recognition of systemic racism. And I’m just wondering, do you have a leadership kind of framework that is helping you right now, or kind of a way of seeing this moment that is helping you clarify what to focus on today, as opposed to getting caught up in just everything? It can be overwhelming. 

Ana Mari Cauce:
Well, what I think is really helpful to me – and I’m a clinical community psychologist. One of the things that we study in community psychology, in particular, is the notion of crisis theory. And crisis theory was developed after a big fire, and looking at people’s responses to it, etc. And the idea of crisis theory is basically that when things are in steady state, when things are going as usual, it’s not a good time for change. Because, you know, why would you change? But during crisis theory, when everything is in flux, when all our structures are thrown up in the air, it creates the real opportunity for change. And so what I’m really trying to focus on is what are the opportunities here? We all know what the challenges are, but what are the opportunities here?

We see that in a number of ways. For example, there have been some people that have been very, very resistant to doing anything online. And all of a sudden, we’ve been forced to go online. You know, people talk about universities kind of operating on a glacial pace. Well, in a couple-of-week period, we took 7,000 courses and put them all online. And I think that there’s no question – I want to be clear – I think in-person is the way to go and that online is great for some things. But I’m looking forward to a time when we’re all in-person again. But I think people have been finding that it’s a good addition, and that there are some wonderful things that can be done online – people who would have never, never gone there. 

So, we’ve seen a real flexibility, for example, in how we as a university have responded. We have also seen that, perhaps most clearly, in terms a real willingness, I think, to look at systemic racism in a much more serious way than I’ve seen in quite a long time. We’ve seen incredible rapid changes. All of a sudden, this huge resistance to bringing down statues five years ago, like that. We’ve seen names changes, statues coming down, etc. Now, one can say rightfully that’s symbolic. In academia, where we still wear caps and gowns, we realize that symbolism is important. But I think it’s been much more than the symbolic changes. 

Right now, I think universities – certainly cities around the country – but also universities are looking at different ways in which we might be dealing with public health issues and policing and looking at that much more seriously than I’ve ever seen people look at it before, including us. We’re looking at many more schools. I mean, this year a lot of schools are not using SATs. We have decided that we’re not going to use SATs as a requirement going forward. And my hunch is we’ll start seeing other universities beginning to do that.

We’re having a discussion now, a serious discussion amongst top-ranked universities about U.S. News and World Report and their rankings. We all talk about how we want to be more inclusive, and yet we’re all part of a ranking system that gives you points for being anything but inclusive. It gives you points simply for being selective. And so I think that this has created some real opportunities for change, and that’s what I’m trying to focus on. That’s what keeps me sane. 

Rick Seltzer:
Really great point about this being a unique moment. Now, you mentioned the symbolism of statues falling, names changes, and you mentioned presidents getting together to talk about things like how do we move beyond the exclusivity-driven ranking system. Do you have any strategies for actually turning the symbolic, and the talk, if I can lump those together – I probably am, inappropriately – but actually turning those into action that will result in things for students on the ground and faculty on the ground? 

Ana Mari Cauce:
Well, like I say, I do think that symbols are important, and academia will use symbols all the time. And for some students, I mean, and some of the students that we're most interested in bringing into our universities, not having to look at a Confederate statue can be part of creating an inclusive environment. So I don't want to downplay that. But like I say, I think we do need to look beyond just the symbolic and I think – and I know that this is a conversation that I’ve been having at my university with our faculty and also with our trustees, our regencies, you know, really rethinking the whole notion of meritocracy. What is it? How are we defining merit, and are we defining merit in a way that is privileging? The question isn’t "aren’t we?" We are defining merit in ways that privilege some individuals more than others. And so, how do we rethink that? We already have a holistic admissions, but let’s rethink some of the pieces of that. 

Bridget Burns:
So I’m curious because in the midst of everything that’s going on, we also have, from my perspective, quite a few interim presidents and chancellors that are coming in. We also have a really high number of transitions. I have two presidents who retired last week. I have a new president last week, as well. I think that this is really unusual. That creates a special pressure on the leadership role. I wanted to ask you, because you came in – now, granted, you were the provost, so you had a really strong sense of the institution. But I’m curious about your experience as an interim president at U.W., before knowing whether or not you were going to be named. I don't know if you have any advice about that experience that could help those who are navigating the complexity of this moment in an interim position. But I’m wondering if you could share any?

Ana Mari Cauce:
Yeah, I think that, you know, one of the ways in which I looked at my experience as interim – and quite frankly I wasn’t sure in the early stages whether I wanted the permanent job or not – was to actually take a moment and think. We’re all interims. The difference is that I have a contract. And so I think that the real – that the best way of you knowing whether this is the right job for you, and probably of other people knowing are you the right person for the job, is to approach it not as if you’re running for the job, but to approach it as if you have the job. Because, in fact, for some interim period of time, you do have the job. 

So, for example, I launched a Race and Equity Initiative in the middle of my interim presidency, which was really a pretty risky thing to do. But I wanted to know, "OK, how is this going to come across?" And it’s actually been fabulous because it’s something – we’ve had some structures in place that we can draw upon now as we are going through the other pandemic, which is actually deeper and longer lasting, which is the pandemic of racism in this country. So I just really think that the idea of playing it safe in an interim role because it’s interim is probably not the best idea. 

Rick Seltzer:
Do you have any strategies, as someone who rose through the ranks in a single institution and has been there for decades, how do you keep yourself from becoming too self-referential, or too internally facing, and remember that there are different ways to do things, elsewhere, that maybe they’re not better, but they’re worth considering maybe to change it up internally? 

Ana Mari Cauce:
That’s funny. I’m laughing because I remember once being part of a search where someone said that every few years they were part of a search as a way of keeping themselves fresh. I do not do that. But I do – for example, there are lots of opportunities to be on accreditation committees. For example, this last year I was on the accreditation committee for U.C.L.A. I’ve been on the accreditation committee for University of Toronto. I’ve been on accreditation for U.B.C. I think that there are opportunities for you to get out and look at how other universities work up close. And, again, they create those aha moments. 

For me, I can’t imagine having this job at a university that I hadn’t been in. I draw from my reservoir of goodwill, the degree to which I have that. But more importantly, there are faculty who have known me since I was a pup, and so they feel very comfortable telling me, "What the heck are you doing?" And feel very comfortable giving me that kind of feedback. I think that one of the things that can be a real problem when you’re in a position of authority like this is that people tiptoe around you. And I really feel that the best gift that someone can give you is the gift of honesty. And that can be hard to get when you come in at the top. 

But I think that, again, one of the disadvantages could be that you only know what’s around you. And so I think that it’s really important to get out. Accreditation committees are one way of doing that. Also, visiting other campuses. You know, there are groups of presidents that meet regularly. And I think all of that is important, as well as, as you build your leadership team. We certainly have deans, etc. that have risen internally, but we also bring them in from the outside, and that helps, as well. 

Bridget Burns:
I’m curious about, for one, just as a follow-up, do you find that because you have spent your career at U.W. that you are more inclined to hire folks from other institutions to counteract? Or just kind of pretty much the same as anyone else, I guess? 

Ana Mari Cauce:
Actually, you know, my own belief is, all things being equal, I’d rather have an internal candidate. But not things are equal – unless you really want to. That’s assuming that you want to continue the course or trajectory of a department or a school or college. If you really want to see a radical change, often it is better. Regardless, I mean, I’d say if I looked at the leadership searches recently, they’re probably close to 50/50. I mean, you will bring in people from the outside, there’s no question. And that’s a good thing, too. But I do feel that, all things being equal – and that’s hardly ever the case that all things are. 

Bridget Burns:
Rick started out with my curveball, but can I ask my other question, which was I’m just curious about is there anything that’s going on right now that you actually hope will stick? You mentioned that more folks are obviously experimenting with online, and they’re seeing that there’s some value there. There’s more remote work. There’s plenty of things that I think there could be opportunity for us to lean into. And I’m wondering if there’s any one of those for you that you’re actually hoping sticks around? 

Ana Mari Cauce:
Well, I think that there’s actually number of things. People always say never waste a good crisis. And I think that it sparked an enormous amount of creativity and innovation. And it is moving people out of their comfort zone, and I hope that that sense of it sticks. One of the things that I’ve been saying ever since I got the job is, when people ask me what’s my vision for the university I always say I want us to be the top public university in the world in terms of impact. And what that means is how quickly we can get from research in the lab – theory – to actual practice. And I think that that’s something that’s been enormously – we’ve really seen the fruits of that come together, and we have been absolutely one of the real leaders in terms of how we respond to the pandemic. 

Our Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation started modeling resource use for the hospitals, and now they’re modeling things like the effects of masks, etc. And it’s that kind of thing of going from theory to impact, and looking at how does the work that you’re doing in the lab make a difference in the world. I mean, the race to come up with a vaccine and to come up with treatments, and that really requires, for example, much more interdisciplinary work. The problems that we’re facing in the world right now are way too complicated and way too messy and hairy to just use one discipline. 

And so I’d like to see us continue that sense of doing things in an interdisciplinary way. I mean, we were very lucky. Two of my presidential initiatives – one was Race and Equity, the other one was Population Health – and, again, Population Health was an interdisciplinary approach to looking at health as not just a function of individuals, but of communities. And that has proven to be very, very helpful in this pandemic context. 

I hope that we all keep in our heads the fact that we’re all interrelated. I think that if this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that what happens to any one individual affects us all. And I hope that that’s something that we remember. I hope that, you know, we really continue to think very seriously about things like universal healthcare, which is so incredibly critical at this time and that I hope we continue forward. Some of the work – one of our representatives has really been working on a paycheck guarantees. So I hope that we can really realize with this pandemic the incredible importance of having a safety net for this country, because we’re all interrelated. 

Rick Seltzer:
This is going to sound somewhat like the same question that you just answered, but actually it’s subtly different. What do you think the most likely outcome is for changes in higher ed in a year or two years? I ask because we kind of seem to have this dichotomy right now. Institutions are saying we’re going to open in the fall. We’re going to bring students back to campus. We’re going to take every precaution possible, and we’re going to learn from hybrid classes, and we’re going to do a great job going forward. And that’s a wonderful vision. 

The other side is there’s this drumbeat, whether it’s in op-eds or elsewhere, of research universities are going to take kids from across the campus. You’re going to see Greek life resulting in outbreaks, and they’re going to risk their reputations for a semester. And I’m really curious how you balance that risk and what you see is the most likely outcome going forward? Will we actually see this moment as a triumph of change, or a moment where the sector really could have done better? 

Ana Mari Cauce:
I think it’s interesting. Because, you know, if you read the headlines, you get the sense that there are drastically different things that universities are doing. At the end of the day, almost everyone is going hybrid. Even folks that are going primarily online have some courses that they’re doing in person. And even schools that are talking about, "we’re bringing students back." For example, we are bringing students back but the bulk of our courses will be online, simply because to do the kind of distancing that we need is not going to allow us to bring in more than about somewhere between 20 to 25 percent of courses in person. 

So I think that we’re all – what we’re doing is more similar than what it might appear. And I think it’s important to balance. Because, you know, we’re always balancing a set of risks that, yes, there are health risks that are very – there are physical health risks from COVID that are very, very real. But we’re also dealing with some very serious mental health effects. I mean, the rates of anxiety and depression amongst young people are absolutely through the roof. And we are social creatures, and we are meant to be together. And so, you have to balance those things out. 

What I think is really important for us all to do – and I’m actually fairly positive about it – is develop a different kind of culture. We need to develop a culture on campus where our students themselves are involved in risk reduction, harm reduction activity. We’ve seen this in the past. There was a time when people didn’t wear seatbelts and now that is habitual. When I was in high school, the notion that people didn’t let friends drive drunk, that was not something. And now that – we’ve changed the culture there.

And if you look at this generation of youth, they have some of the lowest rates of – you know, teen pregnancy is way down. Drinking is down. Drug use is down. I think we have a group of students that, if we work with them and we work with them closely to develop a culture where risk behavior goes down, I’m very optimistic about the kind of culture we can have on campus. 

As an example, people kind of talk in these dichotomies. Are you going to open? Are you going to close? We never closed. We have more than 2,000 students in our dorms, and we’ve had less than 1 percent have gotten COVID. In fact, I can count on one hand. And there’s been no community spread. So, I think we can do this. To recognize that it’s not like you go to a campus and you’re at risk, or you’re at home and you’re in a bubble. You know, it’s these students. We are 100 percent online, as we’ve had an outbreak in our Greek system. We are 100 percent online as we’re seeing rates going up amongst college-aged students. So it’s not this either/or. It’s a question of how can we create a culture where there is real risk reduction/harm reduction? 

Bridget Burns:
In this whole conversation where presidents are being asked this over and over, the one part that I’m hearing from my institutions, but I just don't think people understand, is that parents and students are banging down the institutions doors to come back. The messaging and – by the thousands, it is not because institutions are just in a bubble deciding do we want to bring people back or not? It’s actually that students and parents are demanding to come back. And I think that’s a part of the conversation that is not being seen by the people who are being pretty critical of presidents’ decision making. And understanding that there are actually people – I don't know if folks wanting to get their kids out of the house, or what. But in general, that adds some complexity to it. 

Ana Mari Cauce:
These are primarily young adults, or almost adults. And it’s not like parents can lock them up in their rooms. But, you know, the truth is that I think almost anywhere there’s that option. For the student who wants to go 100 percent online, either because they want to or because they’re in a high-risk category, they can do that. I mean, we are not forcing anybody to come on campus. Anyone can continue their education 100 percent online if that’s what they choose. 

Bridget Burns:
I just want to wrap with one question. I found, you know – President Cauce, I have to say, Michael Crow sings your praises. Ed Rays sings your praises. And I hear how presidents talk about other presidents, but you’re one who I had never met before and I had never seen speak. And I listened to a podcast that you were on earlier today, to kind of just get a little more sense about you. And I think you’re really delightful and quite candid in a way that is refreshing. So I was just going to end with asking what is giving you a sense of hope or optimism in this moment? Because leading is hard when things are this difficult. 

Ana Mari Cauce:
Well, I think that what keeps me going is the young people. It is just so incredibly fabulous to be in a situation where you’re surrounded by young people. I think at times, as we get older, we can get a little jaded, etc. But I think that the kind of idealism that young people have, and quite frankly their determination to meet challenges head on, you know, they’re dealing with a whole range of challenges. There’s the pandemic, there’s environmental challenges, there’s systemic racism, and they are unafraid. And that to me is just so incredibly refreshing, and it’s so energizing, and it keeps me young. 

Bridget Burns:
That is a perfect note to end on. Thank you, again, President Cauce. We really appreciate you taking the time to share with us your insights and your perspective running a very complex institution with multiple hospitals. It’s just helpful to get a sense of how one goes through this moment. You’re getting some comments from folks that are positive. 

And Rick, it was wonderful to have you on the team. Thanks again for joining us. And for those of you at home, we will be back again next Monday, with a different college president or chancellor, and I will have a new partner from likely the Inside Higher Ed team joining me in this conversation. Once again, we hope you have a wonderful week and thanks for joining us. 

Ana Mari Cauce:
Thank you. 

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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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