Show Transcript

Dave 0:13

Welcome to Dean's Council podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists Ken Kring and Dave Ikenberry engage in conversation with highly accomplished Dean's and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Dean's face and one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the academy. Most if not all, academic leaders are vividly aware of the capability higher education has to transform lives of so many people and to elevate their accomplishment. Making sure that people from all backgrounds who are invited onto our campus have the opportunity to grow is of course, Paramount, in this at least in part motivates why and how higher education for decades has embraced the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion is a core part of their mission. However, in recent years, dei has come under attack certainly in some parts of the country. Today, we welcome Victor Milan is the Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the Stern School of Business at New York University to our program. Victor shares with us his insights into why dei is important. Why it has faltered in some areas, and he lends his great advice as to how enlightened Dean's should approach this issue, particularly as they're beginning a new leadership assignment. Along the way, we hear the importance of why all leaders should embrace Dei, particularly the inclusivity part of that acronym, and work intentionally to identify and lower barriers or walls as Victor calls them, which holds people back from feeling authentically included, restrain them from thriving in whatever organization they are part of. What a pleasure it is to have Victor Molins. With us today, Victor is the Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the Stern School of Business at NYU Victor, Welcome this morning.

Victor Mullins 2:13

Glad to be here. They

Dave 2:14

this is going to be an outstanding conversation. Just for our viewers at home. Victor and I have known each other for more years than we wish to confess to but it's great to have you here. Victor, let's let's get started talking about Dei. And what's your definition of Dei? And how? Obviously, it's it's crucially important issue in society today. But it's also it comes with a little bit of stress and strain as well comment on on what you think, what's your definition of Dei? What's your approach? And how should a dean, an enlightened Dean, think about diversity, equity and inclusion? And in today's society?

Victor Mullins 3:00

Well, first of all, again, thanks for inviting me to be a part of the conversation. And I think it's important for me to set the stage, you know, to answer your question, I'm sitting in my office here in New York. And as I was preparing for this interview, I reflected on the time when I was a student here, I got my master's and PhD from NYU. And I remember the very first assignment that I had in my internship class that was taught by the chair of my dissertation, which is what is your philosophy of leading education. And I remember basically saying, I want to assist in the recruitment, the admission, the retention, the graduation, the placement of black students. And that was my narrowed philosophy. And I went on with that through several classes, until I received a full time job while I was going through my program at admissions, and connected with the Vice President for Enrollment Services. His name's David Finney, and I just fell in love with the way that he led this campus. And I remember we were out for drinks. David loves having drinks with his staff, after we, you know, succeeded by enrolling a class and he told me at one point in time, he said, you're limiting your ability to lead effectively. And I said, why he said, He's cuz you keep saying, you want to assist in the journey of black students. And I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. I'm saying that you should expand your vision of leadership. Why can't you be president of a university? Why can't you be dean of a school and it just basically got upset, like, how do you want to tell me that you know what I want to do but he goes, No, I'm not telling you. This other than the fact that you actually can have more power of change, if you aspire to be in positions that actually serves the community at large and it was a total mine. said shift. Now, the journey didn't stop, I still want to assist in recruitment, the admission is just that almost a light bulb moment, it's my leadership style changed, that I wanted to lead everybody. And that took me getting to know, everybody. So when I was asked at Maryland in my eighth year to because I was Associate Dean for Undergraduate business at the Smith School at University of Maryland, and the dean asked me to be the officer. And I said, Are you crazy? I like who wants that job? Not me. And so I tell you look at the Chronicle even way back when you know, you, you have titles like D is a failure? who aspires to be in that position? So I told him, No, I said, I think you'd be in a position where there's power of me and motivating people to do stuff. And he says, you know, if you really think about it, you're already doing it. And that is what made me think, Okay, let me take a shot at being dean of undergraduate business and dei officer at the same time, and see if I can take some of my philosophy of leadership and apply it. And the bottom line is, I think that the acronym is getting in the way of progress. And so I think that if you ask why it's failing, it's failing for several reasons. There is a perceived bias. Or some may call it discrimination, where people believe that the AI programs are biased against certain groups, kind of get that like if all of your programming is on one group, excluding the other groups. Well, the other group is going to feel like well, how are you going to talk inclusion, and I'm not being included in the process. And so that's number one, it's actually what's happening now, right? So in number two, there's a resistance to change, there's always going to be a resistance to change. But if you don't have an element of what you're trying to accomplish, you're motivating people to change is going to be flow. There's a lack of clear communication about the goals of the AI programs. And that can lead to misunderstandings and all kinds of assumptions. There is a political and ideological opposition to it, read, turn on the television, and you'll see what's going on politics has certainly taken advantage of programs that actually could be better. You so you talk about the sort of wokeness and, and all of these things, people have used those trendy topics against the true meaning of it. And that's why we're getting rid of it. So there are all kinds of things that is causing criticism of the AI. Now, let me just say this, and then, you know, I'll open it up for for discussion from you. When I was asked to come to NYU, to consider this position. I shared with Jean Ragu, that, I am going to be a different kind of dei officer. And if you're not interested in this, that I don't want to consider applying. So here's my philosophy of DDI just so you know, right. And I share this with executive MBA students at orientation for freshmen, new faculty, everyone that really, really is about leading an organization where everybody who's part of it has a feeling that I can thrive in this place. Regardless of who I am, I actually can see myself being better in this place. When, when a freshman thrives, stern thrives. What a person that Goldman Sachs thrives, Goldman Sachs thrives. Now, what happens is there are walls that are being placed in front of all kinds of people, regardless of color, ethnicity, background, and it is on the leader to make sure that we are removing any barriers that is preventing the person from thriving. And I give you all kinds of examples, you know, it could be one of a woman who feels as if you know her, her maternity leave is unequal to Amanda's paternity leave. And so a policy actually could be a wall that if a leader says oh, well, let's just kind of fix this up so that we can make this a little bit more equitable, then Oh, thank you that for that. And so forth and so on. It could be a person with disability saying your entire website is totally against what I'm trying I can't even see the way that you actually have structured your website because it's not accommodating to my ability to have to read the language or what have you. But and I think that the current, most popular is the programs around anti racism and LGBTQ plus and what have you. And what I want to share with the students and faculty and staff, this is not about us changing your thought process, or your belief systems, I think it'd be unrealistic for any di person to say anything and go knock on the door and say, change the whole way you believe. And I think that that's kind of what what some leaders want to do. And that's not what we want to do. It's not realistic, we all have biases, they'll never gonna go away. And if that's the case, then how can we be our best leader, and making sure that the people that we're leading are looking at saying, Wow, he has my best interests at heart, regardless of what bias or what I'm feeling, and that's an opportunity. That's actually why I got excited about coming here. Because I think that true leadership of change management, it's just simple leadership, making sure that everybody is just being a part that you talked about belonging and inclusion, right, and equity, all of those have been created and defined in certain ways. Raghu, and I Raghu is the dean, we believe that inclusion is probably the most important of them all. Because at the end of the day, in anything that you do that you are trying to make sure from pathway development, to recruitment, if you're including a demographic mix that's expanded, it actually will lessen the the pre affirmative action court case institutions where they were basically so we only have a few of these particular students. And we have so many of these students, that we have too many. So let's not admit any more these and because we have these, let's admit them, and then it creates a process that actually could be legally flawed. And that is what happened with affirmative action case. I remember before it came out, and I said it to our leadership team. But we need to be ready to innovate. And innovation means that they may not put race on the application anymore. But it does not mean that we can actually give up on diversifying our class, how can we do it in a way where everyone walks away from the process? Wow, thank you so much. What a wonderful process. That was, I was rejected, right? But I still appreciate the way that you laid this process out. And to me, that's where the opportunity is, I actually think we can achieve inclusion the right way, where everyone feels like they have a seat at the table. So

Jim 12:58

okay, this is great. I really saw agree with what you're saying. Are there any little trigger points, little, little hints that you would give a brand new dean, listening to what you say where he or she really wants to do what you've just said, which I think is the right thing to do. And so that they can, that they can ensure that they're doing that whether it's the way they look at admissions, the way they do their admissions process? Is there anything that you've done or seen that works better than others? So that you really are starting to build this community that we're trying to do? Yeah,

Victor Mullins 13:40

I have a few thoughts. I think that. Number one is, I think anybody coming into any new position, be a team or a new leader, they have to assess the organizational culture. And it's sort of like a sitting down. And first of all, you can't really serve the prospective students until you understand the makeup of the community of staff and faculty. And that is key. That's what I do. Starting any new position. Even before coming back here. I met with every single staff person, I understand the UPS the downs, but as a DEA officer, I met with every unit. I had a listening tour all summer long. I mean, a full scale listening. And let me just say what a listening tour is. Victor is not talking. It's a very complicated thing to do for Victor, but I'm asking him questions, and they're often these awkward silence mode because no one wants to say anything. And I said we will be silent for one hour until someone opens up. And let's assume that we've already provided the psychological safety is a safe space at need for you to open up, but they don't trust me then the gym to your point. You have to develop an element of Trust and listening power. To me, those are the two most important things. Because once you know, the trust is beginning and only takes a couple of people to say, Hey, I'm gonna give you a chance, I don't really know, you just got here, right. But let me just tell you some things that I think we could improve from the admission standpoint or even the academic advising standpoint. And that's when you begin to break a system that intentionally is positive, but it's not really adding value. And once you actually start to begin to understand the needs, and that can be done and you know, you gathered data on demographics, of course, and all of that stuff, surveys and interviews. And then you try to figure out what is it that you're trying to accomplish at steady state? What does that versifying, your your school looks like, you know, it comes in different shapes and sizes, you know, we just want to have more, we don't have any of this particular team, have a community, we just want to have a little bit more than whatever it is what I have never advocated for, it's like the starch, you know, numbers that are unrealistic that you can achieve, you know, and plus is transactional in nature. And it means nothing. You know, I was actually a student in my EMBA class raised his hand, it was a white male. And it was very profound. He says, it seems to me, if we center on inclusion, for any entity, it could be a school, it could be an organization that at steady state, where you know you have arrived, is when I as a white male, or my classmate, as a black female, or, you know, Jim as LGBTQ plus, basically, we'll look at the way that we have created this infrastructure of admits admission, or application process. And I decide I don't want to be a part of Goldman, I choose not to go to NYU Stern, but thank you so much for that. You know, I think that and the reason I bring that up is because I think there is a tough, tough, like, we're going into community saying clamp to stern, you know, and we're going to give you this, which it means well, but what if they don't want to come to stern, you know, and oftentimes, you bring them here, and they don't belong here. And so what I liked about what he said is we want to create a process where we educate you, we send you in our narrative, our brochures, as the people that we put in your communities, like, wow, I connect with this person. And I love this person seems like NYU is a really great place to be, I still want to apply, or NYU is a great place to be, and I want to fly and see myself there. And I'm going to apply regardless of who I am. And I'm going to get the decision. And because of the structure to the new dean, you want to design it in a way where the person can truly feel like I see myself so fully in this process. And I don't that's I just talked only about the recruitment process. It starts all over when you come to, you know, to a place, because you got to understand the student. So to answer your question, understanding the culture of the staff and faculty, but truly trying to understand the needs of the different makeup of students, there are so many learning groups and styles of students coming your way. And you got to be able to understand them and create a system to accommodate even their learning styles, and so forth. I'll tell you that I just had a session with some of our first generation students at NYU, they got a full ride some of the programs, and that's not enough, they get here. And now we have to teach them how to navigate complexity, how to interact with faculty, how to walk into the loi, and how to have a value proposition. How do you articulate your all of that stuff? You just can't admit them and say good luck. See you at the end of the day, though, to a dean, they have to think strategically about how can I create an environment that is allowing them think about what I just said, when I first came to recruit, to engage, to retain, to graduate, and to get a job and be happy? All of those are very strategical initiatives. And so it takes a firm strategy to make sure and this is not just about black people, by the way, it's about everybody who's part of my institution, you know, right, Victor? I feel like I'm talking too much. No, no, no, no. No, no, you're

Dave 19:49

the guest. I Victor. He was a bowtie. I think it was about a year ago that the Supreme Court handed out this landmark decision Elan on how race and other demographics fit in with admissions. What's your view of the shift? How material was that shift? And in what, what is the appropriate approach the enlightened approach to admissions today? In your view?

Victor Mullins 20:16

Yeah, it was complicated even before they reached the decision, and recruiting diverse talent and institutions across the country. For many reasons. I think that as I shared earlier, the intention of both institutions that were, you know, the center of the the case was positive one, they wanted to recruit diversity. And actually, they probably made, of course, they argued that we don't think that this is wrong, we want to center and focus on recruiting more students of color in this process, and we wanted to shake the process in a way where, you know, it's more diverse, but you know, from an Asian male or an Asian female perspective, you know, that's not fair to me. And so at the end of the day, the decision is what it is. Now, to answer your question, I think that, I'll give you an example of what one of the things that that we are doing here, post affirmative action decision, you know, we got to be sensitive of creating programs now that we say, this is only for black students across the country. But we'll NYU had stopped doing that a way back when and actually, even at Illinois, when we did our programs at Maryland, we opened it up to everyone, the language that we would say is that this is basically a tone that centers around the experiences of black and Hispanic students. But we opened it up to everyone and all of our programs at Illinois, we had Asian students, we had white students, and that's okay, because I think that's an education for Asian students and white students and so forth to understand the plight and the journey of black students now, at NYU, post affirmative action, I was, well, before that decision, I wanted to create an online virtual high school program to teach students in these bootcamp formats on what are the competencies and skills that you need, if you want to go into supply chain management? Or if you want to be investment banking, because or what have you, I wanted to encourage particularly demographic show that black students are not running to Wall Street, because they I want to be an investment banker, you know, or even business analytics, and those quant stem type of skills. So I wanted to create an atmosphere to educate them on what these different areas pertain. Initially, it was said it said for black and Hispanic students, hearing from black and Hispanic professionals posted from affirmative action. I went to legal and said, I have a thought, why don't we open it up to the world and keep the professionals black, and Hispanic? Is that something is wrong. And they said, Okay, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And actually, you're saying it open up, but we just want you to hear from just black and Hispanic investment bankers, supply chain managers, partners, entrepreneurs, sports. And so I tried it out for the first last summer. And by the way, it was free. We had like over 500 students in our webinar, right. And, and most of them were not black, by the way, you just you could just use, I saw their face, it's just for the most part, you just kind of know. But it was probably the most fascinating experience to see. Because we didn't talk about black, we didn't talk about I'm a black investment banker we just talked about. I'm an investment banker. And let me just give you some ideas about what you should consider as a high school junior senior. And we literally had to stop every session saying we're done. You know, we went over, but the feedback from parents and students from across the world was this is probably the most educational moments that my child has experience. This is mostly white family saying because they've not actually had an opportunity to see somebody that's different. And then you have the black students saying, Well, I can see myself and that student so it actually was achieving all kinds of things that we didn't intend it to church achieve. And that is the idea of inclusion. By the way. At the very last session. We said you know, here's here's some things that we want you to consider if you're applying to NYU, we only spent like 30 minutes on the process, because we were sold them in the session. And everybody who applied we had a say significant number of people who apply because they put it in the essay, you know, this webinar, they put it on the, you know, Activities List. A good chunk of them were rejected of all shapes, sizes and colors. Most of them said, demons, thank you so much, even though I wasn't admitted, I want to just thank you for this time that you spent with us this past summer. And that kind of new innovation is kind of what we need more, creating venues and initiatives that addresses the entire community, encouraging marginalized communities to be a part of that process. And so I think that that's probably the extra thing that you have to do, to come and be a part of this process, come and meet with people who are different from you. And even in that session, we brought in a professor to teach them how to talk in front of zoom cameras, or how to raise their hand when they're shy. And they're the only black person in the room, I mean, we literally approached it that way. Because that's an educating everybody together, that's what we need, we need more of that. What that will do, eventually, not overnight is going to increase the diversity of the applicant pool. Most predominantly white institutions are not doing the heavy lifting to increase the diversity of the applicant pool. If you only have like five people who are black applying, you're saying the only five people who are black who are applying, but what if you have 300 Black people who are applying, I'm not saying it's easy, but that has to be the goal. That's inclusion, you are creating a pipeline that starts at the very beginning where it's a very diverse, right, and then you can actually then talk about blind admissions and, you know, all of that stuff right now, the black community is saying, If you don't know who I am, how in the world am I gonna be admitted? Fair question from the black family standpoint. But from the legal standpoint, it's like, you know, we can't admit you just cuz you black. And so that's what we're universities have to really rethink the way that they are narrating the journey and admitting people, I actually think that this is not a, this is not a bad thing, if it's just it takes a commitment from a leader saying it's gonna take some work to innovate in a way where inclusion starts at the beginning, if you if you include an ad, that's versified, and expand the applicant pool at the beginning, it's going to work itself out and that EMBA student who shared with me that at the end of the day, that class won't be judged as much, you're not going to have too many people questioning the process, if they thought the process was extremely inclusive at the beginning.

Jim 27:53

So this is great, this is really terrific. And you've given me just a great pearl of thought here. And I want to ask this, this is probably our last question as my guest. But essentially what you've done by having those high school virtual conversations with those kids, is you've reached back before they get to college, which is really what corporate America has done by instituting the internship, the internship is basically reaching into colleges, saying, we're going to give you a chance to see what the workaday world is like. So you're going to come for three months as an internship, what you've done is exactly the same thing. One level back in the quote unquote, supply chain students. And, and I think if we all were to do this, to go back and say, here's the things you need to think about, I mean, go back, not just due to racial diversity, but even like you said, First Gen. Yes. How do you what's college like? And then what you know, don't get intimidated by college, let us talk to you about what your first day is going to be like, and what's going to be how to raise your hand at the top of the Zoom call? Absolutely. We did a thing at USC just very quickly, but where we actually brought in, we were having troubles getting underrepresented minorities of any kind into accounting. We just couldn't get him into accounting. So one of our professors started a program with high school kids to bring him in for two weeks. Talk about what is accounting, because that's an intimidating subject. Yeah. And I mean, they're still struggling right now for accounting, and we all are, but But what you've said is, you're going to be inclusive start, even before you're inclusive, with those people that would be part of your supply chain of your pool, your applicant pool. And, and you're really that's fine.

Victor Mullins 29:46

They're starting early on learning how to work and study with people who are different from them. Yes,

Jim 29:52

absolutely. So by the time they get to you, they they're they're ready to go right You're much more comfortable when

Victor Mullins 30:01

when my son Justin, and then I'm gonna just my last thing when he was a freshman in high school, I put him on a plane. It's not fun, but it is fun. I put him on a plane by himself to go to Stanford for three weeks to study computer science. Think about a freshman. He was on video games forever in a day, right? And I think, well, if you want to do video games, you got to go to the Stanford boot camp for three weeks. He cried, literally on the plane, my wife got, I mean, we saw him getting on the plane, I didn't go with him and says, you know, there'll be with you on the other side. He came back changed. He came back saying, I'm all computer science now. Whereas he went away saying, I just like video games, I don't want to do anything about creating computers. And he came back. And I share this with undergraduate students. He's now working at Twitch living not too far from here, as a software engineer, wow. And Justin actually attributes that plane, right. But my point is, he was working. learning coding, as a freshman in high school was an eclectic bunch of people, and came back changed. And that to me, is kind of where we want to go. We want to just mix it up, but be able to accommodate the students who are struggling. And that's what Stanford did really well. They it's like, you know, we see you struggling and we pull you aside and tell you what this is. So but that's the same thing. That's here. We see you struggling in accounting at stern Kaplan, we pull you aside and help you out what's going on. So I think that the possibility is so real. We just got to do what it takes work. Yep.

Jim 31:38

Oh, yeah. Anything good takes work. Anything good takes work. Right. Well,

Dave 31:45

Victor, thank you so much for spending time with us this morning. I mean, we could spend hours on this issue and learning more, we'll probably need to bring you back. This has just been a wonderful conversation. And of course, it's been great to see you again.

Victor Mullins 32:01

Well, I appreciate you. So thank you so much. You're welcome.

Dave 32:12

Jim, what did you think of that conversation with Victor just now?

Jim 32:15

I thought what he did was he made it sound so practical. And right. When you listen to someone like that, speaking from the heart, who knows how to build trust with anybody from senior faculty to young, high school kids. That's really what it's all about is the trust factor. And then to talk from the heart as to how we're going to get you to a point where you're going to feel included in this community that we have. And I thought his his wisdom and his practical suggestions were absolutely outstanding.

Dave 32:54

I couldn't agree more. I I liked how he confronted the and I appreciated him talking about the stress and strain we have over DTI and but also providing our listeners kind of a more enlightened approach as to how to address this important topic. And I, you know, I've known Victor for years. And what's so interesting is this. This is a part of his has been a part of his DNA forever. And it was great to see how he, he kind of brought that through in our conversation today. So wonderful.

Jim 33:28

But I like to hear was the fact that he said, it's not a numbers game, right. And I think what's going on today, is that corporations, universities are looking at the ROI from dei and saying, I'm not getting the numbers that I'm looking for. In actuality, you got to play the long game here. He's playing the long game by reaching back to high school kids. That's the game. Yeah. And I liked what I heard about that. Because that's that's the more practical approach to dei SRA than just the numbers thing. I think that was just superb, superb.

Dave 34:02

Thank you for listening to this episode of Dean's Council. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Dean's Council was produced in Boulder, Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts. For a catalogue of previous shows, please visit our website at Dean's council.com If you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback at Dean's council.com. And finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you can automatically receive our latest show.