Leaders on Leadership featuring Dr. Jann L. Joseph, President of Georgia Gwinnett College

Episode Transcript

Jay Lemons:

Hello, and thank you for listening. I’m Jay Lemons. Welcome to Leaders on Leadership, brought to you by Academic Search and the American Academic Leadership Institute. The purpose of our podcast is to share the stories of the people and forces that have shaped leaders in higher education and to learn more about their thoughts on leadership in the academy.

I’m really delighted to be joined today by Dr. Jann Joseph. Jann’s been the President of Georgia Gwinnett College since 2019. Under her guidance, GGC has expanded its academic offerings, including new degrees such as the bachelor of science in health science, and five nexus degrees for the entertainment industry. I want to hear more about that. Jann secured state support for major campus projects, including a new convocation center that is set to open late this year. She’s also introduced men’s and women’s basketball to the Georgia Gwinnett Athletics programs.

During the pandemic, certainly a challenge and a highlight for a new president, Jann implemented strategic measures to support students and to maintain the college’s financial viability. She also led the development of strategic plans for ’23 to ’25, and now a subsequent one from 2025 to 2030. The second of these is going to capture the 25th anniversary vision for her young, developing, really dynamic college.

She is actively engaged in educational leadership and beyond at various levels. She chairs the University System of Georgia Council on general education and supports the Executive Leadership Institute. Jann also serves on boards, including the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education, and the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce. Nationally, she chairs the ACE Women’s Network Executive Council and is involved with AASCU and higher education resource services.

Jann’s background includes having a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from the University of West Indies. Her doctorate is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and extensive experience in teaching, research and administration at a number of institutions. Jann lives today in Lawrenceville, Georgia and draws inspiration from her three adult sons and their families. I am confident that that is reciprocated, that they draw inspiration from you. Jann, it’s a very special pleasure to have this opportunity to have you on Leaders on Leadership.

Jann Joseph:

Thank you. I’m just happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jay Lemons:

Well, I have a tendency to sometimes meander just a bit. I’m going to start meandering here, because I think GGC is a young developing institution and some of our listeners may not know the unique history. Would you just jump in and maybe give us a short history of Georgia Gwinnett College, and how it came to be?

Jann Joseph:

Yeah. Well, sometimes you could just will things into existence, and I think GGC is one of those examples. There was members of this community who had the will for this campus, way before my time, way before I even knew when that existed. We are 19, just recently. We just started our 20th year, started in 2005. Again, first college in the 21st century. We have been here in Lawrenceville taking some of our… How do we say? We started on what used to be a perimeter campus of university system of Georgia. We took over spaces and became a brand new college in 2005. Graduated our first class in 2008 and starting from literally zero, we are approaching… We have 12,000 students plus this fall.

Jay Lemons:

Wow.

Jann Joseph:

Yeah. We are rapidly growing. We are the most diverse campus in the southeast region. We are considered a minority serving institution, an AANAPISI institution, and an HSI institution.

Jay Lemons:

Wow.

Jann Joseph:

Extremely diverse. I like to tell people that the stock photos that people buy of college campuses, we just take those on the quad in between classes, the diversity of our student body. It’s just such a beautiful place to be. Of course, being new, we have a combination of new and old facilities, some inherited spaces, bought spaces from the neighborhood, and then some new facilities as well. Great campus, dedicated faculty staff who literally their lifeblood is built in this place. We are excited for the future at Georgia Gwinnett College. It’s just a great place to be and it’s a place that if you want to do something new, you want to do something different. It’s just very welcoming for that. For me to join it in its 15th year, so to speak, actually was 14 at the time and take it through the last five years, I couldn’t be more happy to lead this campus.

Jay Lemons:

Well, fabulous. Thanks for sharing that history. The perimeter campus was or was not a part of the system?

Jann Joseph:

It was part of the system. It was a place where people would come to do the first two years of college. I’m not very familiar with it, I’ve just heard about it. I was outside of the state at the time, but it was a place where you could do your first two years before you transfer. If anything, that’s probably one of the biggest hurdles that we constantly fight in our reputation as a four-year bachelor’s grant in institution, is that there’s still most times for the local community, I think nationally, people who know Georgia when they’re college, know who we are. I think it’s the guy around the corner who used to always drive by or who came here in a different way. It’s like the familiarity brings the content, so to speak, because the people who from nearby don’t know us as well as people from further away. We do a lot of local branding and marketing for who we are.

Jay Lemons:

Isn’t that ironic?

Jann Joseph:

Yeah. It’s the nature of things, right?

Jay Lemons:

It really is. Yeah. That charge 20-ish years ago was really a major expansion of mission and vision. That’s why you have this mix of some old, but a whole lot of new infusion. Hearty congratulations on this new facility convocation facility that’s coming. What a great resource that’s going to be, not only for your campus but for the community of Lawrenceville.

Jann Joseph:

Absolutely. We are excited about that because it’s almost like you finally grown up where you have your convocation center. One of the things that I noticed on my first day on campus when it was my first meeting of the whole campus and there was no place we could assemble. We were in three separate spaces and I was literally meeting my campus for the first time in this format, so to speak, in an audiovisual format in… I was in one room and there were people in two different rooms.

I did this thing where I went into each room to try and greet people before, because I felt it was terrible that they had not seen me face-to-face, and this would mean… There, I greeted. There’s the chaos of getting everybody engaged in these two different places and I’m over there. The main event, they were like, “Where’s the president?” All I have to tell you, that’s the last time they allowed me to wander anywhere by myself because I took longer trying to get to these two rooms and greet people before I went back to the main room and everybody… I was sort of AWOL. It was quite fun. Yeah, I’ve not been allowed to walk around by myself since that day.

Jay Lemons:

It also has an awful lot about your leadership.

Jann Joseph:

Oh, thank you.

Jay Lemons:

It really does. My hunch is that that commitment to trying to be in touch and be direct with as many as you can is… Especially in a dynamic growing environment, that’s really special and no doubt, one of your challenges.

Jann Joseph:

It’s a challenge. It’s tough to do because when you [inaudible 00:09:07] small, everybody knew everybody, and everybody knew the president. There are people who still feel that I’m disconnected because they had more connection than with leadership, but it’s tough to keep reminding people we’re not two or 3,000 people. We’re not 50 faculty and 20 staff. We’re literally 1,000 plus people work here. It’s really tough to keep that small campus feel when you grew so rapidly.

Jay Lemons:

That’s a rocket ship. Yes. Yet your own personal demeanor and temperament and commitments probably help that.

Jann Joseph:

I try. I try. Well, one of the simplest ways for me is that I find that for students to connect with students, one things that I do is that I try to walk around campus and just say hi, that most people don’t even know who they’re saying hi to, but they might find out and I just say hello. I try to eat in the cafeteria at least twice per month and I just go and put out my credit card and just walk around and sit and eat. It’s fun, because I meet faculty staff there from time to time, some students. Many times, I would walk out and maybe three or four people might recognize me, but I get a pulse off the campus and it’s nice to just sit there and just have my salad or fried chicken Wednesdays. It’s fun.

Jay Lemons:

You are one of those people for whom those sorts of interactions also bring you energy.

Jann Joseph:

Absolutely.

Jay Lemons:

That’s also a gift. One of our goals for this program is to really invite leaders to reflect on their own pathways to leadership. My hope about that is that you might, through the telling of your own story, inspire others. I really would love if you would open up and run a little tape, just share what you would like about what were the forces, the events, the opportunities that really forged you into the leader that you are. Tell us about your journey in higher ed.

Jann Joseph:

Yeah. Well, my journey, I would say many people would say this to young people or people up and come and say yes, say yes. When people recognize your value and you didn’t see it yourself, just believe that. Just believe that you’re capable, because it’s so easy to have the impostor syndrome. We talk about that. Everybody’s talked about that. It’s so easy to believe that you’re not capable, but when people tell you that you’re capable, when people see you, people say, just believe them. Because my path to leadership basically starts in grad school when my professor said, “You are so good at this combination of teaching and research, and you would be a really good candidate to combine the scholarship of teaching with your passion for teaching as well.”

That’s how I changed from pursuing just a research degree when I was planning to do research on curriculum and instruction and research on how people look at teaching in the academy and how they balance it with the research in the academy. I heard somebody say that to me. Instead of saying, “No, this is what I want to do,” I heard them from their experience telling me what they saw me good at and I heeded that. That’s how I got my path to completing my PhD. Then, I began seeking the right type of positions. My professor says they’re going to be hiring people in the science departments now for science ed. It used to be it was all in the school of College of Education, but people are recognizing the value of having the science ed people in the departments.

There was this position that perfectly described what I wanted to do, what I had discussed doing. A colleague and a friend who, back in the day, I couldn’t afford a Chronicle. I was just this poor graduate student, and The Chronicle would come into special offices. Back then, you found jobs in The Chronicle by leafing through the literal physical paper, not just online. She said, “I saw this job in The Chronicle that perfectly describes what you have been talking about. I think this is going to be great for you. I know you’re thinking of staying here and doing this or that, but I think this is going to be good for you.” I applied for the job and I have this really unique position that I’m grateful for. I say it with all humility. I really only applied for one job.

I had another application I sent in, but it was too not in the right place for me. I was like, “Oh, I don’t know if I really want to deal with that.” I was glad it pulled back, but I really seriously applied and pursued one job and I got it at Grand Valley State, because it literally described me and I got this position at Grand Valley State University. I say the name out loud because I want people to know of the institution, an amazing place for a person like me to just spread my wings. They give me space to grow at that institution. They just allowed for the combination of my strengths, my personalities, and where I was weak, they had spaces that I could grow and become stronger. Lots of support for professional development. Then, the program coordinator of the integrated science program who was my mentor and was retiring, he said, “I think you’re going to be good at this.” You should take over this program,” which is something like a department chair-like type of role.

I said, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe.” I was just before tenure perhaps into that role. I did that for a few years and really enjoyed it, coordinating my fellow faculty. Some of them remain friends to this day. Many of them have gone on to do different things. Some of them are still at GVSU, and just grew into that. Then, I was very active as a faculty member. Lots of committees and programming. I was just involved. I went to the football game when the football team was nothing. Then, the football team became everything, so much so the coaches wanted. Highest paid person in the nation now who started off with Grand Valley at that time when I was there.

Jay Lemons:

Brian Kelly?

Jann Joseph:

Yeah. Brian Kelly was there at the time. I really engaged with the faculty life and my late husband was there with me as well. We just dove into the faculty life and the institution. When we did a reconsolidation of some colleges and stuff. The dean of arts and sciences, the new dean, he was looking for an associate dean and I was like, “People were blind. There was another associate dean,” and I was just doing my thing. I always said to people, “Do what you do with gusto. Give it everything you have. You will outgrow it.” When you begin to push against the edges, people are going to see or you might feel it’s time to move on. I obviously was there and he said, “Have you considered applying for this job? I think you’ll be good for this job.” I said, “Oh, I didn’t think I was qualified because I’m not a full professor yet.”

He says, “No. You don’t have to be a full professor to be tenured.” I said, “Oh, okay.” I was three or four years into associate professor and I said, “Okay. I’ll look into it.” I applied and went through the process of the interviews and the open forum and everything, and I was asked to be associate dean. Again, I loved it and I did it with everything that I had and enjoyed it and did that for four and a half years plus. Then, I was at a conference in Eastern Michigan University, was looking for a new unit of education and I was having this conversation with this person. He said, “You should apply. I think you’ll be good for that. I’ll nominate you for that.” I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to move. I’m not sure. It’s complicated,” but I was like, “Oh, I’ll try it.” I did, and interviewed. I was at EMU as a dean.

Then, that job, I outgrew that one too. Then, moved to Indiana University South Bend in a provost type role, executive by chancellor role. Then, I outgrew that and I had an interim leadership role there for a year and outgrew that space. Not every space you go in, you fit forever. Every time I moved, I felt I was going to be there. I thought I was going to be Eastern forever and I thought I was going to be at IU South Bend forever. Sometimes the circumstances of the roles and your life, the combination doesn’t work anymore. That didn’t work again for me. I didn’t fit there beyond that space I was in. I decided at that time, I had gone through a personal difficult time. I lost the love of my life and I was just in a place to reset my life.

I was like, “Okay. This time, I could just decide where I want to go.” My kids are grown, I have grandkids. I don’t have to choose a place to live or a job based on whether or not there were schools or hospitals or all the other things I would always look for, for my family. I could just go where I wanted to go, and I reached out. Actually, we know this person in common, because I was an ALI at the time and I reached out to Linda and I said, “Here’s where I am.” She said, “Well, here’s this thing. Georgia Gwinnett.” Of course, the nominations, she was one of the people nominated me for it. Before you know it, I was finalist and offered this job and that was plus five years ago. In each time in telling up the story here of my journey, is that somebody saw me, somebody saw my potential. I tried to be brave enough to be ready and say yes.

Sometimes what I would say is that… Notice how I said it, I try to be brave enough. I try to be courageous enough. Sometimes we feel we have to be brave, we have to be courageous, but these are acts. These are just acts of there’s a will and then there’s an action. What I did was I didn’t question myself. I didn’t question what people were seeing with me for too long and I chose to act and be brave. In trying, I demonstrated that I could be brave and do something new. In trying, I demonstrated that I had the courage, but you never know until you try. That’s all I did. Here I am after five years and very happy, started my sixth year this July, and I’m looking forward to many more years of leadership and supporting the academy where I’m planted.

Jay Lemons:

Well, I love that. I’m going to pick up wherever I’m planted. I think there’s an important lesson there in that, as you said, “I went to each of those jobs imagining that I would be there for the rest of my career.” It is the case that the academy and the administrative leadership life is a bit itinerant, is a bit nomadic, and yet everybody would be well served by going and planting themselves. You’re right somewhere along the line, but it wasn’t all about keeping your eye on the next horizon. It was about doing the work there and blooming where you’re planted.

Jann Joseph:

Absolutely. I’m glad you emphasize that, because… I’ve said this in multiple times when I’ve been asked to speak on my own journey on leadership. I know sometimes people don’t want to hear that. I know there might be people who may not even believe me when I say that, because I have moved and I have moved up every time. I know with my own certainty… I can only speak for my own heart and my own mind and myself, I always went into every place truly believing that I was going to grow there and I was going to be the rest of my career. I always say, and I remind people, “When people tell you it’s time to move, ask yourself, is it? When you feel the pull, sometimes it’s a pull or a push or some combination. Don’t fight it. Listen to what you’re hearing.”

I feel so fortunate that I am in a place right now at GGC where there’s this sense of completeness for me in terms of the support that I have from my community. The majority of my campus, everybody would never love you. You’d always have detractors when you’re leading because leaders make tough decisions and the nature of it, if everybody loves you, you’re not doing enough. The combination of the support I have from my community, my campus, my system office, people in my community elected and otherwise, I do feel very fortunate. I’m good. I’m in a good place.

Jay Lemons:

One of the benefits of that notion of being planted that I think is valuable is that you make every decision as if you are going to live with it for the rest of your career.

Jann Joseph:

Absolutely.

Jay Lemons:

That’s different than someone who comes in with, “I’m going to get X, Y and Z done and then move on.” I think campuses have a tendency to be able to sense that.

Jann Joseph:

Yes. Absolutely. I think one of the things that I say to my leadership team as well, my cabinet, and I know they would attest to this, is because I always say to them, “I’m working for the next president.” When I first said that, there was a lot of nervousness around that. Somebody said to me, “You mustn’t say that.” I said, “Tell me why I mustn’t say that.” “Because people think that you’re leaving, that you’re making the decision for the next president.” “I said, “No. It’s because I’m staying. I’m making this decision for the future, but I’m not making the decision for the future of just day after tomorrow.”

Some of these big decisions you make, you’re not making them for yourself because what’s the tenure of the president? I’m, at certain years, six. Jay, as you know, because you’re in the business, I think I’m passing average now. It’s terrible, isn’t it? If I was making a decision two years ago, I was making it for this version of me or if things didn’t work out for the next person. We make too many decisions for our immediate self and we’re not seeing our campuses five, 10 years old. We have to, as leaders, be thinking about what’s coming. Although we can’t predict everything, we have enough knowledge around us and experience to make those good decisions for our campus’ future.

Jay Lemons:

Let’s jump in there. I love the notion of what makes a good leader. Hereby good, I don’t mean grade B. I mean good as in virtuous, effective, successful, moving the institution forward.

Jann Joseph:

Well, again, it could play back to what I just said about planning for the future and not be focusing on making people happy in the moment, but making sure that the campus is situated to be successful. In your future, the campus and the long-term success of the institution. I think that’s one of the big picture. Then, there’s the small picture things, the everyday things. For me, building a team, allowing the people who work closely with you to get to know you. I think it’s important that they know you as a person. I am President Joseph for multitude of people, but for many people, I’m Jann. I think it’s important that they know the complexity of the individual that is me. As I was actually sharing with just a colleague today as we were going through solving a problem is that my brain is, on one hand, looking at it from an artistic perspective. What was this thing’s going to look like? My brain also is doing, “Okay. What does the dollars count and where does it come from?”

It’s a combination of literally doing the mathematical calculations in my brain on one side and the data that I have whilst thinking in this more big picture and a combination of aesthetics and just what this thing is going to look like that we are trying to roll out to the campus. It’s like letting them know how your brain’s functioning and how you believe you think, so that they would know who you are when you make a decision. It wouldn’t just be these what decisions, it would be how you made the decision. I think for me, I see that as a big piece of leadership, being vulnerable with the people around you and trusting them and then building teams of people who feel that same level of trust among themselves to be vulnerable.

One of the first things I do when I started to build my team here… I’m just going to tell you because it’s important that we honor ourselves. I’m going to honor myself by saying I’m extremely proud of the cabinet that I’ve assembled at Georgia Gwinnett College. Because I think as leadership teams go in higher ed, I have assembled one of the strongest group of people. In terms of the cohesion and the mindset and the willingness to stand together for GGC, it is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. We are not perfect, but I could say to two or three members of my team, “You all need to sit and talk this through because you all know how to do this.”

Whereas before, everything would come up to me and then I’d have to work individually with everybody. We have now come to the point where they could talk across in a lateral way and multiples. I don’t even know how much of it occurs, but many of my cabinet members have these one-on-ones and one-on-two group meetings to solve smaller problems and they bring up solutions to me. I said, “How does this impact this area? Have you thought about it?” He said, “Well, we met and we discussed it and here’s where we are.” I was like, “Yeah.”

My job has become, I wouldn’t say easy is the word, but your leadership becomes more fluent. You’re in a flow space. We talk about the flow, or you build strong teams. For me, that is the best advice I could give, is around building a team, being vulnerable to them, building trust with them one-on-one. Then, after you get to that one-on-one, expanding that trust among that group. Then, we are at a point now where I’m asking them to do similar work with their teams to build that capacity. We’ll have hopefully a very strong senior leadership team, the top 50, 60 people at the campus. Hopefully, in a year or two, we’ll see ourselves having these conversations.

Jay Lemons:

That’s marvelous. There’s a lot of wisdom bound up in all that you outlined. In some ways, you got right to what you look for in your teams. I think you really put an exclamation mark around the importance of trust. That’s where the vulnerability comes, is when you are trusting and know that it will be okay. That’s when I can make myself vulnerable. Thank you for that.

Jann Joseph:

Yeah. One of the things I say to them is sometimes we are solving something in cabinet and I would say, “You know what, guys? I’m on the ledge here. I need you all to pull me back.” Or I might say, “I’m at the edge of the cliff. I need you all to hold onto me, because I’m not sure what’s happening here. I’m not feeling right about something. Tell me what am I missing here?” Or I’ve had one moment when I said to them, “Okay, guys. I’m jumping. I’m just jumping now. I’m going in fate on this one. Somebody needs to hold me up when I get down to the bottom of this, or maybe you are putting some sort of wings on me, but with this team, I’m jumping. I’m jumping into this.”

To build that and to say that, I honestly didn’t think I would ever have that, but I always felt that if I got all the way, so to speak, to the top of the heap, I was going to do everything I could to build the people around me. I always felt that’s what a leader should do. Leaders should not stand on the shoulders of our teams and have them feel that pressure of us on them all the time. Now, we are supposed to be elevated to the front. Because as a president, we represent the institution, but one of the things we should never do that is at the expense of the people who put us out front.

They should always feel comfortable to come up front with us. I literally do that. I pull people up front with me from time to time. I try to take them out and expose them. Once I understood my community, now, I take more people into the public domain. When I have a lunch with people who come to campus, donors or just exposing people, I always take along a cabinet member. My aim is to develop them all, that they could become the president any day. My aim is that I’m replaceable.

Jay Lemons:

Hear. Hear. We are all replaceable. These are also the benefits that come with continuity of leadership of being there for the longer haul. That’s marvelous. Jann, I’m going to jump around a bit. I’d love to hear your thoughts about whether leadership today is different than earlier in your career. Are there new or different skills, knowledge or abilities than there might have been for 20 years ago?

Jann Joseph:

I hate first to invoke politics, but I would use politics with a small P here. Not a politician, P. I think we have to be more diplomatic and more political, so to speak. I think we have to be more careful with what we see. The times when leaders, particularly if we speak to higher ed leadership, could be more open with their opinions. They could be what would we refer to as taught leaders where ideas… You could write an opinion position in the newspapers and something that you could present as a leader of a high institution. Here’s how I see this, because our roles were respected. We were seen as being impartial, but bringing accurate information. The fact that we have doctorates and surrounded by hundreds of people with credentials on our campus gave the public the sense that we knew what we were talking about. Therefore, our words had more value around the issues that impact people on a daily basis.

Those days are gone, because I think the leadership now is fraught with potholes and pits. Call it whatever you will, but it’s a minefield. I don’t know I’m doing this podcast and I could make two comments that are just not right and offend somebody, and somebody’s going to call somebody who’s going to call somebody and they’ll be like, “Why is Jann Joseph still the president of GGC? She said such and such in this podcast that I happen to hear on my way home.” That’s the world that we survive in as leadership.

I think what I say though is that whatever you see comes from your heart, whatever you see comes from your mind and from your values. One way I feel I solve this for me, if at all, it’s a solution I’m finding is that I focus on what’s inside of me. For me, what I package inside is my love and desire for my students, my love and desire that my students coming from similar backgrounds as I do did, would exceed me, my love and desire that every woman who walks across my campus could be a college president one day, my love and desire that young men in this campus who look just like my three sons at same age would grow up and exceed what my sons have accomplished and what my late husband has accomplished.

I put that inside. Then, when I speak, I speak with that representation. It’s for what’s best for GGC and my students. I would say that’s how leadership for me, I think would be different today than if I was a president 20 years ago. I think we really have to be more internal focus on what we are called to do. There are days where we could contribute to saving the world has been broken. I think we need to focus now or we are asked to focus now on the campuses that we need, because enough of the world’s going to come to us right where we’re at.

Jay Lemons:

Well, you’re so right. In this digital world, it never goes away either. There’s a permanence to every utterance that we make. I love that advice. Speak from the heart, speak from your head, connect the two, and always be thinking about your students’ best interests. Those are really important. I want to move into what I call a little bit more the lightning route. Shorter questions you can answer with as much length as you would want, but I’d love to hear you reflect a little bit about who most influenced you.

Jann Joseph:

That’s a tricky one, but I know instinctively the answer. The answer really is my late husband because so many people said, “Yes, you could do it,” but for most of us, there’s a person that we go home to or friend we call. In my late husband, I had that friend. He was my best friend. He was just the closest person to me, and he knew me. He deeply understood me. Even the past of me I didn’t really like, he understood. He always encouraged me. He always said to me, “Jann, you could do this. You could do this.” Mostly, he didn’t just tell me I could do it. He let me know by his actions and his words that he was going to be by my side when I did it. He was always there to tell me, “Yeah, babe. I know it’s hard, but you pull through this. Yeah. I know it’s a tough day. You’ll be all right. You’ll pull through.” Yeah.

Jay Lemons:

Tell a bit more about his pathway, his journey.

Jann Joseph:

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. This could go on forever because I met him for the first time, I was eight years old and he was 12. We grew up in Trinidad together. Anyway, short story, we met again in our late teens. I was 17, 18. He was four years older. As I said, this is what I’m telling the whole world this. I’m telling people who don’t notice, but we looked when I was 20 and he was 24. Now, it’s out there for everybody. Yeah. We did our own thing. I fell in love and I made this really crazy decision, best decision I ever made in my life.

He supported me through school. Then, I supported him through school. We moved to the U.S. and I worked and supported him, and he finished his undergrad degree and then he started his master’s degree, and then I started my PhD. Then, I got my job, and then he followed me and we did the, “You go. You go. You go. I would support you.” We did taking the turns. At the end of the day, we had three amazing sons. We had two PhDs, but it was a lot of sacrifice, but we did it together. There was a time we didn’t even go to a movie for 10 years. We did two things. We stayed married and paid attention to that, and we raised our kids and then we studied. The family and then school, that’s all we did for many years. It was another sacrifice, but he contracted cancer and we fought the good fight for many, many years. I lost him six years ago this week.

Jay Lemons:

My memory is that you lost him just as you were arriving or early into your tenure, and…

Jann Joseph:

Yes. I was interim… As I started my interim leadership role at IUSB on July 1, he passed in July 26th. Yeah. That was a very difficult year for me. Yeah. Part of the reason why I restarted, I started over. Yeah.

Jay Lemons:

Followed by a move, followed by a pandemic.

Jann Joseph:

Yes.

Jay Lemons:

My goodness. Your grit and resilience. By the way, the Linda you mentioned earlier for our listeners is former AALI president, Linda Bleicken, who had been the president at Armstrong Atlantic State University and the University of Georgia System, and a great colleague and friend for both of us.

Jann Joseph:

Absolutely.

Jay Lemons:

I, for sure, thank you for mentioning her and thank you for sharing and remembering and celebrating your husband in this beautiful, beautiful way too.

Jann Joseph:

Thank you. He was physically my person. In spirit, he still is. He would live forever in my heart. I couldn’t have loved him more and I still do.

Jay Lemons:

That’s beautiful. Is there a book that’s had the greatest influence on you?

Jann Joseph:

Well, I’ll tell you. I know this is [inaudible 00:42:32] wrong, but I’ll say just quickly to say, when I arrived in the U.S., 30 some years ago as a Black woman from the Caribbean, I tried to understand the African American woman experience. There were a couple of authors that helped me, but Maya Angelou helped me understand the Black woman experience the best. Because even when I started reading her books, and of course they had been out for some time when I read them… Some of them, I read more as they were recent and coming out, but I had to go back, so to speak. Toni Morrison, I read some of the women of… The classics, I would call them, and that helped me. The reason why I picked Maya Angelou is that one of the things that she was really good at, I loved her poetry, but she was such a great storyteller and a lesson and a teacher.

My favorite, because I thought about what my favorite her books is that this tiny little piece of her work that she put wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now. Because in that particular one is where she puts the little tidbits. I know the reason why… I picked up this book again, because I was thinking, “You said you wanted to find out my book,” and I picked it up. I’m a reader that I put lots on the lines and thoughts and stuff through it. I remember seeing in my notes here, I wrote, “Excellent poem and diversity can be used another time and perhaps in our inclusion and equity and strategic plan.” This was my nature. I would read this. In my notes, I would be looking at applications and I said, “Oh, my God. I wrote…” This would’ve been like 20 years ago.

In this section here, she said, “It is time for the preachers, the rabbis, the priests and the pundits and the professors to believe the awesome wonder of diversity, so that they can teach those who follow them. It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity, there’s beauty and there’s strength. We should all know that diversity makes for rich tapestry. We must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value, no matter their color, equal in importance, no matter their texture.”

The reason why I read that is because my team would’ve heard me say over and over. On my campus, I tell people that they lead from their strength. They lead, because they’re different and they have a different place to lead from. I lead the campus in this broad way, but each of my vice presidents and their direct reports and everybody to lead. Today, somebody who’s fixing something on my computer said to me, “Would you need it right now, or can I take it or should I do a full scan of it or with a partial scan?” I said, “I have no idea. Your job is to lead me through that process. What do you think is best for me to do?”

Now, this is an individual who reports four levels, five levels down from me, but he has to lead me, because that’s his strength. The diversity of our ideas, it’s not just our color of skin and ethnicity. The diversity of our ideas, the diversity of what we bring to the table is what strengthens us. When I picked this back up, to see that I was underlining and writing that out, I realized even more so that in reading from authors like her, way back when, helped me to know that I should honor all people.

I would say to everybody, “Read beyond your comfort zone. Read authors that you’re not familiar with.” For me, coming into a new culture, I had to learn it. To learn the culture, I had to read some of its strongest authors. I started with the women who looked like me first and then I expanded, but when I really want to have some fun read, I love the American Assassin series. I know that says something about me. Mitch Rapp is like my hero. That was Kyle Mills, was doing that. I love Patterson. I’ve just read so many of his books, I started reading and I’ve just read so many. Those are my vacation kind of books, because guess what? We have to get up and read The Chronicle every morning, right?

Jay Lemons:

Absolutely true. Absolutely true.

Jann Joseph:

Yeah. That’s not [inaudible 00:47:33] wrong. That’s a story, but I wanted to tell it. Thanks for allowing me.

Jay Lemons:

I appreciate that. I’ve appreciated every bit of this. Before we wrap up though, one of the things that I always want to extend to our guests is the opportunity to talk a little bit more about your home institution. In this case, what is it about GGC that you know is in the organizational DNA that really excites and charges you and tells people about this special place?

Jann Joseph:

I would say we have been what’s considered this hidden gem, even in our community. If anybody is 10, 50 miles off Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, we’re just 32 miles, not even that much up up I-85 from Atlanta. We’re in Metro Atlanta if you could get through the recent craziness in the airport. Certainly, if you’re nearby, email president@ggc.edu and ask for a visit. I’ll give you a tour. Because when you walk on the campus, there is this feeling when you walk among the students. Now, every president would say the same thing, but I dare them to feel what we feel.

It is such a place of belonging that is difficult to put it in words, but you come to this campus, people smile. There’s a kindness. Staff are engaging. The faculty are dedicated to their students. There’s something that just feels just right. I don’t know if it’s because we are too young that we are not cynical yet, but it’s like we still believe. We still believe we can make a difference. We still believe in the 40% of our students in that era who are first generation. We still believe in the joy of the celebration of the sacrifices that parents and families have made, that our students are truly going to change lives for generations. We truly believe that. We truly believe as an access campus, our students are getting a chance so they wouldn’t get anywhere else.

We truly believe that we add value because if they couldn’t get into other campuses, how would they transform their lives through education? We give them a chance. We believe in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh chance. We truly believe that we are making a difference. I think that belief comes across. The passion for the work comes across. What we call the relentless focus on our students comes across when we see them, when we talk to them, when you meet them. I feel it. This is why I go to the cafeteria, you’re correct, and have lunch often. Because just being in that presence, it just wakes me up and it reminds me I have a purpose. I love it.

Jay Lemons:

Wow.

Jann Joseph:

I’m in. Hook, line, and sinker for this campus. I love it.

Jay Lemons:

Well, good for you and wonderful for the faculty, the staff, the students that you serve at Georgia Gwinnett College. Jann, I want to just say thank you for joining us on Leaders on Leadership. Really, really grateful for hearing more about your journey and your insights and wisdom about leadership. Let me offer you a final word.

Jann Joseph:

I’m just grateful that you asked me to do this because to get an opportunity to share my story, to share of my campus, to share of my journey, and to share my passion for higher education, for education in general, it’s a privilege and it’s one I take very seriously. I’m grateful for the opportunity to spread the word to the world of higher ed. We still believe we’re making a difference. In spite of everything that’s being said about who we are and what our value, the people on our college campuses today, the people who work here and serve here, we’re here. We’re here because we truly believe we’re making a difference.

Jay Lemons:

No doubt. That brings us back to, let me say thank you for saying yes, and thank you for making that a real theme of this. That willingness to say yes to do different things that you raised up from our very first moments together, what a valuable lesson. I’m really grateful to you and appreciate the chances that we’ve had to work together through AALI programs and through your support and leadership at AASCU, and look forward to more of that. I hope that you have a great day-

Jann Joseph:

Absolutely.

Jay Lemons:

… and a great New Year. Listeners, we welcome your suggestions and thoughts on leaders we should feature in upcoming segments. You can send those to leadershippodcast@academicsearch.org. You can find our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever else you find your podcasts. It’s also available on the Academic Search website. Leaders on Leadership is brought to you by Academic Search and the American Academic Leadership Institute. Together, our two organizations’ mission is to support colleges and universities during times of transition and through leadership development activities that serve current and future generations of leaders in the academy. What a joy and pleasure it’s been to have Dr. Jann Joseph on our show today. Jann, thank you once again for joining us.

Jann Joseph:

My pleasure.