Leadership In Public Conversation, Part 5: Growth Mindsets and Building Trust

Dan Porterfield, President and CEO of Aspen Institute, joins Leadership in Public Conversation for a discussion on his perspective on the importance of, and the role higher education plays, in fostering a growth mindset across generations. We explore how that may change as the future of higher education and the world, at large, continues to evolve.

Prior to his role at the Aspen Institute, he served as the President of Franklin & Marshall College, Senior Vice President for Strategic Development at Georgetown University, and as communications director and chief speechwriter for the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Dan is also the author of the book Mindset Matters: The Power of College to Activate Lifelong Growth about the growing value of college in today’s rapidly changing world.

During the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years, the Inspired Leadership Initiative is exploring the topic of Leadership in Public Conversation. Hear from leaders across disciplines and industries who can speak to relevant topics in today’s world. From a podcaster focusing on fulfillment, to young Notre Dame alumni making their mark in society, and individuals navigating complex current events, all are setting an example for accompanying generations through their personal and professional lives.

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Transcript

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Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Tom Schreier. And I have the great privilege of being the founding director, with my partner, Chris Stevens, as co founding director of the Inspired Leadership Initiative here at the University of Notre Dame. And for the benefit of those of you that will, have the opportunity to watch us on ThinkND, our online learning platform, the Inspired Leadership Initiative is the place here at the University of Notre Dame where people can come back, and, learn. Discover, discern, and design, the next stage of their lives. And, as I mentioned, it's really been a great privilege, to be about a part of this from the very beginning. And, I just want to welcome you to the second installment of, the Inspiring Conversation Series. the Inspiring Conversation Series is something that we came up with, during the pandemic to keep a connection with our audience. And, for the past couple of years, what we've wanted to do is bring people That can help to advance the idea of leadership in public conversation, something which is incredibly important. I know many of you were here yesterday when we had an opportunity, to meet with Anne Thompson, from NBC, who is, another person who's a very powerful and great, leader in public conversation. And I especially want to thank those people at ThinkND, the people in the Alumni Association who came up with the idea of this online learning platform, which allows the wisdom of this great institution to be broadcast. out to people who are Notre Dame alumni, Notre Dame students, and very importantly friends of Notre Dame and just really want to know and understand, the best of what Notre Dame has to offer. And it's been a really powerful, tool for us, to bring topics that we believe are very important to, the public dialogue, to them. And I also want to friend, thank our partners here. at the Institute for Educational Initiatives and Leadership there, who's graciously allowed us to use this beautiful space here, in particular Matt Kloser and Chrissy Trinter, who were super gracious. and of course, I don't think it hurt that Father Kevin, is a member of that community and, helped to foster that relationship. So thank you. so let me just introduce you briefly and we'll get started with our conversation. And, don't read all that though. I'm not gonna read all that. These are I'm not. I promise you I wouldn't. I told, I promised you I wouldn't. It's a horrible prompt for me. if you, I didn't read all this either, but, I have wonderful people that write it and then I get to pick what to say. And it's, it really works nice. But I've had the great pleasure over the course of the past month or so to get to know Dan a bit. And, Dan Porterfield is the author of this book right here, Mindset Matters, the role of higher education and fostering growth mindsets across, generations. All of you are alumni of the Inspire Leadership Initiative, and just about every word in that title means something to you, or we hope it does, because if it doesn't, we failed in our mission. so we couldn't really think of anybody better. And just a couple of highlights, he leads, he is the CEO and President of the Aspen Institute. I think a lot of you are familiar with that institute, and it's an institute that I think has a lot of, and as I've come to better understand it, I think a lot of very mission aligned things with what we do, and that's really powerful. Before that, he was president of Franklin and Marshall College. And I think the thing that he did there most powerfully, which resonates a lot, I think, at an institution, as we heard yesterday, from the leaders of Anne Brice and Transformational Leaders, it's an institution that dramatically expanded the access for under resourced and first generation students in a really meaningful and intentional way when you were president. And that was super powerful. And before that and I can tell you from the faculty that, I've been in touch with that, about Dan's visit, he was the head of strategic development at Georgetown, University, a role where he had a really transformative influence there. So I could say a lot more, but he told me not to. I do, I do what, I'm told. I will just say beforehand, having had the opportunity to read his book, I strongly recommend it. doing that, and it's right here afterwards, and you can get it, but, with that, I'll just start off our discussion, and thank you for being here. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Bob. I just thought I'd, just to give a little bit of insight into you, a lot of the people in our audience here are thinking about what's next. You've had a pretty eclectic career path, right? That's covered a lot of ground and I think that's instructive to our audience. So maybe just talk a little bit about that and how you've made the decisions along the way to take the vocations that you've chosen. Oh, thank you. And it's great to be here. And this is such an important program, a national model, though, ironically, no one can quite do it the way you do it. everybody else that builds these kinds of programs will be looking here. It's such a need. I grew up in Baltimore City in, during the era of the Civil Rights Movement. And, I was very fortunate. my, my parents were very distinctive human beings. My mom had grown up in foster care. she, was then reunited with her birth mother and then thrown out of the house by her birth mother because she didn't, she And her then husband didn't want her dating my dad. and so that led to me, they got married. And, so it's, my grandmother was in the circus and her husband was a magician in the circus, and the magic was that, that, Bad relationship gave me and my sister the chance to be alive. my dad was, a playwright who's Jesuit educated. He was, he was angry at the racism at the Vietnam war. it was a generation that was deeply suspicious of authority. He became a local playwright in Baltimore and his theater called Corner Theater, which I only went to a couple of times because I was little. was the site of this, these incredibly intense. productions about, about the dilemmas of the time. And ultimately they divorced, we grew up in a neighborhood where we were the only white family. We then moved into a neighborhood where there were no black families, all white neighborhood, only six blocks apart. And then we saw that neighborhood, become integrated, which there's all kinds of social strife for a little while, and then it became a really great neighborhood. my mom stayed in that neighborhood and, told me when we first saw some of the violence being done to the black families, moved in, and the intimidation, she said, she went out and brought casseroles and things and was like a, like a normal neighbor. And she just said. you're going to have to decide as you grow up what kind of white person you're going to be. the, she went to college at night and at Towson in her thirties as a single mom, she went back to school and ultimately became a very eminent historian of women in the American West. First, she got her BA, then she got her master's, then she got her PhD in her forties. Her book was on, first book was on the history of women who were sex workers in the American West. they basically. Went out to get, look for gold and the next group behind the gold diggers were, the sex workers. And she was able to document what their lives were like. it was archival. Should drive all around the West, go to little halls of records, figure out who got arrested, what they got arrested for, try to find family members that would still be, descendants 80 years later. And, it was a really great book. Wasn't considered history by many at that time. And so the only place she could teach, the only place that would hire her, she was also mid 40s or something, it was Gallaudet, so she had to learn sign language for a year to go teach. But then she wrote a few more books and then ultimately became the head of the editor of the Journal of Western History based at Utah State. So I say all that to say that having a front row seat. of civil strife that resolved in a way that was very positive. At the same time, also having a mom who showed through her example that education was the way forward in order to build, a fulfilling life. I certainly didn't have any choice, but to decide that what I wanted to do in my life was just help people. And so I've had different jobs, but it just comes down to that. it's not, there's nothing profound about it. and that I find that enjoyable. And so we've done lots of different ways of doing that. I like moving among sectors and being in higher ed and being nonprofit world and sometime in government. what I most like though, is activating with others, the talents of younger people and helping young people grow. grow into their capability and, being a person who's available and a resource for younger people as they make their way. this wasn't in the script, but, you told a great story today at breakfast, which tells me that you were as powerful of a parent to, or you are as powerful of a parent to your children. as your parents were to you, when you first embarked, in your presidency at Franklin Marshall and, your daughter accompanied you to a faculty meeting. So maybe just share that briefly because I think it shows, and I think it's really important also because it's this idea of education not just being within the walls of the institution. So the greatest gift in my life after my family, my, my parents, my children, my wife, Karen, was my educate, my undergraduate education at Georgetown University. It continues to be deep part of how I see the world and how I learn and adapt. And so when I was in my thirties, I, after having worked for a few years for then HHS secretary, Donna Shalala, I had the chance to go back to my alma mater and in a blended role of faculty member and head of strategy and, city and federal relations. And so I taught. And I also worked at the level of the senior administration. And then we moved on campus. I just wanted more. So my wife and I were the crazy ones, if you think of it this way, who were in their 40s with three children, under six. We lived in a dorm for eight years, in the dorm, taking over the washing machines on Sundays and with six loads of pink laundry and, people would knock on the door, Do you have a key to my room? no, I don't. It's not my role, but we loved it. We were at the center of the institution. We were like the family. And, it's how important it is for younger people in settings that are. heavy peer settings to have access to adults as examples and role models and mentors and all. You're just so powerful. It's amazing how valuable our dog was to the education of George's undergraduates. Like I said, they got a dog, we have a dog, and we had a thousand babysitters and it was great. Cause when our kids first. Asked if they could be on Facebook, we delayed it, and then at that time, Facebook was a little more popular, and then when they finally joined, ha, they had 200 of my students became their first friends, so I had spies watching everything. anyway, we had this great experience where our kids ruled the roost, ran the campus for eight years, and all 365 days a year. And our oldest, Lizzie, didn't, really didn't like the idea of moving to, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, leaving that life. none of our kids really wanted to, but we turned out that parents votes are double. So we won four to three. So it was a journey to get Lizzie on board with this. She only wanted to be for the rest of her life at Georgetown. and, And it was at Franklin and Marshall, I met Allie Maury, John's daughter, and I'll talk about her learning in a moment. so I said, Lizzie, you gotta give it a shot. Why don't you, Why don't you come with me? I'm going to be interviewed to be on the faculty. I'd already been picked as president and she had already decided that she was, had her thoughts about Franklin and Marshall College. come with me. Lizzie had gone and been in my classes at Georgetown. We did a lot of community based learning and we did trips, places, and she'd come along. we don't make our children do things. Our other two weren't as interested, but Lizzie was, so she did it. So I said, come on with me. So we, the, to be on the faculty as the president, you still have to be interviewed by the faculty. You have to give a sort of a talk about your ideas. You got to give them your syllabi and you have to teach a class. So it's a full day. And then there's like a dinner afterwards. And so Lizzie comes along, the class is taught well. And then we, the interview part, now we're in a room and there's 15 English department And in a circle and Lizzie's right here. And, they asked me to explain a little bit of my teaching. I do. And then the first professor says, very eminent, all this stuff where the students are like working when the prisons, or they're working in the homes of the immigrants, or they're working in the public schools. we don't do that here. Okay. It's okay. Nobody has to do everything. We don't do that here. I was like, this is English. What, we look at great texts, I don't get it. So I explain it the way any of you would, it's good. I hear Lizzie breathing next to me. Then, the second hand goes up, different questions. She says, Yes. I want to go back to this social work. You're teaching social work, and, but we do literature. So again, I get it. We need people to do what they do. it's not a winner take all thing. So I explain again how rigorous it is, the way the literary texts that you read about the child's immigrant experience when you're tutoring a child helps you understand the child and the child's experience helps you understand the literature. I go, I have a whole spiel and she says, she just shakes her head. So then a third hand goes up and it's Lizzie. And Lizzie does remind me a lot of Allie. They look alike. They remind me of each other a lot. And I was like, Lizzie, you have a question. She says, I don't understand why you're asking those questions. don't you get it? Students want to go do things and integrate what they do with what they're reading. And I've gone with them, like to New York and the students stayed overnight in the homes of these Krista Ray students and talk to their parents about college. And they went in these schools. What possible reason could you have to not be supportive of that? I just don't understand. And there's like dead silence, they're all terrified. And I ultimately, the only person I could answer the question is me because they won't talk. So I was like, Lizzie, we're in the academy, we share methodologies. It's all about the idea that we can learn together and a little friction is good for figuring out what you really think. It's shakes her head like you've all seen your children do, walks over to get a cup of water, dead silence, takes a sip, leaves the room, swings behind. And I couldn't have had a better introduction to the Franklin Marshall College faculty. They just totally broke the ice. Yeah. And, it was great. It was so great. Yeah. and in time, Lizzie actually came to think it was a good idea that we didn't literally spend every moment of our lives on one place for all the time. So thank you for asking. Yeah. but, I think what just came through that and what I've, come to, I understand. You're a great storyteller and that's really what your book is. It's a series of great stories, right? About why mindset matters. And so maybe just talk a little bit about that and maybe pick a story or a subset just to tell, take our audience here through why mindset matters and how those stories helped inform that. I wanted to write a book that would, among other things, explicate the most powerful learning experience that I've been exposed to as a, like a witness and a participant. And there's so much talk in America today about why college is like bad. it costs too much. That's one important topic. Others will say. It just reinforces the existing inequalities. it's a hierarchy, re fortification system. others will say the exact opposite. Oh, no. It's a woke factory. You go there, you get brainwashed about the revolution. And then others will say, Oh, actually they're just paying for the party. it's just, delayed adulthood. And those four big critiques are worthy of being engaged, but they are not the whole story. And I know that because. I lived in a dorm for eight years because I was president of a school, was full of engaged students. I handed out degrees for 20 years, saw students walk across into their future with a belief that they had what it takes to really create a great life for themselves and make a difference. And all these, most of these narratives that are attacks, most of them are from people that like looking to attack things. But who wants to build things? Yes, there's things to improve. So who wants to improve? are we really just going to say, yeah, we don't need college anymore. do we want to have people who are doctors? We want people who have MBAs. We want to have people who are diplomats. Do we think it's good that we can, engage? the world through our higher education system and bring people to America to experience college in such a way that they come back home and say, I like that tradition, and more. So I wanted to write a book that was both an explication of learning driven by students, supported by faculty and other educators that I admired, I really admired. And then secondly, that made a case for higher education. In a way that you could not finally just say, that guy's full of BS because these are real human beings. 35 stories I tell in this book, real people who, came to college with a yearning to grow and developed. In their college experience, a mindset that they are a learner and a grower. It plays out in different ways. Some, for some, it's this mindset that I am a discoverer. I can ask questions no one's ever thought to ask in order to find answers no one's thought to look for. And for others, it's about, and then these overlap, of course. It's about creating. I want to make something. I want to put my tattoo on the land of this university. maybe it's a club, maybe it's a new business, maybe it's a work of art, but I want to make things. And then for another group, again it overlaps, it's about mentorship. Everybody's getting mentored throughout their college experience. It starts with so much passing down of information, soft and informally, through peers. Others lean into that and say, this is what I want to do, is give and grow by giving back. There's so many opportunities for mentorship, an important form of leadership. In other sense, it's about teamwork. These, your children, if they're still in college, they're on teams, there's teams of teams. They're on teams all day long. Different classes or teams. Different clubs and organizations are teams, jobs on campus are teams, residence communities are teams. It's a constant team experience, but your role is changing all the time. And then there's one other one, which I could have written about in more explicitly religious and spiritual terms, but I wanted to save that for another way of writing. About the discernment of your deepest values and how your growth can be powered by what you value. And I call that striving when you constantly are growing into, and because of the values you hold. So those mindsets, I know many students are able to activate them during their college years. I'm positive of it. I've seen it across hundreds if not thousands of students. I knew personally. I wanted to organize a book. That would present that. And I think those particular mindsets are extra valuable in this time, today, now, because we live in an era where the rate of change is escalating so fast across every field, across how we get information, good and bad, across demographically, Thank you. in terms of the, even like the sort of like the world order, there's so much change, faster change. And what is it that makes people feel disabled and unhappy is when change is happening to them and they're not able to adapt to it or even drive it themselves. With a growth mindset, you approach the new, the challenging, the disruptive with a sense I can, I am a grower, my capabilities aren't fixed. I can lead my learning. I'm the one that can adapt and drive change. And that mindset is even more valuable in this world than it was when we all went to college. So that's what I wanted to capture that in stories. one story, and I could tell many, one story is John's daughter, Allie, who, who I met when she was, in her sophomore year and she joined a club called Point 08. Point 08 is a group that wanted to promote safer socializing. The idea is that Point 08 is the legal definition of drunkenness in Pennsylvania, and they wanted to pick that name. In order to send a message, maybe you don't need to get to 0. 08, stop at 0. 08. now some would say, the president of the institution, you gotta, better be careful talking about students drinking. do you even want to get into that? It's absolutely. If they want to get into it, I want to get into it. If somebody is actually coming up and saying, let's figure out how to make socializing safer, that's a peer, that's an act of peer leadership, par excellence. Like with peers trying to say, let's do this the fun and safe way. Why wouldn't we want to be a part of that? and and I'm not the, I didn't invent the club. They, students invented the club and others at FNM had known it was worth having. So Allie, I met Allie in the campus coffee shop. I remember that, I remember it like it was yesterday, this group of eight or nine and they're, My goal was to help them form an agenda so they could feel they were doing something and they were making progress. And so just listening, we ended up, that was the first meeting. And then in, what I learned, Allie was a student athlete and was a serious student with a lot of interest in education. She was actually taking classes at a nearby university because FNM didn't offer classes. So I was like, okay, that's, there is a striver. What does she value? She values community. She values safety and friendship. She values learning. She values education. She's commuting 20 minutes away to go to class and she's on a team. So she's a field hockey goalie. So she, there's a lot of great values in there. And As with hundreds of others, I just have a fish tank in my head and there was a fish named Allie floating around in there. That might be like a fish named Allie. So Allie. comes to me at the end of sophomore year and says, I think I have some opportunities. I want to ask you, how would you think about them? there's a group that has our sorority and I have a chance if I want to run, to lead the sorority. And in 0. 08, there's a leader of 0. 08 and I've been heavily involved and I could do that too. And how do you, what do you think about that? And so we had good conversations about leadership and taking it on, what does it mean? And peer responsibility and leading isn't as easy as being a part of the team. And she made, she ran for both and won them both. And then home over the summer thought through, how am I going to be on the field hockey team? Which was a big deal. She was recruited. she had, was not yet a starter. And how am I going to be on that team and lead 08 and lead a sorority and go to school? And I had very similar experience in college, the way I approached college. Where you just finally have to choose among good things. And Allie's a striver and she's striving towards her values. She wants to live her values. So she has to make this tough choice to say no to something. Is this important? This is defining. This isn't just important. These moments are absolutely central to the formation of adult sensibility. and so she, Made this agonizing choice, I'm sure you talked about it with her, to go to the coach that recruited her and say, an FNM field hockey was really good, tournament every year. I think I need to develop myself. I need to go where, I need to go where my values are telling me my growth needs to come. And so she stepped out of field hockey, which meant stepping out of a peer group, even though they're all friends still, it's one thing to be friends, another thing to be, eight hours a day around each other, especially in season and relying on each other, goalie especially, because the goalie can't win the game alone, it's impossible. they can lose the game, but they can't win the game. So she, that year, that junior year, I was present and a couple of times, went out with her, bringing pizza to fraternities and sororities. I would go watch it. What were they doing to try to, in the real world, to make, It's a little less likely that students would, binge or would, make, bad decisions with the only lives they have. There's all kinds of ways they did it, but I watched a lot of it and just observed it and wanted to be supportive. And it didn't bother me to be the president showing up at a fraternity. Party. Didn't bother me at all. I'd rather be outside. I didn't normally go in except maybe with Allie with the pizza, but I would be out in the outside of it with the line. I want them seeing. The people that work here that are the adults, so to speak, we really care what's happening. We all have the ability to send those kinds of messages. So anyway, so she has a great junior year and then home, probably again, talking with you and your wife, thinks deep inside, going as close as she can to what she values as a 21 year old. She's I really miss my sisters on that field hockey team. Humbles herself to go back to the coach. And say, her name is Missy Mariano, Missy, can I come back? And a lot of coaches and a lot of programs would have said, forget it, come on. but Missy said, you got to earn your spot. And so then she, competed all in the summer, prepared herself, competed, won that spot back, had to then step back from sorority and 0. 08. That's hard too. And then had such a meaningful senior season. They won a lot of matches. She was a really good goalie. This point though, this journey of striving, of trying to align our values with our choices so that we can grow towards where we are called is actually phenomenally important at the moments of emerging adulthood, of youth and emerging adulthood. Phenomenally important. To have the experience of confronting the choice between multiple good goals that you value and having to make the definitional choice, but then to have to make it again. And so I really admired that. I wanted to have a way to tell stories like that. You raised her, all I did was watch her, but it was such a great thing to see. And of course, Allie Morgan is thriving today. as a teacher who's orienting herself towards school leadership. Not surprising. She'll probably be the secretary of education in 30 years. so those kinds of stories, if people say, I don't want to read those kinds of stories. Okay, fine. Then don't read them. You can stick with the econometrics and you can have lots of good arguments for college that way. But I do feel that there's something quite eminent in what we're all trying to accomplish. And for all the challenges of higher education, if we miss the people, if we forget it's about individual people, the education's about people, what we're really doing is missing the chance to create something with young people. That will then make our society so much stronger. So just listening to you and the words you use and the way you frame things and everything else, there are parallels as we've talked about between what we do and what you do at Aspen Institute. Maybe just a little bit, just from what we've talked about and your familiarity with other programs in our space, a little bit about the work you do at Aspen Institute, how you've animated those values there and how you can see that potentially, in the context of what we're doing here. Thank you. Thank you Tom. so I think probably like some, like many of you in different times, I didn't want to leave Georgetown University. I had no desire to leave. I loved our life, what we were doing, and my wife and I together, we loved it. And sometimes you face an inflection point, you wonder, is there another way to learn, another way to give, another way to grow? And and so for me, that way was to take the responsibility, if I could get it, if someone would entrust it to me, to lead a full institution as opposed to being a partner with the president and other leaders to lead Georgetown. Yeah. And that was a, a wonderful opportunity and a moment of loss, leaving behind something that you love, because you want to try something that you think you could love. And that's really what it is. You don't, aspiration is not, is about often taking the step into an unknown. And that step It's almost like a moment of, conviction that there's something else out there. it was really hard to leave Georgetown because of how we had built our lives there. And it's exactly the same at Franklin and Marshall. I had no interest in leaving Franklin and Marshall College. I loved it. and when the Walter Isaacson stepped down or announced he was leaving as president of the Aspen Institute. Without going into the details of it all, the search committee reached out and said, we know a little bit about you. Would you consider being a candidate? And so again, it was like, do I want to try to give and grow in a different way? Is it this, have I, I've been at Franklin and Marshall about eight years, so it was about, it was an appropriate time. and so I ended up competing to be selected as CEO. And, what is Aspen Institute? It's a global nonprofit organization. It's pretty large. We have about. if you budget wise about 270 million budget, roughly 60 programs, what is our purpose? We exist to ignite human potential, to build understanding, and from there to promote new possibilities for a better world. That covers a lot. There's a lot of need for understanding. There's a lot of need for new possibilities. We're not a, we're not a think tank. We're much more of a collaboration tank, of an action tank. a number of our programs are leadership development. People typically ages 35 to 45 at an inflection point, whether they've climbed one or two mountains already before they climb the next one. They want to commit to going deep into what their own values are and to being able to move forward to try to align even more firmly their actions and their values, which I think is the definition of, one definition of integrity. We believe things and we act consistent in what we believe. so we have about 5, 000 people that have done those leadership programs and some in different ways. some of them are well known, major corporate leaders, Mayor Pete is a, alum of one of our leadership programs. In fact, seven who ran for president with him have done one program or the other. we were nervous when Kamala Harris was going to pick her VP that she'd pick an Aspen Fellow because she's an Aspen Fellow, and she was considering three Aspen Fellows, but she didn't. So that's good. and, Then we have about 25 programs that work on collective impact, on improving community colleges, on making the economy more inclusive, on addressing cyberculture and all the things that are toxic about it, on, practical problem solving around, carbon reduction and dealing with the need for both energy and, in the world and also an environment that's, that's not degraded. and then we have, 13 global Aspens, as I said. and we have a seminar program that brings adults together for a week long seminar, a version of what you're doing, although not as intense as what you're doing, or not as prolonged. And then, we have a lot of youth programs. Mike and Jackie Bezos, the parents of Jeff Bezos, just made a donation of 185 million to the Institute. For us to create a center on rising generations that will, whose vision is that we will make civil dialogue, civic participation, and leadership development, a predictable part of growing up in America for all young people, obviously in partnership with everybody who wants to partner. So it's a, it's an organization with a lot of capacity. it's fundamentally nonpartisan, obviously, but it's also deeply connected to the business community. And our founders in the post war moment of sort of civilization, of rallying behind civilization in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the beginnings of nuclear, arms race arise, beginning of the Soviet system, the beginning of communism in China, our founders believed that the private sector should be a part of civil society, intrinsically related to the work that we all should do together to protect and build a good society. Yeah. And I think, as I'm, as we've discussed, a lot of these are the similar sorts of animating principles behind, what we do in programs like ours. And I just found that parallels to be, fascinating. Yeah. I think what you've, what you're pioneering, is both, exemplary because only Notre Dame would do it the way you're doing it. These ideas of, of discovery, discernment, design. and then it's also potentially. exemplary, and IE, others could do it too. and so I hope that's what happens. Yeah. and I think it's, the wonderful thing is to see organizations like yours that work with similar sort of, individuals and, can potentially be, Complimentary. Yeah. In many wonderful and beautiful ways. one thing I would want to mention, it's so there's a lot of ways to be a societal leader. Many ways. We do a lot of thinking about what is leadership as you're doing. I love that you're here and, something that I've done a lot of is serve on nonprofit boards. I really recommend that as something to think about in your local community or if there's one that cuts across communities that really speaks to you. It's a great way to, Both share your experience and support a management team and also, protect and develop something valuable. I'm on the board of Colorado College right now and of Teach for America, the national board of TFA. And those are great boards to be on. And I've been on a number of scholarship boards, foundation boards, Jesuit refugee services. and it's just one approach, but I want, I really want to encourage that because you will immediately, especially with this experience as a part of it all, immediately be a ballast. And today's nonprofit organizations are, on the one hand, have to compete to make a difference. They also have to figure out how to finance themselves, and they have to deal with more risk and complexity than ever before. And so having adults, really mature people, with perspective on the boards makes a huge difference. And how fitting for you as a board member of Teach for America to be sitting in. the space where the Alliance for Catholic Education, which is the Catholic version of Teach for America is host. Oh, I know the ACE program well. I will, I'll hold back so we can have one more thing, but it's a fantastic program and many of my A number of my Georgetown students, taking the classes that I taught, then were looking for some way to live in the world, like the ideas they've been thinking about and experimenting with through their community service work and went to the ACE program. So if you're all right with it, because we filter for curiosity and the people that are here, I'd love to give the audience here an opportunity to ask a few questions. Of course. So jump in and wait for the mic though, because it's being recorded. So I want to make sure. Luis up front has a question, we have to get a quarterback to toss it for us. Luis, you're the only person in this room that is wearing swag of another institution. Sorry. clearly you are an individual. I've been talking to many students here in Mexico as well, I'm coming to. I'm, leading a refugee, shelter. I have a couple of students from, high education coming to the shelter. And I used to talk with them about the kind of world we're living in for this generation. I'm not very, I don't feel very proud of it. I think when we talk about migration and refugee issues, Wars, divisive, polarization in society here, particularly in many other parts of the world, the war now strikes in Lebanon and when you see that world and climate change because of Milton, how do you, being probably this self criticism about ourselves, do you think we're living, this generation? yesterday we talk about AI and the impact. What is the most important challenge for this generation? In order to really make a difference in a better world. Yeah. So the biggest challenge is the challenge of the human spirit. We have to support young people who want to, opt in and not opt out. And cynicism has yet in the history of humanity to solve a single problem. There's no Harvard Business School, you're on our case study on it. Once they got that cynicism going, they really figured out how to solve the problem. We got it going now. Yep. Yeah. Not that there wasn't any there. The biggest crisis, if you will, of our time, and probably of most times, is the crisis of the human spirit and how to support and animate people who have the potential through giving to grow and through growth to discover still better what their purpose is. So that's point one. second point. is that in engaging young people, it is so valuable to give them the opportunity to learn by doing, but that does absolutely require the presence of caring adults as mentors to help put things in perspective. Absolutely. And I think that One of the things that I've enjoyed a lot in inviting students to work in prisons or to work in the homes of recently arrived immigrants or to work with court supervised youth who are at risk of, dying the next day, of course, those are heavy topics. Absolutely. You want them to be heavy topics. Absolutely. and the thing you can work with on younger people, maybe every person, is okay to really engage the complexity and difficulty of pain, suffering. You have to be willing to go down. I had a course called Human Rights, a Culture in Crisis where the students, pretty big class, all were working. Meeting human rights leaders and survivors, you cannot engage with the reality of another person's pain as a caring individual and not go down. The question though, what resources do you have to come back up so that when you come back up, you can then make the differences that are needed. And so that's our role as educators is to help students learn what is inside of them and what else they can develop so that they don't have to fear the engagement. Learn with pain and difficulty and injustice, but it also is, they can use it and then come back. what brings them back up? For some, it will be their ability to analyze. For some, it'll be their ability to work together. For some, it'll be their understanding of the spiritual dimension of life. For some, it may be the feeling of co creation with those who have suffered So that suffering can be almost like as an act of witness, a chance to then further build awareness and prevent that from happening again. So that's the key. Know cynicism and partner with young people to help them not fear the engagement with the most difficult realities, but be able to bring themselves back up. you missed my swag. I've got some non indie swag as well, but thank you particularly for your remarks regarding the difficulty of undergraduate looking at friends, looking at studies, looking at extracurricular activities. I remember how difficult that was for all of us. I'd like to ask you a question more about the area of, the environment and, carbon. That's my area. I joke that I worked for, Darth Vader for 20 years and finally figured out a way to work for Luke Skywalker. Yeah. Many people don't know that the state of California actually has market based solutions to reduce greenhouse gases. We have a cap and trade on California. Even residents of California don't know that. Secondly, many people don't know that the Nobel prize was given about six years ago to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Both are really important. I'd like to know what the Aspen Institute does to try I don't know. What are you going to do? Tip the balance? is it research? What are you doing in the area of, of climate change environment? Yeah. Thank you. I'll be fast so we can follow up, but our methodologies are dialogue and convening towards a purpose. leadership development and broadly speaking, enabling solutions. We're not a research organization. We aggregate research. We put researchers in different contexts where they can share information. Sometimes we translate research, but we don't, we're not that. So we part, so we can partner with anybody. And we have across our array of work, one program it's called our energy and environment program that, that fuses the working with energy companies and energy perspectives with environmental perspectives. And our leader is a young man named Greg Gershuny, who's fabulous. And the key thing is that I think that the environmental questions will require solutions that come from the energy sector. And It's going to require a partnership of all different types and there's a lot of, like we've gone from denial, pessimism with no intervening stage of hope, on this topic. And so what we try to do is to convene groups. Off the record to make practical progress on carbon reduction strategies. That always includes the private sector without going into the details. One, we have one on shipping lanes. We have one on ports, especially in LA. We have one on school bus construction, a set of practical projects, but then at the level of convening a different muscle that we have. We've created something called Aspen Ideas Climate, which now has run three years, all in Miami Beach. And Aspen Ideas Climate is a major convening that brings together activists, business, young people, innovators, philanthropists, and financial people that are investing in companies, government leaders, people that are doing creative ventures in the media or in public education. The idea of Aspen Ideas Climate, which had about 3, 000 people last year at it in Miami Beach. epicenter of climate crisis in a way, and they're not drowning, they're fighting, they're trying to adapt. The idea of Aspen Ideas Climate, any solution should be at Aspen Ideas Climate and the problem solvers who have a particular lane would benefit from learning what others are doing. If somebody's using 3D printing and somebody else is raising sidewalks and somebody else is doing shade and somebody else is doing research, great, let's put them all together so that we can ignite. This feeling that progress is possible, that people are working, and too often the people that want to do good have their own solution, and their opponent is the person with the different solution. for goodness sakes, can we please value problem solving? Can we please value leaning in and trying to make a difference? And so what was really interesting about Asking Ideas Climate is we had a couple panels on nuclear power. You'd think, wouldn't the activist community be dead set against nuclear power? it depends how you curate the conversation and introduce the topic. We had 250, we called them future leaders. Most of them activists. We brought them to Ask Me Ideas Climate a day and a half early to work with them on why are we doing solutions based approach? Why are you going to hear solutions you might not agree with? What's the value of your engaging with and learning with people that have got a perspective that's just different than yours? We did not have that problem. We haven't had it yet, a finger pointing and outrage and blaming. and we don't want to prioritize one solution. We want to make problem solving what people lean in on. So that's our approach. others, of course, have more, much. Have their own approaches, but, and we're not really an activist organization, but we'll bring activists in, but we need to provide the, I don't want to say impartial as if it's lacking value, we want to provide that large tent through which people can see themselves in relation to one another and can see the problem and its complexity, but also can see that there are really great people working on solutions, even if the assumptions of those solutions are a little bit different sometimes. very much for an informative and passionate sharing today with your information and knowledge. And I was reflecting back on what you were sharing about change and the rapidity that occurs and the challenges presented. In our world today, I come out of the healthcare environment and I was reflecting back that the average tenure of a CEO of a healthcare system today is about three years. and so it's Only college presidents are less. So it's extremely Diff except y'all. Yeah. Yeah. when you think about leadership and over the course of the experience you had from, yeah. Starting out in the young world and that world is very different that we're in today from the sixties and the seventies. And so, as you think back over the course of your career as well as with the leaders that you are working with today. You mentioned some of the skills that you feel, which is involvement. but I also think that the ability to discern, it's that, many times today it's like an inch wide and a mile wide thinking rather than, a mile deep and an inch wide thinking. And so to be able to share that with leaders. And so maybe just a note on how. You're continuing to listen to leadership and improve leadership in general, instead of keeping it at a steady state. So we're, our, we did a strategic plan about a year and a half ago. Our board is a very accomplished group. Margo Pritzker is our chair. Margo and her husband, Tom, own Hyatt, and she's extraordinarily thoughtful, incredible partner for me. Our plan, because I'm high level here, we created a prism of our priorities. And so we didn't want to say, healthcare, artificial intelligence and war, those are our priorities. So what we wanted was to apply across. So our priority across all we do, so our priorities are what more can we do to, build social trust across all of our work? What more can we do to. Elevate, include, animate, empower young people across everything. And the third is leadership. What can we do to be an organization that gathers people and fosters the conversation, whether we do it or others do it, about the importance of values based and sophisticated leadership, taking the issue seriously. And so those three things we're now applying across everything we do. Now we were doing those things before, so it's not like it's new, but now it's much more spotlighted. And on the leadership point. There's such a need for this combination of the why of leadership and the how of leadership, the two together. And we've had offerings in both that have been very successful. And we're even more intentionally fusing those two because what we're thinking Is there, we have, yes, a lot of programs and they have a lot of leaders and that's been great, but actually leadership is a journey. It's a life journey. There's an arc. And so we need to take all of our different offerings and then make them available to people throughout the leadership arc. And that then, there's some days when you're leaning in as a leader, it really is going to be about one more time here. Why as a company, Do we have to be clear what our values are and then live them? But other times, it's not that, it's actually, can I have the will and the skill to learn stuff I don't know so that I can be relevant, we can be relevant in this world? And and we all, it's easy for academics to really privilege the why of it. And especially because business schools don't emphasize it, but the how of it does matter too. Like we have a program for community college presidents, 20 a year, we pick. Those people are the change drivers part, that are out there like of all, they're trying to help communities of 15, 20, 000 students who are immigrant working class people have a sustainable life in the middle class through education that must be tied to the local economy, has to be, or it's not going to work. And so for those community college leaders. Though they do have the why down, but the how of it can actually be really fostered. We can actually help them be more effective by bringing them together and applying, helping them learn what we've learned from 15 years of doing this with presidents. So I really, I, that's how we're thinking of it. It's a journey. For the Institute to be the best people serving institution we can be, we need to slightly reorganize ourselves and expand our offerings so that you join the Asp Institute and you never leave. again, it's like what you're doing. Yep. Yep. Yeah. That's a good one. ha. ha. there's, so I know you're, we're near the, yeah. So I think we really, I think we have time for one more question. Then, we'll move on. okay. I'm not in a hurry. I'm not in any hurry at all, but I know you have other things to go do. Pursuant to the topic you were just talking about, do you have any, is your, the number of hats you've worn as a teacher, administrator, academic, what are we going to do for this growing number of young people that can't? access the collegiate, experience that all of us had. Yeah. And there's a lot of answer community college is the answer to something else. and I'm very interested in the how do we, pragmatic answers to this question. So I think there's, I think it's, there's multiple options. We want to have available multiple career paths and trajectories. And at the level of the person, the student for a moment, whatever their interests are, Good education means they're in a relationship that they can think about what choice they want to make and it's not made for them by society. They're in a dialogue with a college counselor, a career advisor, or a teacher. And so the multiple pathways. are there as choices, not as like the lack of choice. And that's actually a real problem in many places where students think they can only do one thing, whatever that one thing is, which includes going right to college. so multiple pathways. I think that there's a lot of excitement in the private sector around apprenticeships and around learning experiences give students the sort of like the younger people I should say, new employees, the combination of training and soft skills. There's a program called Year Up that's doing that extremely well that some of you may know. It's national now. I think community colleges are really important part of the solution for sure. learning has to happen across a career. It's not like you get trained and you're done. That's not going to work. and so community colleges may be one of the vehicles to provide ongoing, skills based or knowledge based upgrades, if you will. and then I think that actually the four year college space can do a lot better overall at making sure that there's real value in a college experience for life after college. So there's not, I don't think there's one answer. I don't think that the country invests in young people. As much as we invest in a system that supports older people, and it's good that we support older people. It's one of the things we should be most proud of. But we've gotta lean in, I believe, overall more investing, whether it's money for education or opportunities for skills based learning or invitations to be part of the democratic project. We've got to prioritize young people more. One other thing I wanted to, I'll just say, cause it, I think it ties to how you all think about things and, the conversation with young people should be about who are they and what do they value that, that's embedded in what your question, but we often forget that, just tell them what they should be doing and that, and they'll all will be well. and so one of the things I love doing as a teacher, and I'm still doing this with some of our younger employees is this, When students would come to me a lot, because of the relationships we formed when they were competing for something. And I always viewed that, I almost viewed teaching as building the relationship so that when they're applying for Teach for America or Deloitte or law school, that they would come to me. Because at that moment, that's actually, you're supposed to want to have impact. So what's impact? Impact is when somebody is vulnerable or in need and they come to you. You have a moment then. That's true also with the trials and tribulations that people, students feel, but focus on a different place for a moment. So I would say when I had a whole coaching program that I ran out of, including as president of FNM, for helping people prepare to compete for the thing they wanted to do. And, but I said, if you're going to take part with me, besides doing the things that we'll do together to help you feel you're going out with your best, you're where you're prepared. Also. You're gonna have to do something for me, but I'm not gonna tell you what it is. And so we'll come back at the end of this. So I said, okay, whatever. so we would then the, after it, they would have written a resume. We would have gone over it. I, I don't care what the duties of the job were. What'd you get done in the job? Show that, I have my things, I would say. and practice interviews and all that. They come back and say, what's that thing you wanted? you have to do the life resume. What's the life resume? I'll tell you what it is. You can show it to me, but you don't have to. it's one piece of paper. I want it typed. Put your name at the top. This is not your professional resume. We worked on it. It's great. put your name at the top. Leave a blank space under your name. A good blank space. We'll get to that later. And I want you to address four questions. Think of them as headings. So first, your time in college. Or when people are young adults, can you put category one, when I learned, just have a couple bullets. I learned this time. I learned that way. I learned from her. And then the second question is, when did I experience joy? I know it's not on your resume. When did you experience joy? You don't have to show it to me. You have to do it. maybe it was a moment of transcendence that you felt at some moment of insight, a flow state. Maybe it was a relationship. Maybe it was, a new view on yourself. Third one, when did you deal well with difficulty? With difficulty, was it a breakup? Was it a problem in your family? was it a moment when you let yourself down? Don't think everybody doesn't have to get through life not dealing with this. And you have. And the fourth one in the life resume, bullet, the category is helping others. When did I help somebody else? Oh, I talked to that friend of mine when she was down. Oh, I, spent that morning that recently pitching in extra on this project where I was needed or, Oh, I spent this time tutoring. Okay. This life resume, when did I grow? When did I experience joy? When did I deal with difficulty? When did I help somebody else? That's actually what we're all going to be doing around here for a long time. That's really, the other resume is good to have, but this is the one. And what this gives, among other things, is the part under your name that's blank. Isn't filled in, you can't fill it in probably now, you might be able to, but in time you will from doing those things. Some words will appear under your name, it's called Purpose. And you'll find purpose, not simply from the intellectual experience of saying, I gotta have a purpose, but from learning, from experiencing joy, dealing with pain, and from helping other people. So that, I think, applies to you all too. Perfectly. And so on that note. Yeah, thank you. thank you, Dan. I'm sure you can all understand now why I felt like I, from the moment I met him, both learned and experienced joy. Because you bring such wonderful And John vouched for me. John nominated me to come out. So thank you, John. Yeah. And, I also just want to say, I know you, you had told me that, actually the title of the book emerged from the stories, right? Yeah. that was, it's a beautiful thing. And I think actually you are a perfect validation of the title of our series because I think, how you, with what you've shared with us, it really gets to leadership in public conversation and, that's precisely what we hope to do. draw out of, those people that are kind enough to join us. So thank you for joining us on behalf of the Institute for Educational Initiatives and of course Inspired Leadership Initiative and, all of our fellows. Inspired Leadership is what it's about. Thank you. Exactly. Thank you very much. Absolutely.