Powered by Passion and Purpose | Dr. Julia Christensen Hughes

Julia Christensen Hughes, guest · [01:18]It's a big question. When I look back over my life, I realize that I'm just Inclined to look at something and wonder how it can be improved. I think my passion for helping higher education improve itself truly began when I was an undergraduate learner and really disappointed. And I will share that Guelph has come a long way since I did my undergrad at Guelph, so don't want to cast dispersions, at a wonderful institution where I'm professor emerita now. But as an undergrad student, in, in the 1970s, what struck me is that it was not actually a learning organization, that it was a busy place to be, lots of things to do and to get graded. But it, it really wasn't until fourth year where I really felt anyone was interested in supporting my learning. And it was when the senior faculty teaching senior courses seemed to have more degrees of freedom in how they taught and how they assessed. So it became the case study method where you could Where you were expected as a student to actually have done critical analysis, formed an opinion, being able to stand in a classroom and advocate and defend a point of view, I finally felt that my brain was doing something useful. Up until that point, large lectures being tested on Trivia, you know, your ability to memorize obscure facts rather than to think and to do. I knew I had to go back and do graduate work. I knew I had more learning I wanted to do. And so eventually did an MBA and then a PhD. And then it was there that I really felt, okay, finally my brain is being challenged and I feel I am experiencing intellectual growth. And so when I ended up back at Guelph as a young faculty member now, working alongside many of the faculty I had as a student, I thought, I really need to do something about this. And so I just started running workshops. How audacious was I as a young faculty member running workshops? At the time, Guelph was embracing a vision of becoming truly a student-centered university. And I thought, well, we better figure out what that means and how we need to change our pedagogy and our philosophy and practice of assessment. So started Organizing these events for faculty to come together and discuss these ideas. I wasn't even aware at the time that Guelph had a teaching center. Well, the teaching center became aware of what I was doing, and one thing led to another, and then I became director of that teaching center, and then had an opportunity to, to impact the university on, on a much broader scale. But yes, it really, it truly was inspired by my own disappointments as an undergraduate student.

Julia Christensen Hughes, guest · [12:12]One of the things I learned from that is that if you are an unknown entity, the brand lift you can get from associated with a powerful other brand, again, as long as its values align, is really significant. But it was such a proud day when our MBA in sustainable commerce was ranked amongst the top 10 in the world by corporate knights. So all that work had inspired us to really boldly come forward with a very, it was a very innovative MBA for its time in sustainable commerce and to see that global recognition was phenomenal, and in fact was played a big part, in, in the Lang's decision to, to honor us with, with their father's name. I remember talking to Stu and Kim Lang, and Stu was so proud of his father's approach to leadership. he told me that as, as a younger kid, traveling the world with his father, visiting, the plants around the world, and that the first place his father always wanted to go was the employee lunchroom, and then the employee restroom. And he said that's how he would know if the employees were being treated with respect and truly being valued by the organization. And, so I think Stu and Kim, again, really believed that we were a business school that could proudly and rightfully wear their father's name, and, you know, be a, be a recognition for what he'd achieved. But Through the twenty-one million, the very generous twenty-one million dollar gift they provided the Lang School with also provided us with the opportunity to, to extend progress towards the vision. and notably a funded chair for each of the departments, to further invest in sustainability research, but also a lot of funding for our students so they could host and go to conferences and engage in competitions and proudly represent the school. So it was without doubt an absolutely transformational gift, and you'll know because you played a big role in, in helping, get us to that point that I wasn't just interested in any gift. It had to be the right gift. I was not prepared to, to step away, from the vision or the values of the school. I was looking for a gift that would absolutely reinforce the trajectory and, and accelerate, the trajectory that we were We were already on.

Julia Christensen Hughes, guest · [17:09]So my MBA and PhD are from the Schulich School of Business at York University, and Dejo Horvath, who was dean for over thirty years, he actually He was my strategy prof when I was doing my MBA, and then he became dean. So he was dean in role when I did my PhD. And so over the ensuing years, I got to witness Dejo's leadership, transforming what had been known as the Faculty of Administrative Studies into world-ranked Schulich. And so when I was considering putting my name forward for the dean's role, I had a great conversation with Dejo, where I essentially asked him one question, how did you do it? How did you take the Faculty of Administrative Studies? And I remember it was like an MBA factory. It was in the basement, no windows. It was sort of this concrete bunker, and then, you know, translated into or transformed, excuse me, into world-ranked Schulich. And he said, I never started by saying to the faculty, I have a good idea who wants to work hard on this, right? It would always seem like extra work. Nothing was going to go away. And what faculty member just simply wants to do extra work? They've already got their priorities being reinforced by, you know, their disciplinary norms. He said that would never work. That will just be an exercise in, you know, abject frustration and failure. He said who he could convince of the value of his ideas was folks in the external community, employers. Employers who are counting on business schools to produce the talent that's going to help them transform their own organizations. And so if he had an idea, he would go to them first and say, I have an idea for some new research or I have an idea for a new program or need some money to support a strategic initiative. And if he could convince them that that would help him produce better talent, then They would fund it. And so now it would not be additional work of the faculty, but now it's an opportunity to purpose hire faculty, new faculty, to help make that thing happen. Or if you have a superstar who's willing to jump on board with that project, then to sort of backfill their role. And I took that strategy to heart.

Julia Christensen Hughes, guest · [23:37]And I was long concerned about Higher educations, put the public systems in tractability. I've mentioned a couple of times like the power of the disciplines and disciplinary norms, and there's all, you know, there's all sorts of other systemic issues that I think really prevent transformation occurring within the public university system. But I thought, here's an opportunity for me to be a president of a pan-Canadian university. So Yorkville operates in BC, Ontario, and New Brunswick. The vast majority of students are learning online asynchronous graduate programs, average age is 36. Over 80% of those students are women, many living in remote communities who just simply do not have access to the model of graduate education expected by public institutions. You know, it's been interesting to see in all the news all the challenge around housing. And I certainly understand that when it comes to international students. But if you can allow your graduate With students to learn where they're living, to keep their jobs, not to give up their jobs, to keep their commitments to family and community, to continue to have access to their support groups. Now people can be truly pursuing work-integrated learning. They're learning alongside their working. They have Automatic opportunity to test theory, to apply it. As you know, I'm a big proponent of skills-based learning, and Yorkville has our eight signature learning outcomes that, as I like to say, future-proof people's careers. These truly are the transferable foundational skills, like digital literacy, that everybody needs today with the advent of AI. Anyway, I just thought this is too great an opportunity. I knew I would be going up against long-held beliefs about private institutions in this country. That belief is not held across other Western countries, whether it's the UK, Australia, US, where private institutions are certainly highly regarded and probably take their place. But I do believe that the percentage of the population that can take four or five years to pursue an undergraduate degree without the opportunity to meaningfully apply and develop skills or Founding that learning will be increasingly shrinking. So I think we're about to see the shakeup of the whole system. And, you know, I was just in New Brunswick last week at convocation to see hundreds of students graduating, with their masters in education and counseling psychology. We have a doctorate in counseling, psychotherapy now with babes in arms, moms and dads bringing children up on the stage, the, the cheers from family members, as well as so many people watching online, from around the globe, as well as across the country. I just think what, what we're doing is, is unique and, and badly needed. And I'm just so grateful to have the opportunity now to, to tackle one, one more leadership, big leadership challenge. And I'm hoping by the time I step down this country, we'll understand, that there needs to be a better way, that there is a better way. And in fact, it's already happening, here in Canada.

Julia Christensen Hughes, guest · [29:11]Well, it's quite remarkable, isn't it, to hear headline or read headline after headline of institutions posting twenty, thirty, forty, fifty million dollar annual deficits. And, and what's so sad to me about that is, you know, I think I've known a number of university presidents that really tried hard to innovate and in some case successfully grew, but where that growth came from international students, now that's obviously significantly, being reduced. Public universities are not set up well to change. In fact, there's significant entrenchment, whether it's in collective agreements, you know, faculty association types of policies, but also mindsets. It's been said that faculty's allegiance is much stronger to their disciplinary bodies than it is to their institution, that their institution is kind of the place they hang their coat and they get their paycheck. How does a public university address all of that in terms of saying we need to make significant changes? And so I think because so many university presidents are really restricted in the public system, I would say if faced with a financial crisis, an organization has two options. One is to innovate and courageously grow the top line, see new ways of doing things, new markets, and some universities are doing that. I'm seeing, you know, new opportunities for fully online programs. Or micro-credentials, these kinds of things. But the majority of the headlines, what I'm seeing is what I call squeezing your way to the bottom and just kind of mind, like mindlessly lopping off parts or squeezing costs so much that there's no opportunity for a quality experience to exist any longer. It was years ago that in an address to presidents and VPs research, I said, let's face it, students pretend to learn, faculty pretend to teach, and administrators pretend to care. And then I said, just kidding, but if you actually looked at the behavior of people, somebody outside the system could make that argument. And I said a lot, of course, a lot of students are there to learn and a lot of faculty care deeply and a lot of administrators do, but the system does not support that caring, right? The system works against it. I think we will, in times of crisis, I think people are sort of just hunkering down and actually lopping off the things that would deliver the heart of being a learning organization. so I'm, I'm actually quite concerned, about what I see happening.

Julia Christensen Hughes, guest · [33:04]I was very proud that, after 10 years of being director of the teaching center at Guelph, it really had become recognized as nationally leading. people were looking to Guelph to see what innovations we were implementing. I think some of my research on academic, misconduct, student misconduct, made the cover of Maclean's. We had people from all across the country doing research on academic integrity. that, and, and Guelph was seen as sort of the, the center of some of that effort, as, as well as other things. And what was so disappointing Pointing to me is that shortly after I stepped down from director, that entire department was, was amalgamated and, and pretty much dismantled. And that was a very painful leadership lesson, that just because you've created something, it doesn't mean it will last beyond your term, your tenure. Institutions, I've come to realize, often wait for the person to vacate the post. And then they go in and do what they'd perhaps always wanted to see done. And so I brought that painful lesson with me to the Lang School of Business and Economics and was very pleased when the donors, and I do want to recognize the Wood family as well that created our center for entrepreneurship and innovation, that made sure that those gifts, and I'm doing this with your support, Daniel, were absolutely clear on the expectations of the gift, right? What Lang had to do in exchange for the money that would not allow somebody to come in and change the vision of the school, the values of the school, or the vision or values of our center for business and student enterprise. So that was a tough lesson, but realizing if I truly want, you know, whatever we've created to last, that that has to be part of my leadership focus is sort of hard baking that into the systems that support The enterprise.