Leaders on Leadership featuring Dr. Timothy Mottet, President of Colorado State University Pueblo

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 today to be joined by Dr. Tim Mottet. Tim is the 15th president at Colorado State University Pueblo. Prior to his role at CSU Pueblo, Tim held the role of Provost at Northwest Missouri State University, where he built partnerships with area high schools and community colleges in an effort to try and keep higher education accessible and affordable. He’s been actively involved in research and publishing throughout his career, co-authoring four books and publishing more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

Tim has been acknowledged for his work in transforming the educational landscape with the 2017 Top 30 Technologists, Transformers and Trailblazers Award from the Center for Digital Education. He’s also been recognized by Education Magazine as one of its 20 most visionary educational leaders in 2021 and Latino Leaders Magazine as one of the country’s most visionary educational leaders in higher education.

Tim is a native Iowan. He holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from William Jewell College. His master’s is in mass communications from Boston University. He’s a Terrier too, and has a doctorate in instructional communication from West Virginia University.

I’m really so pleased to welcome Tim to Leaders on Leadership this month as it coincides with the celebration around our country of Pride month. Tim and his husband Rick, has served as the Grand Marshals for the Pueblo Pride Parade in 2022. Tim is known for his dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion in his work, which includes most notably his ability to build partnerships and consensus among diverse stakeholders.

It’s also an important time as Tim prepares for a transition ahead in his own life. And yet I’m really delighted that we have Tim Mottet with us while he is the President of CSU Pueblo, an institution that has certainly grown leaps and bounds over the course of the last 20 years. And I know you have taken special joy and pride in stewarding, leading it over these last many years. So welcome to you, Tim.

Tim Mottet:

Thank you, Jay for having me. I’m delighted to be here. And thank you for that lovely introduction as well.

Jay Lemons:

You are most welcome. You are even more than that, most deserving. I should say that I’m really grateful that you fit this in. You’re doing it in time away while you’re abroad, and that means a great deal to me as I know this program will mean to our listeners.

So one of the goals that we have is to ask leaders to reflect and consider their own pathways with a hope that something in your story might lift up and inspire others. Tim, I’d love for you to share your journey with our listeners and just share some of the people, the events, the opportunities that help this extraordinary life of yours unfold. I know enough about that to just know that it’s rich and has its own diverse, almost separate rivers and chapters that you have lived in. So unfold it for us in whatever way you’d like.

Tim Mottet:

Well, I think, Jay, you mentioned it during my introduction. I’ve got to start with my Iowa roots. I grew up on a hog farm in southeast Iowa. I tell people I’m a very proud Iowan, because I learned a lot about work, I learned a lot about family, I learned a lot about community. When you grow up on a farm, you depend a lot on your neighbors. You depend a lot on each other in order for your very survival.

You also depend on your brothers and your sisters because you’re all, in many ways, laborers who make a contribution to the farm that allows all of you to be successful. When you lift one, you lift the entire family and that was a pretty instrumental in that, that remains with me to this day.

I knew I wanted off the farm. I was not going to be a farmer. I knew that early on. I’ve got two of the brothers who farm and my sister farms, they’re all still there. I was the only one who left the farm.

My way off the farm was through the military, through the priesthood or through college. I had an opportunity to, on a debate scholarship to go to William Jewel College in Kansas City, Missouri. There I met a woman by the name of Dr. Lois Anne Harris and I attribute much of my success today to her encouragement, her guidance as my undergraduate advisor, and someone who believed in me and saw in me what I didn’t see at the time.

But I should also kind of back up a bit, because this is Pride Month, and I think it’s important to know that growing up in the late seventies in rural Iowa was not easy for a young gay man. I knew early on that I was something that was incredibly different and what I knew was, I also knew that what I was becoming was not a good thing, and that those messages were very loud and clear to me.

So, I almost didn’t make it out of Iowa and I think that’s also a part of my story that is important. So when I went to Williams Jewel College on a debate scholarship, it was a turning point. It was really when I was in many ways, born again, if you will. And, I really had an opportunity to start it all over again with a group of students from across the globe with supportive faculty and this woman, Dr. Lois and Harris, who believed in me and saw my potential.

Went to college. When I left college, I went to work in the airline Industry. I worked for a decade at Transworld Airlines. I started off as a flight attendant. I flew for three years and then I went into airline management for another seven years. I was able to see the world.

And then I developed my business acumen pretty young in life. I opened up flight attendant domiciles throughout the United States and was responsible for metrics and driving results at a very young age and people. I did that for, like I said, a decade.

Then I had the opportunity to go to graduate school at Boston University, and then immediately I knew that I needed to leave my job. I left my job, a good one, and I went back to being a graduate student. Then my first day in grad school, I knew I wanted to be a professor. I knew it. There was no doubt in my mind that was my pathway forward.

I graduated from Boston University. I taught there for a couple of years as a visiting assistant professor, and then went to West Virginia University, finished up my doctoral work there, and then all roads led to Texas.

Then once I got into the academy, I learned that in the academy, that the big buckets are your teaching, your research. I did a lot of training and development. I did it, then administration.

I was good at administration because I’d done a lot of that in the airline industry. So I kept getting pulled into administration, but I worked myself up through the rank and file, an assistant associate, a full tenured faculty member, became a department chair, moved to South Texas, to the Rio Grande Valley on the border. And then I had an opportunity to be a dean at Texas State University, and then ultimately a provost at Northwest Missouri and then that led me to Colorado State Pueblo.

I did all that with a very supportive spouse and husband who’s been along for the ride. And none of that would’ve been possible without him.

Each of the steps along the way, Jay, a number of incredibly important mentors. You don’t get anywhere in life without good mentors. And Dr. Marilyn Root was my mentor at Boston University and remains very much important to me today, Dr. Steven Beebe at Texas State University where I spent a lot of years. And then Dr. John Jasinski at Northwest Missouri State University who prepared me very well for the presidency. And I’ve had the last six years of presidency at Colorado State and spent the honor of a lifetime.

That is my journey. I’ve not taken it alone. I’ve taken it with many people and numerous opportunities that I’ve just grabbed at and it’s been a thrill. It’s been a thrill. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has been a thrill.

Jay Lemons:

Well, thank you for sharing that so wholly and no, I think that richness is something that folks will really, really appreciate. You spoke about those values cut on the hog farm in southeast Iowa. There’s one other dimension of that, and this is close enough to my own familial story is, there is something humbling about knowing, just as you said, your livelihood is also dependent on the weather, the things that we cannot control. I see and sense in you that humbleness and yet you are working as all great farmers or ranchers do, at making the most of all the other gifts we are controlling all the things that we can. And yet, boy, is there anything like a college or university presidency to humble you because of the things that are out of your control?

Tim Mottet:

Absolutely. I want to return to this idea too around my dad was eighth grade educated. My mom had a Catholic education, and my folks were just so incredibly loving and supportive. My dad always said, “We all put our pants on one leg at a time. You are no better, you are no different than anyone else.” And that was drilled into us at such an early age that no one is better than anyone else.

So whenever there was any kind of an evaluation coming out of our mouths, this is what my dad would always say. So that kept you humble, number one, but in many ways, this was the beginning of, if you will, diversity, equity and inclusion at a very young age from an eighth grade educated father who was a farmer, but who loved people and understood diversity and lived it in a time when it was just really not a part of the conversation.

Jay Lemons:

Well, and I thank you for that and for sharing as well the struggles and the negative messaging that you were receiving. I’m going way off script here, but again, I know that the Catholic Church has been an important part of your life and probably was a complicator at that point in time and may still be, I don’t know. But talk a little bit about that sort of root if you would.

Tim Mottet:

I’m a practicing Catholic. During my doctoral training at West Virginia University, I had a nun who was one of my professors and I tried not to be Catholic. I tried really hard and I worked a lot with her. What she always told me was that, she goes, “You can try all you want not to be Catholic, and I would encourage you to do that.” So she said, “Ask all the questions and do all the exploring and do all the questioning,” but she goes, “I have a feeling you’re going to come back probably stronger, because you really have permission to question everything.”

And I really appreciate that about her and the Catholic Church, to question everything that you’ve learned and then you return to it underneath maybe a different set of terms. But she also told me that I could not, not be Catholic and I didn’t like that at the time, but that’s really a big part of it.

But it’s also, it’s an important part of my life today. And you’re right, it is complicated and it’s hard to explain to people, but life is complicated and nuanced and there’s just no getting around that. It’s the sense-making in our heads and it’s what we do that brings joy and meaning to your life and that all comes in different forms. But yeah, it’s all very complicated.

Jay Lemons:

Well indeed. Well, again, I’m just really deeply grateful for your talking about that. I had a similar great professor, former president of the Iliff School of Theology, Harvey Potthoff, who said to me, “Ah, questions, doubts, they are a mature face necessary and best friend.” And I don’t think that we’re most of us raised in traditions that create that sort of space. It’s a gift I wish that more could be given.

Well let me get us back on track, but thank you so much for all of that. And it fits with one of my thematic and that is, who we are as leaders is so much a function of all that went into shaping us. And I think folks here who are listening in who may not know you, are getting a measure of that. And thank you.

I’d love to hear you talk a little bit about what in your mind makes a good leader. And by good I don’t mean grade B mean virtuous, successful and effective.

Tim Mottet:

Yeah. Well, it’s a great question and one that I think a lot about, and I think it comes down to, and nothing real insightful here, but a true and authentic caring for other people. I find today that people have very sensitive smell test. And as a leader, they know when you’re being authentic and when you care and when you don’t and I believe that the best leaders are the ones who sincerely care for the people they’re leading to the point of loving them. And because I think when you are leading on that level, when you are as authentic as you can be, people give you permission to screw up if they believe your intent is good.

I sometimes believe that when you recover from those mistakes, they almost like you and admire you more for having maybe not be as perfect, but it’s the realness and it’s the authenticity. So I think that’s number one is this, it’s an authentic caring. Aristotle referred to it as goodwill toward others. And I think that is so important today.

The other piece of this I think is the ability to inspire. I think today, we are hungry for leaders who can inspire and lift us. To inspire, you have to know where people are, you know how to connect people with ideas and ideas to people in a way that causes them to feel. So I think inspiration is also important.

I think great leaders articulate a vision for where the organization is going. They can see… First of all, they know what good is, they know what good looks like, and they’re going to take you to good. And they articulate what good looks like and they articulate what’s in front of us. I need you to join me on that journey. But it’s the ability to articulate that in a manner that passes the smell test.

Then I think the final one is just making sure that everyone sees that they play a role, that there’s a room for them at the table and whatever that vision is. This is also important. If they don’t, then they need to self-select out because that’s not where you’re going.

And I think that is so important today is, that we’re not all going to be large research institutions. I’m a teaching institution that works with underrepresented students, not funded the way I’d like it to be. We have students who are less prepared for college than I’d like them to be. They’re not affluent, they’re underrepresented, they’re first gen. That is us and if you’re wanting something other than that, we are not the place.

So you have to articulate where we’re going and that there is a place for you here, but you’ve got to come to that understanding that that’s going to meet your needs as well. That is what I think makes an exceptional leader or is a leader with those qualities.

Jay Lemons:

I really appreciate that. And it feels so profoundly true to me. Back to the first point you made around authenticity, that if there is a trust and in that authenticity there are more degrees of freedom, more grace is extended. And good Lord, I certainly depended on that.

Tim Mottet:

Yeah, I did too, because as presidents or as leaders, one day you become the president, and I always tell people that there is a process of becoming a president. It’s not your boss saying you’re the president. It is like I am the president, but then there’s like maybe another year in front of you before you actually become the president. No one talks about that, but you evolve and you become the president through that grace, through that making mistakes, but it’s making sure your ego’s in check and keeping it real.

Jay Lemons:

Tim, I want to walk in a different place than I was intentionally-

Tim Mottet:

Sure.

Jay Lemons:

Because I want to pick up on this thematic of the forgiveness, the grace that we get. I often, an observation that I have, or a worry that I have is that leaders from underrepresented groups often may not have as many degrees of freedom or get as much grace. Those people who have been pioneers, the first of, in their role in their institution, I’d love to hear your reaction to that as a supposition, if you will, and just hear how your walk as a gay man has been. The vast majority of our campuses have not had an LGBTQ+ leader. How has that been for you?

Tim Mottet:

It’s a great question. So I think it has evolved and changed over time. When you start off and you are new and when you’re comfortable, I’m very comfortable with who I am and I want everyone else to be comfortable, and so I just talk about us, Rick and myself, and here’s who we are and here’s what we do. But we’re here and we’re going to help lead this institution.

So it has been, in many ways uneventful, but I do believe it has changed over time. So as you go throughout your presidency, you make a lot of decisions and you make decisions that a lot of people find that are unpopular, but they are the right decision for the long-term sustainability of the organization, which is what my eye is always on. I have this institution for just a short period of time. I’ve got to set it up to make sure that it lasts forever and I don’t want the fall to be on my watch. That’s not going to happen. So I’m setting it up.

So what I find happens is, as you’re in a role longer and you continue to make decisions that are unpopular, then all of a sudden your identity becomes kind of a little bit of a scapegoat, or it becomes a part of the mix. It becomes a part of the conversation, and it manifests itself in really odd strange ways that you did not see before.

So it started off very kind of smoothly. And then over time, as you lead and mature in your leadership, I’m not going to say it becomes a problem, Jay, but you, I’m very much aware of environmental scanning, and you start picking up on things and you start realizing, “I think this is a part of the mix, and I hear it, and these are all the, they’re small microaggressions that we hear a lot about.” But there is a cumulative effect and I do believe that it has become an issue over time and it wasn’t at the beginning.

Jay Lemons:

That’s really interesting.

Tim Mottet:

I mean there’s a chapter here, but I think it’s in how people make sense of your leadership and your qualities and your traits and your characteristics as you continue to make the hard decisions. All of a sudden, I started realizing I think this is becoming maybe an issue. And there it’s… No one talks about it, but if you’re paying attention and when you grow up gay on a farm surrounded by 100% heterosexuality, you are sensitive. You’re aware of your environmental scanning.

So anyway, that is how I answer that question. That’s kind of very turbid, and it’s unclear, but I’m processing this in real time. But I think that’s a part of the mix.

Jay Lemons:

Well, as am I, and I appreciate the privilege and the trust to even think aloud in this context. Because I’m also thinking about, there’s an element in some ways, if you will, of the visible and the invisible elements of diversity that being a lesbian or a gay person brings that women who are the first, and/or people of color, or obviously, those who are women of color and who may confront these experiences in different ways. But I think a lot about how do we prepare leaders who look more like the population of our country than the historic white archetype that Bensimon and Associates have captured.

More importantly, also, how do we help support those people? Through the inevitability of, these jobs are hard no matter who you are, period, but there are even extra weight that goes. And I loved your notion of growing up in a hetero-centric world and being different and knowing that, and that equipping you with something like a superpower in terms of attending to your environment.

Tim Mottet:

Yeah. The reason I say that is, people, there is still this kind of belief that you learn to be gay. And I’m thinking, “Wow, I’m surrounded, I’m in rural Iowa surrounded by hog farmers, and I’m searching for anything that could possibly be who I am, and I’m not finding it.” So it’s not there, but it probably is there.

And the support that you mentioned is so incredibly important. I’ve got support from my chancellor and my governing board and my chancellor. They walk the talk. They are in this, they are so committed to what we’re doing in Colorado and at Colorado State. And I tell you, that is the support you need to be the best leader you can be and I’ve been blessed by having that.

Jay Lemons:

A hundred percent. Tim, Rosabeth Moss Kanter says that leadership is not an individual sport, but a team sport. Not her word. She says it’s not a solo act, it’s duets, it’s trios, it’s small quartets. What do you look for when you’re creating that team that you’re working with, creating that ensemble?

Tim Mottet:

What I’m looking for, I’m assuming that when they get to you, that they’ve got the confidence that they know what they’re doing. So let me just say as a baseline that they’ve got the knowledge. But Jay, what’s so important to me is a sense of humor, because I spend more time with these men and women than I do the people that I love at home that I’m married to. So they become so important to you, the team that you’re building because you spend so much time together.

So, I’m looking for a group of people that I enjoy being around, a group that I can make them better, they can make me better, a group with a sense of humor where we can laugh and we can be ourselves and be vulnerable when we need to be vulnerable. So it is all of those human qualities that create cohesiveness, which is this desire to belong. And the desire to belong is based, I believe, on people being real and authentic, again, people who can share their pain points, their vulnerabilities, and then help, and then the rest of us support them and get behind them. So that’s what I’m looking for, is real.

Jay Lemons:

Well, you sound like almost every survey throughout our entire careers that what are the important qualities you’re looking for in your graduates? It’s almost never the professional competencies, the technical skills, it’s, as they say, the soft skills. That’s what I hear you holding up, so thank you.

Tim Mottet:

Yeah. It’s the human skills in a very high-tech world. It’s the high touch that reaches me and I’d like to think that I touch other people.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. What’s your advice for those who aspire to leadership in higher education?

Tim Mottet:

I think it’s, don’t overwork the process. To be a leader in higher ed, there is, I find people take shortcuts as they ascend. I think there’s value in spending time, getting to know an organization and rank and file whatever that looks like. I think a lot of people want to jump to the top role, and it’s not how it works. So it’s being patient, it’s taking advantage of opportunities, and it’s spending time maturing and developing as a leader.

I find today so many people are taking shortcuts. I see it and I hear it. And when I look at a vitae or resume, I can always tell someone, I can say, “You have done the hard work. I can tell. I can see it.” And when I talk to someone who’s done the hard work, I know it. And when I talk to someone who’s done all the shortcuts, it’s not going to work for me.

So, I say to others, “Spend the time developing yourself. Spend the time understanding your business, your craft, the technical competencies and the human competencies. Lay low, do good work. Don’t overwork it, but take advantage of the opportunities and get good mentors.”

Jay Lemons:

I really appreciate the power of that message. Bloom where you’re planted, the best way to get another opportunity, a bigger job is to do the job that you have explicitly well. That usually doesn’t happen in a nanosecond. That takes sometimes years.

Tim Mottet:

It does. It does. And, so there are people who are very impatient and I just said, “You can do all the shortcuts, but it’s not going to serve you well in the end.” I just think there’s value in taking the time to develop yourself.”

My mentor, Dr. Marilyn Root at Boston University always said, “Tim, lay low and do good work. Let your work speak for who you are.” And that has never let me down. So I-

Jay Lemons:

Fabulous.

Tim Mottet:

… I passed that on.

Jay Lemons:

Fabulous. I’m going to move us into what I’m going to call a lightning round, Tim. Shorter questions, I hope and you can answer at whatever length that you would want, but if you will, who has most influenced you?

Tim Mottet:

Dr. Steven Beebe was my mentor at Texas State University. He is probably the leading textbook author in the field of communication. He’s been with me every part of my journey. Today, when I hear words coming out my mouth, it’s his words so that’s how I answer the question. It’s like, who do I hear most often coming out of my mouth? It’s that beautiful person.

Jay Lemons:

Awesome. Awesome. What book has most influenced you?

Tim Mottet:

I think I’ve got two, Jay. The first one is The Devil’s Highway by Alberto Urrea wrote a book about immigration in the United States. It’s a complicated story. It’s a true story about a coyote bringing across immigrants across the border. It’s a tragic story, it’s a real story, but embedded in this story is so much, it’s so incredibly valuable and important to understanding about the story of the United States. It’s a much bigger story than just immigrants. It’s about all of us.

Then the second one is very practical. It’s Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I read it. I work part-time for that organization. I live by those seven habits. That, today, is still my software that has allowed me to be effective.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful, wonderful. You have a fondest memory looking back at William Jewel College and what you experienced there?

Tim Mottet:

Yeah, that very clearly, Dr. Gordon Kingsley, my president. I took a year-long, not because I wanted to, but because Dr. Lois Ann Harris forced me to do this. It was a poetry class, three hours every Wednesday morning in his home in front of the fireplace for an entire year and I was not prepared. I’m surrounded by very bright young men and women talking about words and what words mean and I’m just a kid from the farm going, “I don’t get this,” but I was in it till the very end. And man, I grew. I loved it and I love that man.

Jay Lemons:

Awesome. That’s cool. Is there a favorite tradition at a place you’ve attended or served that you would hold up for our audience?

Tim Mottet:

Yeah. At Colorado State University, my spouse, we started a tree-lighting ceremony that has become very important. The campus was really kind of minus anything holiday and so we started a tree-lighting as a way of just marking the beginning of a holiday. But why that is so important, Jay, is that my spouse grew up in severe poverty with no Christmas tree and always wanted one. And what he would do, he shared this story with me, which kills me. Other families would trim the bottoms of their tree as they put the tree in the stand. He would collect those trimmings and he would tape them to the window in their trailer house and put lights on it to give the impression that they had a Christmas tree.

Jay Lemons:

Wow. Wow.

Tim Mottet:

So he started at Colorado State. We have a Christmas tree, a tree that he’s identified that we decorate every year. We light it as, this is a symbol of hope on our campus. This is the light that’s going to take us forward. And whatever religion and spirituality you have, it’s a tree of light. But it all comes from his desire to have that symbol in his trailer growing up and the importance of that. So that’s an important symbol.

Jay Lemons:

Love it. And you’re right, whether it’s a celebration of Kwanza or Hanukkah or Christmas, light is the powerful symbol that unites-

Tim Mottet:

It is.

Jay Lemons:

… all of those really different traditions. Well, wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I often ask people, if you hadn’t worked in higher education, what would you have done? You’ve done so darn many things, but is there something else out there that you think, “Gosh, I wish I’d have been an astronaut.”

Tim Mottet:

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to be a ballet dancer.

Jay Lemons:

Ah, there you go. I love it.

Tim Mottet:

No, I kid you. I’m on the Board of Trustees at Colorado Ballet up in Denver. I’ve always been associated with ballet companies wherever I end up. If I had to do it all over again, I see myself, obviously much younger in pursuing that pathway.

Jay Lemons:

Fabulous. Thank you. So as we move towards our wrap-up of today’s episode, one of our traditions is, we like to close by inviting you to talk in whatever ways you’d like about, if you will, the organizational DNA that has made CSU Pueblo such a labor of love for you over these last six years and as you head into a seventh.

Tim Mottet:

Yeah. I think what has surprised me so much about my university and the DNA of the students is, their capacity for empathy. I have not seen this at other places where I’ve worked, but they get behind each other and the people they get behind and support are not the people that you would expect that would normally get the support. So from our homecoming queen to… There’s underdogs who emerge on our campus as the winners, and this is not how it normally works at other places.

Jay Lemons:

Beautiful.

Tim Mottet:

And people rally behind these folks, whether they are autistic, whatever the difference might be. I don’t know where that comes from. When I joined them, it was there and I just said, “My God, what a gift. Let me take this. I can work with this and we can teach a lot of other people what to do with this.” So Jay, that’s really been the honor of a lifetime and continues to be the honor of a lifetime to lead this university and its students and its faculty and its staff.

Jay Lemons:

Well, there’s something very powerful in the American psyche about the underdog, and I have no doubt that that was probably the environmental scanning that led you to discern that, was probably a part of saying, “Yes, this is the right match for me.”

Tim Mottet:

You just said that. That’s beautiful. That’s exactly… Yeah. You just nailed it. That’s why I’m there. That’s why I’m there, is because of that’s who I am, that’s who I will always be. And I identify with those students and want to help them be all they can be. And they go off and do, as you know, with an education, they go off and do beautiful things.

Jay Lemons:

Tim, thank you so much for joining us on Leaders on Leadership, fitting it into a holiday schedule. I’m really grateful for your willingness to share so openly and so candidly. I want our listeners to know that we welcome your suggestions and thoughts about leaders we should feature in future segments. You can send those to leadershippodcast@academicsearch.org. You can find our podcast on the academic search website, and wherever you find your podcasts.

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 both current and future generations of leaders in the academy.

Tim Mottet, what a great pleasure to share this time with you. We wish you well as you run out this great presidential arc at CSU Pueblo, and I wish you well as you continue to be on holiday. Thank you for joining us.

Tim Mottet:

You bet. You bet. Thank you, Jay.