Leaders on Leadership featuring Dr. Kelly Damphousse, President of Texas State University

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 in 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 today to be joined by Dr. Kelly Damphousse. Kelly is the 10th President of Texas State University. Before joining TXST, Kelly served as the Chancellor of the Arkansas State University flagship campus in Jonesboro, for five years. Prior to that, he held a variety of faculty roles, including at the University of Oklahoma for nearly 20 years. Kelly is an accomplished scholar having earned the title of Presidential Professor of Sociology at OU, based on his extensive research on terrorism, substance abuse, and the criminal justice system. A really wide range of scholarly interests, I would say Kelly, we’ll hear more about that.

Kelly, who grew up in a small fishing village in Northern Canada, where he was adopted by his parents, aspired to be a Royal Canadian mounted police officer, and there’s a story of how he came aspire to that role that I may dig out a little bit further. He began his academic career by earning his associate degree in law enforcement from Lethbridge Community College in Alberta. After graduation, he worked as a prison guard for three years, before moving to his home state, adopted home state of Texas, to earn a degree in criminal justice from Sam Houston State University. While at Sam Houston, he had the good fortune of meeting his wife Beth, who encouraged him to think about graduate school, and this really changed his career trajectory towards education. He eventually earned a master’s degree and a PhD in sociology from Texas A&M University.

My recollection about that story, Kelly, is that she might’ve also described for you some of her preferences of what she wanted and didn’t want, and you were adaptive in that process.

Kelly Damphousse:

It was mostly about what she didn’t want, and yes, I learned to be very adaptive. It still works to this very day, some 38 years later.

Jay Lemons:

Ah, the magic of saying yes to our loving partner.

Kelly Damphousse:

Happy wife, happy life.

Jay Lemons:

Kelly is a first generation student who truly does know the life-changing impact that higher education can have on students’ lives. The knowledge is evident in his work, in how he does it, in the way he does it, whether it be at OU, or at Sam Houston, or at Texas State, or at Arkansas State. He has been all about trying to broaden and create access to higher education and to assure student success. Kelly, it is a delight to have you with us this afternoon.

Kelly Damphousse:

Thanks, Jay, it’s great to be here. Thanks for spending some time with me or letting me spend some time with you.

Jay Lemons:

The joy is truly ours and our listeners, and I would note that this is a long awaited date with someone that was raised up by one of our listeners a while back, and a special gratitude for that recommendation.

One of our goals here on Leaders on Leadership is to ask our guests to reflect and to consider their own pathways to leadership with the hope that others might be inspired and lifted up with Hope. Kelly, I’d love for you to share your own story and not just your leadership story. I’d like you to go wherever you’d like to go and talk about some of the people, the events, and the opportunities that have really shaped and forged you into the person and leader that you are in American higher education.

Kelly Damphousse:

Well, I’m happy to do that and if I skip something good or you want to go back, I’m happy to go back and do something, expand more. But periodically I get offered the opportunity to speak to young people or even older people, try to motivate them, and they’ll say, “Why don’t you tell about how you became a president? What does it take to become a president?” And my story has evolved into really being the story of the five people that changed my life. And so there’s been five people I can go back, and all of us can do this, go back in the time and say, I was going down this path, and someone stood in the fork in the road and said, “Don’t go that way, go this way.”

And this really goes to my first memory of this kind of experience was the first week of grade 12. And so I was in my English teacher’s class, I’d had him the year before, and I was… My mom had taught me how to read and write before I went to kindergarten, which is why I skipped kindergarten and went to first grade, so I was always the youngest kid in class and I loved to read and I love to write, I was very creative. But back in the day, if you were a smart kid, people made fun of you, so you didn’t want to trumpet too much that you were smart.

But anyway, I was just acting up the first week of class. I was too comfortable with him, and he in the middle of class, he just stopped and said, “Mr. Damphousse, what happened over the summer that turned your brain to mush?” Which is another word for porridge or oatmeal in Canada. And he took me aback and I said, “I’m going to drop this class as soon as the bell rings.” I started leaving the room right after that and he called me aside and brought me back in. It’s just me and him in the classroom and he said, “Kelly, I know I probably embarrassed you by what I said there, but you’ve got something that those other boys don’t have and you could really make something of yourself.”

He wasn’t really talking about going to college because back then I didn’t really know people who went to college and we didn’t talk about that a whole lot in my high school, but he was talking about just making something of myself. And he said, “But you won’t get there if you keep acting like those other guys and you need to be different.” And it’s the first time in my life that someone who wasn’t contractually obligated to say something nice about me, said something nice. My mom had to, right? I was a chubby boy with a name that rhymed with belly and jelly, and so school was not great for me. My mom would always say, “You’re not fat, you’re a big bone.” But she was obligated to do that, but Mr. McNitch wasn’t.

And I went home that night and kind ruminated over that, and I wish I could say the next day I turned my life around or whatever, but it’s a moment that I never forgot about how he invested himself in me in that moment, and it was tough love on me. And the other four people that I could point to, all of them saw something in me that I never saw in myself and all said, “You can do better than you’re doing right now.”

Jay Lemons:

How old were you when that first encounter took place?

Kelly Damphousse:

I was grade 12, so I was like… so this was-

Jay Lemons:

Like a junior?

Kelly Damphousse:

Yeah, so I was first year of, first semester of grade 12, so it was probably 79, so I was probably like 15 years old, 16 years old, something like that. And it was just like I think about that moment almost every single day, about him kind of encouraging me.

The funny story is that years later I thought, I wonder what… because I was telling the story, I said, “I wonder if I can find Mr. McNitch?” So I got online and tracked him down. He was teaching at a college in Saskatchewan, I think. And I wrote him and said, “Hey, are you the same Mr. McNitch that was in J. Williams High School in 1979?” And he wrote back, said, “Yeah, that’s me.” And I said, “Hey, this is Kelly here. And remember that time you said about my brain turning into mush? That moment changed my life forever.” And he wrote back, says, “I have no idea who you are. And surely I never would’ve said something like that.”

And it became kind of a funny exchange, but it’s a reminder about how people are always watching how we act and we’re influencing other people all the time. And if he had left it with, “What happened over the summer that turned your brain to mush?” I would’ve, that could have affected me, but he followed it back up with, “But you can be better than you are.” And it’s another message about the power of lifting people up and encouraging people.

Jay Lemons:

Amen.

Kelly Damphousse:

And encouraging to be better than they are, because it’s the easiest thing is to keep doing the same thing you’re doing over and over again, and to actually do less and less over time. What you need oftentimes is someone to say, “You can do…” That’s what good coaches do. Good coaches draw the best out of people. Right?

Jay Lemons:

Right, yeah.

Kelly Damphousse:

And so, yeah, that’s the beginning of my leadership journey, if you will. But when I actually moved from that town to southern Alberta in February of my senior year, started going to a new school, and everyone in this new school now is going to college, and I really thought that was something Americans did. I’d seen it on TV and in movies, but I didn’t know that Canadian kids could go to college.

And there was a community college not far away that had a law enforcement program so I think it was like May of my senior year, I applied to go to this community college. My mom had grade nine, my dad had grade 12, so I didn’t really have a lot of experience what college even meant. I just knew it was like a way to get to the next step. I thought it might be. I was only 17, I wanted to be a police officer, it was kind of my goal. My goal was to be a goalie in the NHL, but I tried out, got cut early, that was it. And so I was too young to be a police officer, so I thought, well, I’ll go to college and try to figure this out. And then next thing I know, I’m working in prison and doing a life sentence eight hours at a time because I was too young to become a police officer.

And one of my former instructors talked me into going back to school, and that’s the second guy that changed my life. And he talked me into going back to school. He said, “There’s a school in Texas called Sam Houston State. They got a big criminal justice program, get a degree in criminal justice, come back here, and I’ll help you become a Mountie,” which is my goal. And so I sold everything I had, took me a year to get my life in order, bought a motorcycle, convinced my best friend, fellow prison guard to drive down together. And we landed in Huntsville, Texas in July or August of 1985. Never heard of the word, someone said, “Boy, it is humid today.” And I had never heard the word humid before. I said, “What is humid?” They said, “That’s humid out there.” You could cut the air with a knife, kind of thing.

And then that became the next part of my journey because, and I share this a lot with students, getting a four-year college degree gives you such a wider possibilities than you have otherwise. And you hear all this time about the return on investment not being worth it and getting a college degree is not worth it. I’m living proof that I would not be where I am today without getting a four-year college degree and I know so many people who have done that. I don’t know anyone regrets getting their college degree. They might regret how much they spent on it or where they went or what they majored in, but no one says, “I wish I could just take that off my resume,” because it’s so important for them.

And so my motivation now for everything is to help other kids get that same experience that I got. And so when I have the opportunity to figure out a way to get someone to change their mind about not going to school or to stay in school once they get there, that’s all of what I do now. That’s my primary motivation, is help people get a degree that will change their life and the lives of their children and siblings and so on.

Jay Lemons:

Kelly, I want to jump in here. I really appreciate every bit of that, including, I arrived in Bryan, in College Station in the fall of 1985 for my first post master’s job, and oh my Lord, heat and humidity is one of the enduring feelings of that. I mean, there was so many fabulous things, but I was raised in the high plains desert of the Nebraska panhandle, so I didn’t know humidity really either, so.

But I want to go back and ask you to say a little bit more about what drew you to law enforcement because I have had occasion to hear you speak on that. And I think it’s particularly meaningful and it gives a really interesting context.

Kelly Damphousse:

Yeah, so my mom who was again, went to grade nine, her mom had kind of put her in this Catholic orphanage because she couldn’t raise her. She was much younger than her siblings, and so she ran away from the orphanage at nine, found her dad, then found my dad. They got married pretty young, and they just couldn’t have kids. And they tried, she had several failed pregnancies and so on, so they decided to adopt.

And then they moved to Northern Alberta for my dad to get a job in this little town called Valleyview. And that’s kind of my earliest remembrances, is being in this little town called Valleyview, probably like 1,000 people in Western Alberta. And it was right next to an Indian reservation, a Cree Indian reservation. And the social problems associated with reservations were as terrible then as they are now, maybe worse then. And my mom became a foster parent. Usually, like a temporary foster parent, because there was no one else in that town that had the heart for doing it. And I think part of it was part her upbringing, but also it’s just she had this big heart, she loved kids.

And so throughout my young childhood, I remember there’d be a knock on the door on a Friday evening or Saturday evening and there would be a Mountie at the door, and there were all men back then because you couldn’t even get married until you’re like 30, I think as a Mountie. And they’re all these young guys that had signed up, joined the RCMP and they got shipped to this small little northern town in Alberta. And they would say, “Hey Edna, would you look after this little kid? Something has happened in their home and we just need someone to look after them for the weekend.” Or sometimes they’d be there for three or four weeks, and my mom would take them in and if it was a boy she’d give them to me or if it was a girl, give them to my sister who they also adopted about a year after they adopted me.

And I remember thinking, these police officers are like John Wayne, they’re like Superman. And after they would do that kind of official stuff, they’d usually come in and drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and talk with my mom and dad and play cards or whatever in the evening. And I remember just standing up, I have a memory of standing up and kind of looking up at these guys thinking, these are the guys that protect other people in the middle of the worst thing that’s happening in their life, you’re going to call one of these guys.

And so if the goalie in the NHL thing wasn’t going to work and everyone hopes you’re going to do it, but everyone knows you’re not really going to do it. My passion was to become a police officer, to put myself in a position where I could help other people. And it never turned out, it never worked out because I never became a police officer. My wife didn’t want to marry either a Canadian, she didn’t want to move to Canada, she didn’t want to marry a police officer, and so I had to figure out another way to help people out. But I will tell you every time a police car drives by, a little piece of me dies a little bit because I still want to do that. My son-in-law became a police officer, he was in Atlanta PD for a while, and then Germantown PD. But it really goes back to wanting to help people. And even though I’m not a police officer now, I still feel like I can help people. So that’s the connection.

Jay Lemons:

Love it. No, thank you for going backwards on that. We’re up to number two. Who’s number three?

Kelly Damphousse:

Who’s number three? So actually, it’s a great segue to the same story. So I had, and when I went to graduate school, I only went to graduate school because I married Beth and I didn’t have a green card or a position to stay in the states. And she said, “Well, why don’t you go back to school?” Because I’d graduated, and one of the blessings of my life was that I was not a good student. I was a good student in high school, but I was just kind of floating along. When I went to community college, I didn’t get college, it took me a long time to figure it out, but I graduated the 2.54 GPA in the community college. When I went to Sam Houston, they just transferred all my hours over as pass/fail, and I could start over again.

And now I’m 22 years old, a junior at Sam Houston, and I’ve committed a lot of time and money and moved to a different country. I’ve got to pay attention to what’s going on here. And I remember studying for an exam for the first time ever and getting an 87 and going, “Man, if I’d studied a little harder, maybe I’d get a 90.” And boy, just something clicked for me, and then I had pretty good GPA. So my GPA now in college is much higher because they didn’t count the first two years. So I had good grades and she said, “You should go to graduate school.” And I didn’t really know what that even meant.

I will tell you that one time one of my professors said, “I’m going to be out of town, so my doctoral student’s going to come and teach you guys next week.” And I remember thinking, why is a doctor student, like a medical doctor going to come?” I didn’t even know what a doctoral student was, but I thought it was like an MD going to come and maybe talk about forensic science or something. I couldn’t figure it out, but I had no clue what graduate school was and it showed. But eventually I went to A&M because that’s where her parents lived in College Station, and she thought that’d be kind of handy.

So again, I’m grateful for her guidance. And they don’t have a criminal justice program, so I’m in sociology now. And I’d taken a sociology classes in undergraduate at this community college and I’d earned a D, but I got a C in the class. I mean, I think the guy was drinking a lot and he got offline with the bubbling or something like that, but I hated sociology as an undergrad and I was not clicking in the graduate program. Social theory and social philosophy and statistics and research, I was just kind of lost and I was just stuck.

And the department chair was walking down the hallway one day and she said, “Hey, how’s it going, Kelly?” And I said, “Oh, it’s terrible. I think about dropping out,” and I guess Canadians are pretty honest, I guess. And she said, “Oh,” she just stopped and said, “Why?” I said, “I just don’t feel like I fit in because I’m a criminal justice guy and I’m sociology.” And she said, “Have you met Ben Crouch yet?” And I said, “No, I don’t know who that is,” and Ben wasn’t teaching a lot of graduate classes at the time, he was undergraduate advisor but he did research in corrections and the criminal justice system. So she said, “Come with me.”

It’s Friday afternoon, about 3:00, go to his office, he’s there, which is kind of surprising for a tenured faculty member to be there at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon. Knocks on doors and she said, “Hey Ben, this is Kelly. He’s from Canada, used to work in prison. Can you help? He’s kind of struggling.” And so that afternoon we spent two hours together and then he said, “Okay, on Monday you’re not going to work for Barbara anymore. You’re going to come work for me. And there is a closet across the hall from here. We’ll clear that off and they’ll make that into your office.” And then he became my mentor, so he’s number three.

And so one day this guy was just all-in, bought in on me, and we’re in Brownwood, Texas, and it starts raining just as we get there. We’re driving in the car and so we just sit there and wait for the rain to go by and my first child’s about be born and then he said, “Do you know if you’re going to have a boy or girl?” I said, “Oh, I hope it’s a boy. If it’s a boy, we’re going to be great, throwing football around. He’ll be in the NFL or maybe a hockey player, whatever.” And he said, “If you’re lucky, you’ll have a girl because [inaudible 00:19:24] girl dad.” And I ended up having two girls, he was right.

But in the midst of this, my dad and I didn’t have a real close relationship and I didn’t really have very many close relationship with older men, but I just was stunned, like why is this guy talking to me about stuff? And he started talking to me about the difference between being a dad and a father. And he said, “There’s a difference there. Anyone can be a father but it takes work to be a dad.”

And at some point at the end of this, I said, “Dr. Crouch, why do you care about me? I don’t understand why you’re investing in me like this, so I just don’t get that.” And so he, I’m not sure if he knew how to answer that and I said, “You’ve done so much for me. I was going to drop out and I didn’t know what I was going to do and you helped me out.” I said, “How can I ever repay you for what you’ve done?” And he said, “Oh Kelly, you can never repay me for any of this because you don’t have anything I want.” And I was expecting a little bit more kumbaya moment there, but he said, “Someday you’ll be sitting behind the steering wheel of a car and there’ll be someone else sitting in the passenger seat. I don’t know where you’ll be, but you’re going to be in a position to help somebody else out. And when you help that person out, that’s how you pay me back, because I had people help me out.”

And this is before the movie Pay It Forward came out, that movie came out a couple years later, I thought, oh, that’s what Dr. Crouch was talking about. But it was a moment in my time when I realized that at some point I’ll be in a position and I didn’t know where I would be, that I would need to do what he did for me. And just like I don’t ever forget Mr. McNitch or Mr. Harrison who talked me into going back to school, Dr. Crouch’s admonition to helping other people out, every time someone says, “Hey, Dr. D, can you come to the Trivial Pursuit Night we’re having at restaurant?” Or, “Can we meet? Can you talk to me about what graduate school’s like or whatever?” If my calendar’s open, I’m going to do it, because I spent my whole career, literally my whole career, trying to pay back Ben Crouch, who was one of those people that changed my life.

So, if you’re thinking about motivations for me, that’s what this all is. Motivation to help kids get in school and motivation to help people I work with, people I serve alongside, people who are alumni, get the help they need, because we live in a complicated world and I don’t know all the answers, but I know a lot of people who know the answers. And sometimes all people need is the opportunity. And it’s not, sometimes you look at people and say, “He must be super smart or super charismatic or whatever,” but someone had to open the door even for them to get there. Now, they had to put some sweat equity in there as well and sometimes it’s just luck, but oftentimes it’s just getting the chance and have someone believe in them.

Jay Lemons:

Love it. You kind of left me hanging here though. We got four and five.

Kelly Damphousse:

Oh, that’s four and five. Well, one’s my wife. And so she, there was no reason for her to spend a moment of time with me, but she did and she changed me forever. And I’m a different person because of her, and I’m a better person. Even today, I mean, she continues to challenge me, but the other thing she does is that she is, I get emotional thinking about this. Whenever I think about, like I’m having a tough time at work or whatever, I know when I go home and tell her about what’s going on, she’s going to say, “Well, can you believe the nerve of that person?” She’s always on my side and I never have to doubt that she’s going to be on my side. And to have that kind of safe space to be, and I don’t want safe spaces, people make fun of that, but a place where you’re not going to get beat up by somebody. And she and my daughters, all three of them have been so supportive and encouraging.

And even when I applied for this job, I had had a great job at Arkansas State and we were going along and I was going to retire next year at this time, and this was going to be my last year at Arkansas State. And I said, “There’s this position at Texas State, and boy, it’s a big school. It’s four times the size and the budget’s so much bigger and number of faculty and so on.” And she said, “I’m with you, babe. Wherever you go, we’ll go make it happen.” Now she did say as I walked out the door the first day, “Don’t mess this up.” And so there’s a little bit of tough love as well, but she definitely was one of those people as well.

Jay Lemons:

I love it. Well, I think she did have a pretty big effect, given what you described earlier. So, she deserves that, she deserves that shout-out. So, thank you for sharing all of that. Deeply personal, highly impactful. It makes me think a little bit about Martin Luther’s notion of vocation and how we are all in one way or another, called to our paths. Luther, everybody is aware of that sort of sensibility of, what am I called to do? What is it that brings me joy? What is it that I’m passionate about? But they forget about what Luther calls the external dimension of call, and it’s, who are we in relationship with? When do they challenge us? When do they open doors for us? And that truly, vocation’s expressed at the intersection of both of those dimensions. And you just gave a phenomenal outline of what that looked like for you.

So I want to jump ahead here, and I’d love to hear you talk about, what in your mind makes a good leader? And by good, I really don’t mean grade B, I mean someone who’s virtuous, effective, and successful.

Kelly Damphousse:

Well, that’s a great question. I think a big part of it is knowing yourself and knowing what you’re good at. And one of the things I really struggle with, for example, is, I don’t think anyone… There may be some people who like confrontation, but I don’t. And part of it’s my Canadian personality. I don’t know if you know this, you can Google it up. The national word of Canada is, “Sorry.” So if you’re standing there and someone bumps into you, you always say, “Oh, sorry, I’m in your way.” We’re very apologetic people, we tend to be pretty humble and so on. But there are some people I guess who probably like the antagonism and getting in there and struggling, but I have trouble being confrontational with people or getting or correcting people.

And one of the things I learned was that how I like to be corrected, which is first off, I don’t like to be corrected. But second, there was a few times in my life where I was corrected in public. Somebody just called me out, started chewing me out in front of everybody. And I realized that that was, for me, that didn’t work and it actually made me want to just leave the situation.

And so I learned this, I think I was reading a leadership book at some point and someone, I think the quote was something like, “Praise in public and critique in private.” And that really I think to me really resonated, because another thing that is related to not being confrontational is, you need to hold people accountable. You’ve hired them to do a job, and if you don’t hold them accountable, then they don’t do the job. And then other people start looking at you like, why are you allowing this person not to do their job or doing it poorly?

And so I have to know myself, know how I am, and I have to say, and sometimes do something kind of crazy, call someone in and say, “We need to have a conversation. This just isn’t working. Can I help you figure out how to make this better?” And even you can be the humble, apologetic Canadian, and still get to where you need to get and overcome the weaknesses that you have, of it’s much easier not to address problems when they’re happening. But in the long run, that’s actually worse for an organization when the leader doesn’t hold people accountable. And so I’ve had to make some tough decisions in the past and had to have some very hard conversations, but knowing how I am and knowing how I think, understanding my people, the people that I work alongside, helps me, I think be a better leader. So the first thing I think is knowing yourself. Second, holding people accountable.

And then I like to think of myself as industrious. I never stop. I never stopped thinking about Texas State. I never stopped thinking about the job. I do try to recreate and spend time with my wife, but even my wife and I, our entertainment is going to basketball games and going to plays and musicals that are happening at the university. And she’s retired from being a school teacher, but her advocation now is to volunteer at the university. And spouses of university presidents are pretty busy people too. And so figuring out how to be able to do all that, to have the stamina to keep going, is another thing. And I think it’s important to be industrious, to be a hard worker. You can’t just rely on your charisma or rely on other people to do the work. You have to be in there.

Also, when I was, I had lots of different jobs growing up, but one of the jobs I had was at a construction company, D.L. Cadu and Sons Construction, we did concrete work. And one of the things I really admired was that Mr. Cadu was always there. He was driving the cement truck, his sons were working there all the time. And he never had me do something he hadn’t already done or that he wouldn’t be able to do if I hadn’t been there. And so I think having some skills in the area, some experience in the area is important, but also being willing to do stuff.

So for example, when I was at Arkansas State, I taught every semester except for the very first semester I was there. And when COVID came along, by the way, Beth and I also lived in the residence hall the first couple of weeks of school as well. And so COVID came along, my staff was like, “Oh, you can’t teach and you can’t live in the residence hall.” And I said, “How can I tell our faculty it’s okay to go teach if I won’t teach? And how can I tell a parent it’s safe to live in the residence hall if I won’t live in residence hall?” So I didn’t have Beth go in there, but I went and lived in residence hall, and I’m not trying to be braggadocios or anything like that, but I just felt like it was my duty to do what other people were doing.

And teaching in COVID was terrible. Had a mask on and we had a plexiglass shield over our face, and it was brutal and it wasn’t fun to do. But I know from how people share with me later that they took courage in my willingness to do that. And if I had sat in my administrator’s office, said, “You go back in that classroom and teach those classes or teach in the auditorium instead of the classroom,” or I was teaching in a big banquet room, this room that used to seat 200 people. We had 30 people in there sitting in masks. And I think I’m pretty funny, but I couldn’t tell if they were smiling or not under the masks and so it was really kind of a weird deal. But I think leading by example is another.

So industriousness and knowing how to do the job and not asking people to do something you wouldn’t do, those are all important things to kind of make sure that the people you’re serving alongside and you’re serving understand that you have empathy for them, for what they’re going through, and that you understand what you’re asking them to do.

Jay Lemons:

I so appreciate that. I’ll never forget, as I moved into the president’s office at the University of Virginia, the man who was really the Chief Operating Officer, Leonard Sandridge, said to me, “Never be too proud to do what needs to be done at a given moment.” And that meant, man, moving tables, moving chairs. It didn’t matter what your rank or stripe was, you did what needed to be done at a given moment in time. And I tell you what, it drove people crazy that I would be doing that as the President, but hey, we got to get this done.

Kelly Damphousse:

That happened just the other day where there was some tables and chairs that needed to be moved, and I just picked up some tables and people were like, “Oh, Mr. President, you don’t have to be doing that.” I said, “Yeah, I do. It’s got to be done. Someone’s got to pick it up. If I don’t do it, you’ll have to carry it twice as much as I.” And so yeah, I think that’s a great leadership skill, is the willingness to roll your sleeves up and do those little things.

I was sharing with one of my cabinet members recently, this idea of the little things. The little things matter and they all add up over time. And some of the things, like no one will ever see. I’m always picking up trash on campus. I see some trash I pick up and I don’t do a selfie with it and say, “Hey, look at me picking.” I just do it, but somebody might see me doing that and say, “Well, I should pick up a piece of trash somewhere.” I’m not above picking up trash.

Jay Lemons:

Amen, for sure, for sure. Hey, when you are building your team, what do you look for in those leaders?

Kelly Damphousse:

I’ve actually, I think about the people I’ve hired in the past, and one of the mistakes I made in hiring people or keeping people too long that I inherited, for example, was not hiring people that I really jived with. There was one hire in particular, where I remember telling someone, “I don’t see myself hanging out and just chatting about books or anything, but, and we don’t connect, but he’s kind of a big name person and I think they’ll make a big splash when you hire the person and so on.” And it turns out it was terrible. I just, I can’t, I don’t jive well with people I don’t jive well with.

So, and it became such a thing because what I realized is that everyone I hire is a reflection of me and everyone I inherit and I keep is also a reflection of me. And I learned that one time I was working before I was President, as an Associate Dean, and there was someone who was working in an area, I’m trying to protect all the innocent people here. And someone said, “Why does that supervisor keep that person? Everyone knows that person’s terrible. Does he have something on the boss or does he just not see it?” And so I think so the first thing for me is someone who shares the same values as I do. And that’s the first thing.

Second, I think it’s people who are, I look for people who are courageous. So oftentimes I’ll ask them, “Tell me about a story, you had to do something that went against the grain.” I was just in the NCAA board meeting just now before we got on here and it’s a big group and sometimes people will say something kind of controversial and nobody will want to say anything. And so there’s a bystander effect that happens in there. And so today I asked a question like, “I’m afraid to ask a question, but I really want to know the answer to this.” And I think it kind of surprised people because no one ever asked questions there. And it takes courage to ask the tough questions somehow.

There’s a great movie, what’s it called? World War Z. Where it’s a zombie movie, and Brad Pitt’s in it, and Brad Pitt is talking with this guy who was high in leadership in Israel, and Israel is the only country that really prepared for the zombies. It’s kind of a silly premise, but he said, “How come you did it? Nobody else did it, but you did it.” And he said, “We have this theory here,” that I think it’s called the 10th Man or the 11th Man, or something like that, that if everyone agrees we should do this, someone should say, “No, we shouldn’t do it.” And kind of push back on it.

And sometimes you need someone to be courageous to say, “I think what we’re doing here is a mistake.” And that’s one of the things I love about people who I’ve brought onto my team is that they’re not afraid to talk to me and say, “Kelly, I think you’re going down the wrong road here.” I really need, I tend to be a lot of gas, and sometimes I need a little bit of brake, and maybe a left turn or a right turn, not always straightforward. And that takes courage to go up against the boss, and that means I’ve got to create an atmosphere in my office where people aren’t afraid.

And I’ve had bosses in the past where I know I’m going to get my chew off when I go in there to tell them about this thing, but I got to tell them about this. And I don’t want to create that kind of roadblock for folks to tell me, “Kelly, you’re making a mistake here,” because none of us have this all figured out. And sometimes we get blinders on.

Jay Lemons:

That’s right.

Kelly Damphousse:

And we need someone on our team to tell us, if not someone on our team, someone else is going to tell us later. I’d rather have that conversation before I make the mistake than after I make it.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah, we probably are more likely to get a little bit of grace from somebody we’re working with every day than somebody else. So yeah, yeah.

I want to move into what I kind of call a lightning round. The questions will be shorter. Answers can be as long as you want. And the first one, I think in some ways you’ve really been so generous in sharing, but I’m going to ask it anyway, just to give you the space to see if there’s anybody else you’d want to raise up. And maybe the answer is obvious, but who’s most influenced you?

Kelly Damphousse:

Boy, that’s a great question. I’m influenced by a lot of people. As a young person, I lived on a lake in this little fishing village. And the park, the provincial park that was there called, Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park. And I became a devotee of Winston Churchill because even as a very young person, I started reading biographies and his was one of the first I ever read. But I think about the courage that he had to lead Britain through some very tough times. And by the way, he was disgraced early on. Came back, led them through the toughest, one of the toughest times Great Britain ever faced, and then was booted out as soon as he got them through that crisis. And he was imperfect. The more I read about him, the less perfect he seems. But the courage he showed during World War II and his elegance and his gift of speaking, he just had such a gift of speaking that was just remarkable. Great order, and a really gifted speaker and a gifted leader. So he was probably my first person I looked up to a lot.

And then of course, people in my life. My mom and dad who adopted me, who didn’t have to give me anything. Although as a kid you’re not as introspective, and I remember shoveling the snow thinking, the only reason they adopted me was so they have some of the shovel the snow and so on. But I think about the selflessness of them. I think about the selflessness of my birth mother who for whatever reason said, “I can’t do this. I got to give this child up for someone else to do it.”

And so, and then of course, people I’ve shared with you, some of those people in my life. And then I’m also a person of faith. And so I’ve had people that have really invested themselves in me on my spiritual journey as well. And so I look up to those folks a lot as well.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. How about a book that’s had greatest impact or influence on you, Kelly?

Kelly Damphousse:

Did you have this when you were a kid in elementary school or in junior high where you could buy a box of books for real cheap? In Canada, we had that. They would send you a magazine and you could check the boxes in a-

Jay Lemons:

Weekly Reader, and yes.

Kelly Damphousse:

Yeah.

Jay Lemons:

Yes, yes, yes.

Kelly Damphousse:

Something like that. And so we didn’t have a big library in the school I went to, but we had this program and you would get a box of books a month after you checked all the boxes. And one of the books I read was, I think it was called, Rebel in Right Field. And I think it was a series that was written by this guy, and I think he had served in World War II. And what I remember about the book is about, first off, I think the premise was something like the young man was afraid to… I think his friend or his brother had run into the wall in the outfield and he was afraid to kind of take chances. And so he is trying to play professional baseball, but his coaches were always mad at him.

But there’s a scene in the book where he’s like in the south somewhere and he’s eating a barbecue sandwich. Well, I had never heard of… So for me, barbecuing as a kid was, you call it grilling here. So we barbecue hamburgers, you grill hamburgers, you have barbecue pork, and I’d never heard of barbecue pork before. But he was eating a barbecue sandwich and he was eating it, and the barbecue sauce is running down his wrist and down his arm and is getting all sticky and it’s sweet. And the description of him eating that barbecue sandwich was so vivid I could almost taste it, although I’d never seen it before.

And I remember thinking about later after reading the book, I really got into that guy. I was really, I felt like I was there with him and I started to realize how important, how valuable it is to build your empathetic capacity by reading fiction because you put yourself in the shoes of the people. And it’s one of the first moments I said, “Well, why am I reading this fiction and what am I getting out of it, besides being entertained?” I’m also building a skill in being empathetic and having empathy. And so that’s kind of the first book.

I read another one later on, I found this one in the library, it’s called Black Like Me, and this is written by a sociologist long before I was ever going to be a sociologist. But he was a graduate student, I believe, and he wanted to know what it was like to be a black man living in the south. And so he was a white graduate student at the time. And so he went, lived in the south for a while as a white person, and then he dyed his skin black and shaved his head bald, and then went and interacted with people as a black person. And then the book is describing about how different he was treated because he was black.

Now in my hometown, we had Indians, and Muslims, and Christians, and atheists, so it was pretty eclectic collective, but no black people. But I’d seen the movie, Roots, and so I was very interested in the black experience in America. My whole childhood growing up was really influenced by American TV, Brady Bunch and all that stuff, but Roots really affected me, so I wanted to read this book. And reading that book helped me understand how this, the problem of justice, that based on what someone looks like, they get treated differently.

Now, my middle sister, I told you, I have an adopted sister who’s 14 months younger than me. I have a middle sister, and she was my foster sister. She lived with us from five years old till she graduated high school. And her name’s Sharon, but she was a Cree Indian that came from the reservation. And I remember reading that thinking, no matter what, Sharon’s always going to face a different world than I do. We grew up in the same household, went to the same school, have the same parents, but because of how she looks, she’ll forever be treated differently than I will.

And so those two books, one taught me about empathy and one taught me about justice, and taught me the value of fiction versus nonfiction books, how you can learn something from both of them.

Jay Lemons:

Love it. I haven’t thought about that book in a long time. John Howard Griffith.

Kelly Damphousse:

Yes, yeah.

Jay Lemons:

Wow. Thank you for that. Fondest undergraduate experience that you remember.

Kelly Damphousse:

Boy, that’s going way back now. So I had two kind of undergraduate experiences, one as at the community college. And what was interesting about that was that I was 17 when I went to college so I was underage, couldn’t go partying a lot. Didn’t mean I didn’t, but I couldn’t, wasn’t supposed to. I was always the youngest kid growing up and now I’m the youngest kid in this community college program because I was 17. A lot of the guys had been in the army and come back and they were like 30, they were married and with kids and so on.

And I remember we had the law enforcement program was housed in the same wing as the radio arts people, and so we all hung out in the same lodge together, lounge area together. And I remember just hanging out with them and there’s these kind of older guys who were there, and one of the guys talked me into joining the militia, the Canadian Militia, which is like the National Guard. And the reason he did was he said, and I don’t drink anymore, but I did then or I tried to a lot. He said, “If you’re in the militia, you can drink on base.” And so I joined the militia, based on his term.

Now, this is a long story, I won’t get into it, but the long story short, it wasn’t worth it. And so one of the parts of the story, what is so funny was that they didn’t have uniforms enough for everyone to go around. And so they just told me to wear my jeans and a T-shirt, and they said, “Hey, see Jay over there. He’s going to retire in a little bit. You can have his uniform when he’s done.” That’s the Canadian militia. Anyways, it’s a long story, but it was kind of funny that all of us law enforcement guys that were kind of underage were going out there to the militia to hang out with these older guys. So that was kind of a fun story.

But then when I was at Sam Houston, I was a little bit older than everybody, and I lived in a residence hall, but I became an RA because I couldn’t get a job off campus and I’d run out of money, I’d completely run out of money, and I was so broke. And that’s where I had my faith experience there as an undergrad as well. But I also learned that there were people who were going to look after me. And there was a couple of people who gave me jobs on campus. I was a poster printer for a while. Then I got this job as an RA. And I had such a great experience using my prison guard skills, I guess, being an RA. But then my daughter, oldest daughter, when she went to college, she was a freshman in the dorms, and then she worked three years as an RA. Partly because of my experience, but I learned so much about interacting with people and supervising your peers. I mean, I was 23 by that time and they were 19 or 20, but we’re near peers, right?

Jay Lemons:

Yeah.

Kelly Damphousse:

And how do you engage with people that are doing stuff they’re not supposed to be doing and so on. But being an RA was a great experience. And again, lots of stories about my involvement with the church group and their organization that was part of my faith journey as well. Lots of great stories that interact with people. So these stories are mostly about engaging with people and the friends and relationships you make.

Going back to your earlier story about the story about your relationships, the people that you’re around with.

Jay Lemons:

Well, and your comment makes me think about Aubrey Lucas, the legendary President at Southern Miss. 25-plus years and he’s been acting multiple times since. Aubrey in the mid ’80s, I remember hearing him say, “The best preparation I had for being a college or university President was working in a residence hall.”

Kelly Damphousse:

True.

Jay Lemons:

Every problem known to mankind will surface in a residence hall. It is so true, so.

Kelly Damphousse:

That’s hilarious, yeah.

Jay Lemons:

If you hadn’t worked in higher ed, we know you might’ve thought about being a Royal Mounted Canadian Police Officer. Anything else you might’ve done? Or an NHL goalie, I guess.

Kelly Damphousse:

Yeah. Well, the goalie thing was not going to work, and so-

Jay Lemons:

You got good teeth though, so.

Kelly Damphousse:

Thanks. They’re not real. So anyways, I guess the hockey thing wasn’t going to work, I figured that out when I was 16. In Canada, if you don’t make it by 16, you’re not going to make it. And so it’s funny, I didn’t know about Canadian or I didn’t know about college hockey. I found out later, a lot of Canadians who lived in the southern, along the southern border, would go to the states and play hockey. I didn’t even know that existed as an option, and I probably would’ve done that.

But if I wasn’t doing this, and if I hadn’t met Beth, I’d probably be retired by now, because I would’ve gone home and would’ve become a police officer and done my 20 years and got out and I’d be playing golf every day. It’s funny, I was a border guard, crossing guard at the Canadian border, Canadian-US border. I was a night watchman in a hotel, prison guard. I was a mall cop for a while. So I did a lot of security, justice things on the side, never did the placing thing, but that’s probably… I would’ve tried really hard to figure that thing out there.

The other thing, I worked in construction for a long time, and so I always had a lot of experience with that. I probably would’ve done, I still love doing, do-it-yourself projects and so on and learning how to, watching YouTube videos to learn how to build a shower, things like that. I love doing those kinds of things. So maybe I would’ve done some of that at some point.

Jay Lemons:

Well, Kelly, it’s just been a joy to share this time and conversation with you. We’d like to close with a tradition of our own, and that is to call on our guests to share with our listeners the distinctive qualities, if you will, the organizational DNA that makes Texas State such a very special place for you to be and to live and to serve.

Kelly Damphousse:

Yeah, I feel so blessed to be here. We just had graduation on Saturday, and I love that moment. And you know what I’m talking about, when you get to see these young people walk across the stage. We had 1,800 students graduate and there’s 1,800 different stories. Some of them just sailed through, some of them, one person told me it took them 30 years to graduate. And you know there’s a story behind every person walking across the stage.

And so one of the things that’s distinctive about Texas State is that we started off as a teacher’s college back in the early, early 1900s. We were founded in 1899, but we had to build a building first, and then first students came in, our first graduates were in 1904. They’re all teachers, and they weren’t earning undergraduate degrees, one year teaching certificates. That’s all you needed to be become a teacher. And so for a long time, we did not offer undergraduate degrees, but eventually we did.

LBJ graduated from here with a teaching certificate, so we’re the only university in the state of Texas to graduate a future US President. 33 years after he graduated, he was the US President. And so we have traditionally been a teachers college and really an undergraduate university for years. And so we are the 25th largest undergraduate university in the country, with a very small graduate program that we’re now trying to match up with our undergraduate population. So, we we’re only authorized to have PhDs just a few years ago. And so we had one PhD for a long time.

And the politics in some states don’t allow a university just say, “Oh, we’re going to start offering PhDs,” because other universities will block you and so on. But eventually the state of Texas decided that they want to have more research universities, and we were selected to become one of those. And so we are now expanding our graduate offerings. We’ve 50% increased the number of PhD offerings this coming year, which is going from 10 to 15, right? So, we’re slowly getting there, but we are an R2 institution, trying to become an R1 institution.

And we serve the state of Texas like we have for years. 95% of our students are from Texas. About half our students are first generation, about half of them are Hispanic. We’re a minority majority university. We look, our demographics are almost exactly like the state of Texas, which is something that has been changing in Texas. It’s certainly been changing here at Texas State. And so we’re proud of our heritage, which is really focused on changing the lives of young people who come here. Increasingly, not just young people anymore, but people who are coming back and getting their degrees. Like I said, the person who started 30 years ago is another market for us as well.

And so Texas State is located in San Marcos, Texas, which is between San Antonio and Austin. So we’re between two large metropolitan areas, but it’s one of the most prettiest parts-

Jay Lemons:

Beautiful.

Kelly Damphousse:

… of the state of Texas. It’s the first hill in the Hill Country. We’ve got a river running through our campus. Our students, after they graduate, they like to jump in the river with their caps and gowns on, which is right outside the arena. So, it’s a quaint little college town with a great university with great upside. And I feel completely honored to be serving as its 10th President, because a lot has been done but we’ve got a lot more to do.

Jay Lemons:

Well, San Marcos is a beautiful part of Texas, there is no question about that. And there is a really strong, distinctive student culture at Texas State that, it’s been a place that has never lost its focus on students. And I am really delighted, Kelly, to just thank you again for being with us on Leaders On Leadership. Really appreciate your sharing your story, your insights and wisdom with us. And I wish you well in your continued journey, and I love the lessons that you have raised up, empathy, seeking and finding and trying to assure justice. Really, themes that have run the whole of your life, so it’s special. So, thank you.

Kelly Damphousse:

Thank you so much, Jay. I really enjoyed it.

Jay Lemons:

Listeners, we welcome your suggestions and thoughts for leaders we should feature in future upcoming segments. You can send those to leadershippodcast@academicsearch.org. You can find our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you find your podcast. It’s also available on the Academic Search webpage.

Leaders on Leadership is brought to you by Academic Search in the American Academic Leadership Institute. Together, our 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 a pleasure it’s been to have Kelly Damphousse with us on our show today. Kelly, thank you again for joining us.

Kelly Damphousse:

I enjoyed it. Thanks so much, Jay.