Dr. Mariko Silver is the president and CEO of the Henry Luce Foundation, the current, significant stop in her remarkable career journey that weaves through leadership in higher education, philanthropy, and public service. Before coming to the Luce Foundation, she was the president of Bennington College and also worked in the Obama administration as Acting Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Policy in the US Department of Homeland Security. Mariko is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is also active in the formation of the new Asian American Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. in Economic Geography from UCLA, a Masters degree in Science and Technology Policy from University of Sussex (UK) and a B.A. in History from Yale University.
Dr. Mariko Silver is the president and CEO of the Henry Luce Foundation, the current, significant stop in her remarkable career journey that weaves through leadership in higher education, philanthropy, and public service.
Before coming to the Luce Foundation, she was the president of Bennington College and also worked in the Obama administration as Acting Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Policy in the US Department of Homeland Security.
Mariko is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is also active in the formation of the new Asian American Foundation.
She holds a Ph.D. in Economic Geography from UCLA, a Masters degree in Science and Technology Policy from University of Sussex (UK) and a B.A. in History from Yale University.
E7 Mariko Silver
[00:00:00]Introduction [00:00:00]
Britt: Hello, and welcome to off-track on purpose, [00:00:15] the podcast, where we come together to reimagine academic and faculty life. I'm your co-host Britt Yamamoto. And along with Mya Fisher, I want to thank you for joining us.
We're here to have heart-centered conversations with people who have experienced and successfully endured advanced academic training and gone [00:00:30] on to have a meaningful social impact through their creative pursuits and practical actions.
Today's guest Dr. Mariko Silver is the president and CEO of the Henry Luce foundation. The current significant stop in her remarkable career journey that weaves through leadership in higher education, [00:00:45] philanthropy, and public service.
Before coming to the Luce foundation, she was the president of Bennington college. And also worked in the Obama administration as acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary for international policy in the U S department of Homeland [00:01:00] security.
Mariko is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is also active in the formation of the new Asian American foundation.
She holds a PhD in economic geography from UCLA. A [00:01:15] master's degree in science and technology policy from University of Sussex and a BA in history from Yale University.
We're very fortunate to have her with us.
Please enjoy the conversation.
Preflection [00:01:25] [00:01:30]Okay. We're ready to kick things off with our preflections on the conversation with Dr. Mariko Silver what's coming up for you, Mya
Mya: I'm really interested in the path of her [00:01:45] career. Recently, I've been looking and thinking about this phenomenon of trisector leadership and how people move across different sectors over the course of their career.
And so I'm interested in why people change, and I'm [00:02:00] interested in those changes, particularly as a woman, how are those might be similar or different for women?
Britt: I've had a chance to get to know Mariko quite well through our participation in the Japanese American leadership delegation back in 2019.
And I [00:02:15] know that she's Been covered and interviewed and featured in a number of places. And I'm hoping that our conversation will allow her to perhaps explore some things that she hasn't had a chance to talk about in other venues. And I think [00:02:30] that's one of the things that's always been really wonderful about our conversations is when the guests have an opportunity.
Either reflect or explore some of the things that maybe typically they haven't thought about, so being able to explore that mutual learning mutual exploration, [00:02:45] I think is something I'm really excited about.
Mya: Yeah. And In exploring her background and looking at things about her and what she's done.
One of the things that resonated with me is a podcast thinking about people with advanced degrees and advanced training, is that [00:03:00] in a lot of the bios and things that have been written. About her for PhD isn't front and center. And we've talked to a previous guest who mentioned sort of the deployability of that degree in their professional [00:03:15] arena.
And so that was one thing that, made me think, oh, is there a reason for that? Is that intentional or not? And has I think somebody who, you know, feels that the degree was important and it helps in a lot of specific [00:03:30] situations I'm interested in intrigued in unpacking that if there's anything there to unpack.
Britt: Definitely. Yeah. And she's had a number of significant jobs both in title and responsibility, the government obviously in higher education but [00:03:45] also now on philanthropy and how all those things knit together into a collective history or a collective path, those stories are always fascinating to hear. And I think with her, being so accomplished at such a relatively young age and having experienced these things, [00:04:00] I'm sure they'll be a lot of things to share.
Mya: And my third thing, and I'm interested in talking to her about is that we don't really talk as much about current events on this podcast, but this past year has been a really transformational year And so a lot of times I [00:04:15] think we focus on, the challenges, what challenges people have faced in the last year. But I'm interested in asking her if there's anything that's actually inspired her in this last year. If there's anything that's given her hope or the world to be different on the other side of [00:04:30] some of these big global challenges.
Britt: Lots to look forward to. Why don't we go ahead and jump on him.
Mya: Let's do it.
[00:04:45]Dr. Mariko Silver, Conversation [00:04:47] Britt: Welcome to the podcast, Mariko Silver. It's lovely to have you today. As we begin all of our podcasts, we would like to invite you to share a little bit about your academic origin story. What brought you [00:05:00] to graduate school, pursuing your PhD and so on.
Academic Origin Story [00:05:03]
Mariko: I did listen to the previous podcasts and I've listened to them along the way and really enjoyed them. And I was thinking about, of course then other people's academic origin stories. And I realized that actually I would have to [00:05:15] start mine in 10th grade. I switched schools in 10th grade and I had the most extraordinary history teacher. He was a legend. He was fantastic. And I was a brat. So I came into this new school because I moved [00:05:30] from New York to LA and they had a different curricular cycle having already taken European history but in this new school in 10th grade, you take European history, not a ninth grade. And they said, you have to do it again. And I was like, I am not doing it again. I already learned all that [00:05:45] stuff. You can't tell me anything I don't know already, and I didn't want to it. And I think I actually cried in the principal's office because I was so put upon having to learn more European history.
And she said to me, you have [00:06:00] no idea what you're in for. And she was right. So Dr. Karl Kleinz who was a legend in his time, he recently died actually. And I got to write a piece for his Memorial, which was really wonderful and exciting to do. Not exciting, obviously that he passed, but I was thrilled and honored to be [00:06:15] able to do it.
And that actually did get me thinking, yeah, that time about my academic origin story. This is maybe a year or two ago. He is the first person in an academic context who really revealed to me that the world is not. What you think of is that [00:06:30] everything is not first of all, just one thing after another, a bunch of facts, but also that those facts themselves have stories behind them.
And those stories have stories behind them. And in the end, you have a bunch of people who are just like you and me, who ended up in [00:06:45] positions of power sometimes through their own extraordinary capabilities and merit, and sometimes through happenstance and they get to make decisions. And so this idea that all of the kind of social relationships that we have, the structures of society that we all live [00:07:00] within are made up by.
Somebody was like mind blowing to me. I remember really distinctly talking about. Money and currency, and he'd got up, there were all kinds of mythologies about him. Like he was a German prince or he was this, or he was that, or he'd fled the Nazis or he, wasn't not, there was all kinds of [00:07:15] like crazy stories around him, which he loved and cultivated.
And he had been a Jesuit priest and this and that. And he brought in, I don't remember what the amount was, but it was more than a dollar. And he just tore it up, and we were all, 15, 16 years old. We're like, what are you doing? And he was like, [00:07:30] it's all a story you would've been like, oh my God, my brain.
So that is the beginning of my academic origin story. And I stayed in touch with him and he was enormously supportive of me going to college. He helped me decide where to go to [00:07:45] college together with my parents and many others. And how helped me think about how I should think about higher education.
And what to get out of it. So I had the had the great privilege of going to Yale in part through his both recommendation and [00:08:00] counseling. The first year that I was at Yale, I didn't take any history classes again, cause I was a brat and I was like, I don't need that. I'm going to try something new.
And then I missed it so much that I became a history major. And I had another wonderful mentor when I was at Yale as an [00:08:15] undergraduate Robin winks who also has since passed away and so a wonderful historian. And he also was enormously helpful to me and helped me get at least one foot off my high horse and help me to see think about new ways of seeing [00:08:30] history, new ways of seeing human relations and really pushed me.
He also made it clear to me, not because he ever said it to me because he was too kind. But because I was in his classes with people who were truly academics, it [00:08:45] became clear to me that I was. But I was smart. I was capable. I could write, I could think research, whatever, but that I was never going to be Robin winks and I didn't have what it took to be, Jonathan Spence or whomever.
He brought in these extraordinary historians [00:09:00] and I thought, I don't actually aspire to do what you do. I admire what you do. Okay. I value what you do. I want to be near what you do. I want to spend the rest of my life thinking about the things that you think about, but that kind [00:09:15] of intense, deep dive that's required to do what you do.
It's not me. And we read in his course, Robin, his course, the writing of history. We read an essay called the hedgehog and the Fox, which is a very famous essay [00:09:30] of Isaiah Berlin and talks about the different ways. At least these two different ways that people think and see the world and explore information.
And hedgehogs burrow down and foxes, run all around. And I'm definitely on the Fox like way on the Fox end of the spectrum. [00:09:45] So I just knew that it wasn't going to be for me. But I also was really good at school and I love school. So I was holding those two things, in tension. And when I was getting ready to graduate, I thought I should go get a master's.
I don't know where I got this idea, but I got this idea from [00:10:00] somewhere that I should go get a master's and maybe I just wanted to stay in school and not face life. And so I talked with Robin winks about what kind of masters I should get. And I wanted to get a master's degree in development studies, but I also was really interested in technology.
So [00:10:15] for those who don't know how old I am, 43 years old, it was right at the kind of efflorescence of the internet. And it was in that super utopia. Spread about ideas about the internet and how it was going to save everybody it was going to [00:10:30] make everybody free.
It was going to do all the things for all the people and it was going to be this wonderful thing. And I wanted to understand how this technology could affect society and particularly how it would intersect with thinking about development and [00:10:45] development studies. I don't know how much actually people use that term anymore development studies.
But so I was looking for somewhere where I could do both of those things and without giving it a whole lot of thought, I applied to some places. And when I got my [00:11:00] acceptances Robin Winks said, go here and not there. And I ended up going to the university of Sussex in the UK. They have something called the science policy research unit.
And whereas I thought I was going to get a master's in development studies. I ended up getting a master's in science and technology [00:11:15] policy, because that was really the place where I could think about the tech side. And Sussex is also the home of the British development library. And so they had both of those things together.
And with the help and advice of others, that's where I, that's where I landed.
So when I [00:11:30] finished my science and technology policy degree I moved to Thailand because it felt like it. And I got a job working for a travel magazine and learned that I'm not a writer I can write, but I can't write about anything. [00:11:45] So people who are, who can really be journalists are truly are writers.
I think they can make all kinds of. Seem interesting. I do not have that capability turns out and because I was the only English speaking woman on the staff of this publication, they put me on [00:12:00] like the ladies beat. So it sounds great. I got to review lots of spas and resorts and learn how to scuba dive all sounds great.
But at a certain point for me, it was actually really boring. And it was also at a time when there weren't a whole lot of ex-pat [00:12:15] women professionals living in Thailand who were in my age range. So I was a little bit lonely and ended up hanging out with a lot of women who were trailing spouses.
Who've had kids and all kinds of things. And I was like, I'm only 22. I can't, I'm not going there [00:12:30] yet. So I went back eventually I'd spent a year there and then I went back to. And everybody I graduated from college with was in banking or law school or med school or whatever. And I was like, I should learn how money works.
So I'm going to get a money job, even though [00:12:45] anybody who knows me knows that is a terrible idea. Just a terrible idea. So I was applying for consulting jobs because that's what people were doing. And I was applying for finance jobs because that's where people were doing. To [00:13:00] their credit these organizations were like, not, this is not right for you.
You're not right for us. And this is not right for you. And I ended up meeting Michael Crow, who is was then at Columbia university, who was the executive vice provost. And he's now the president of Arizona state university and has been for [00:13:15] quite awhile. And he can say he also has a science and technology policy degree, and it's not a very common degree.
It was even less common then than it is now. And he just he was like, you have that degree. You should come work for me. [00:13:30] And I was like, I don't what? Cause I'm a brat. I was like, I don't want to work in higher ed. So my whole life and education like being a student, not actually working in education, that's I don't want to do that.
I need to understand how the world of business works. There's also like peak [00:13:45] neoliberal, capitalist fantasy land time. So everything business is going to fix everything. And I was like, I need to learn how that works. And then I can take that knowledge to nonprofits and development or whatever else.
But I have to understand that. And he was like, no, you need to come work for me. [00:14:00] And we went back and forth and to his credit, he did not, or maybe not to his credit, he did not give up on me. He was like, no, I want you to come work for me. And he pushed me. He pushed really hard. And I went to work for him because as my mother said, you don't have another job.
Oh, that's right. And I'm living with you. This is [00:14:15] not good. I'm going to go take this other job. So I went to work for him. And I worked on projects related to international patent pooling. But fast forward, he became the president of Arizona state university. I went with him, loved working for [00:14:30] him. He gave me all kinds of opportunities. I started working on international partnerships for Arizona State and economic development in the Arizona context and a wide range of other projects. And at some point we were in Austin, Texas, and he had [00:14:45] given a talk that I had helped to pull together for him.
And we were waiting in the parking lot for the cab to the airport and he turned to me, he said, when are you getting your PhD? I was like I have a job. I work for you. And I seem to have to work a lot. So I think I'm not going to [00:15:00] get one. He was like, yes, you are. You want to get anywhere, in academia you have to get a PhD or you need to go and take another path in life because you're going to hit a ceiling.
And I said Okay, do I have to do it now? You said, yes, you should do it now. So I [00:15:15] spent the next year or so researching programs, both at Arizona state and elsewhere. And then I went back to him and said, here's what I want to do. And ASU doesn't have it yet. This kind of program, and here are the places that do, and he said, you [00:15:30] can work here and you can go there and we'll figure it out.
So I was enormously fortunate and it also meant that when I was in my PhD program, I did not have the typical PhD experience around funding around I didn't TA I [00:15:45] wasn't an RA. I had this job at this other institution and I did my best to weave the two things together so that, for example, my dissertation research, when I finally got to, it was connected to some of the work that I was doing at Arizona state.
And there was a big pause in [00:16:00] there. So I did my comps. I did my, my dissertation proposal and my initial round of research field research and Vietnam and China. And then president Obama was elected and I went to work for the Obama administration and I put my PhD on pause [00:16:15] and I worked for the Obama administration for three years.
I was a deputy assistant secretary for international affairs and Homeland security. And then when I left there in large part, because I was very pregnant with my first child, I finished my dissertation. Tried to finish it before the baby [00:16:30] was born, did not succeed, but did finish it. And that's the end of the podcast. Any questions?
Britt: Thank you for coming on.
Mariko: Be quiet and go away.
Mya: I do [00:16:45] appreciate you sharing that. Your experience might not have the typical markers right. Of a PhD program. And because part of it is, everybody's story is different and most people who do the atypical route feel like they're [00:17:00] alone or they're the only one that's ever had to struggle in that particular way or go in that particular way.
And so I, I appreciate the being able to see and hear your trajectory. And it's awesome as somebody who did have funding issues, [00:17:15] it's cool to see that there's somebody who didn't. And it also gets people to think about, oh, maybe there are different ways that I might be able to think about being able to fund this or get through this.
Mariko: I actually highly recommend having a job that is not, if you can manage it, for me, [00:17:30] obviously depends on what kind of department you're in. Some departments are super possessive of their graduate students. And I knew going in that this was the structure that I wanted.
So I had those conversations on the front end. I said, I'm going to keep this job. I'm going to be in Arizona. I'll be, I ended up going to UCLA, I'll be in [00:17:45] LA these days a week, I'm not going to be able to do these kinds of things that graduate students usually do. Is that okay? And I want to know upfront if it's going to be okay or not, because I'm going to have to figure out another configuration or go somewhere else.
And there were, there was an institution that I had a [00:18:00] conversation with where they said, no, we don't do that. You can't do that. You're all in. And you're all out. So I was all out because I can't do it that way. So I do think having those upfront conversations, it's very, it's easy to get enamored with, I'm going to get to work with this person or work with that person. [00:18:15] But if this person or that person can't meet you, where you are in terms of structure and expectations, then you know that's somewhat on them too. I think as graduate students, sometimes we assume we're supplicants and that we have to come in [00:18:30] and mold ourselves to the mentor.
When in fact, we actually can ask the mentor to mold themselves to us. If we have clarity about what we're asking for.
On the Ph.D. [00:18:37]
Britt: So you mentioned that Michael Crow pushed you or telling you that you needed a PhD in order to do what you would need to do. [00:18:45] Was he right?
Mariko: No question. He was right. For me in my particular trajectory, do you need one to be a successful human? No, you do not. Do you need one to rise above a certain level in academia?
Absolutely. And even as it [00:19:00] stands now fast forward later I was the president of Bennington college. I don't think it would be possible really to be, unless you've, some people have been governors and then become college presidents and so forth, but there are narrow paths to that to come [00:19:15] doing that with credibility and authenticity.
And I think it was necessary for me. I also think it enabled me to do things at a younger age than I otherwise would have. That's not a value in and of [00:19:30] itself. It just is. But I think it enabled me to have a certain kind of credibility. And frankly, particularly to an international circles, a certain kind of credibility because it's just a very quick, easy, lazy marker of of And I think [00:19:45] that has currency.
And I don't think we should pretend that it doesn't, it's not the only thing that has currency, but it makes the Hills slightly less steep in an individual conversation. And I think that's absolutely real. And even, and also the job that I have now, the combination of [00:20:00] experience, that I have in academia as an administrator with the fact that I went through the PhD program and PhD process, again, it gives me a certain kind of leg to stand on in specific kinds of [00:20:15] conversations.
And I think that's true outside of academia too. People do respect the PhD and in part that's because everybody knows it's hard. It's really hard to come up with an original idea. You have to figure out how to pursue it. You [00:20:30] have to do the research. And I'll say too, I think those are enormously valuable skills for lots and lots of people.
It's the fault of PhD programs that they're not more creative in thinking about how people can apply their PhDs in the world. It's not but the structure of the way the [00:20:45] learning is structured still has enormous value in all kinds of applications.
Mya: So the importance and the value of having a PhD is something that you say has been allowed you to do a lot of different things as well, respected But also just in terms of [00:21:00] visibility.
So I did a little Googling of you before this and, some people put the PhD out there, front and center . In their names and titles and things like that. But I didn't see that as in yours when I was Googling. And so I wonder if, is there [00:21:15] intentionality around that is how do you use and display it to audiences beyond just trying to get a new job or when you're transitioning or things?
How do you use it publicly?
Mariko: Yeah. Just to be clear, I never had a tenure track position. I never sought a [00:21:30] tenure track position. So there's that angle of academic credentialing that I don't have and never sought so the PhD is one thing, the tenure track and all of that publications, that's its own only thing that's related, but separate.
So [00:21:45] I don't tend to center or put front and center the PhD particularly, but when I write a short bio too, when I'm giving a talk or something, particularly if it's either an academic [00:22:00] audience or a an audience that for whatever reason, I think that will matter too. I absolutely put it in there.
It's under the education, these three degrees and the conversation that I ended up having most around that with people, when I do put that in there is, oh, you have three degrees in three different things. That's [00:22:15] unusual, right. And I would say academics perceive it to be unusual because that's not usually the track. So I don't. And I don't usually use doctor again, unless there's some way in which that [00:22:30] conveys or translates to a particular audience. And I think sometimes I don't put the PhD front and center because then, I'm happy to talk about the research that I did for my dissertation.
And it actually, it does really directly inform the work that I do, but I [00:22:45] don't know, maybe it's a little bit of like academic shame because I didn't do the book or I didn't do the whatever the big publication. And so if they were to look for that, they wouldn't find it.
Mya: That's so interesting also I think As a woman in often male [00:23:00] dominated arenas and as a woman of color, I feel like I do have to often center that because it gives legitimacy in ways perhaps the, my experience or other things don't. And so it's interesting to hear how other people center it or [00:23:15] don't and also the rationale behind it.
Because again, everybody is using it in different ways.
Mariko: And I will say actually I use it more than I used to. I think in part, because my previous position as president of a college carries its own [00:23:30] carried its own. Gravitas or perception of gravitas. Before that, when I was in the Obama administration, I didn't have a PhD yet, but even if I had it, I was a deputy assistant secretary. I was an acting assistant secretary. There were kind of titles within structures that people recognize right [00:23:45] now. I'm the president and CEO of a foundation.
People recognize that too, but there are lots of different ways actually to become, depending on the nature of the foundation, right? Sometimes people are president CEO, the foundation because they inherited a bunch of money, right? Sometimes people are president and CEO of a foundation because they work their way there [00:24:00] or they have expertise.
And I have a, perhaps a different orientation now to projecting those expertise. And I think particularly for the position that I'm specifically in now, those foundation where we work on, and [00:24:15] with Asia and Asian American communities, Asian diaspora, and also with higher ed PhD has a signaling function, particularly for me because my my doctoral dissertation focused on China and Vietnam.
There's a signaling [00:24:30] function that is specific to the context that has value and saves me a lot of breath and ink.
On External Signaling and Internal Processing [00:24:38]
Britt: So that really, of course, speaks to the external acknowledgement of what that degree signals to, and aligning yourself with [00:24:45] that. And the internal experience of as the Google has told me you have been very young in many of these positions that, that the external signaling does carry a lot of significance, whether that's the [00:25:00] president or the director or the CEO or whatnot.
And I wonder if you can speak a little bit about just internally, I'm sure that there have been some gaps between your own perception of yourself and whatever the perception of that title or that role is and [00:25:15] how you have worked through that or overcome it, or just your relationship to it.
Mariko: It being not, you're not asking me how I feel in my soul about my PhD. You're asking me how I feel about my relationship to my own authority in some of these positions.
[00:25:30] Britt: Yeah. Or if we think about the PhD is this sort of outward signal, right? It's like it signifies and symbolizes something to an external audience, but then that doesn't reconcile whatever's happening internally, where that [00:25:45] PhD made, allow us to ascend to whether those positions might be. And I'm not explicitly saying, or wanting to focus like on imposter syndrome. I think it's more a broader field of just how we occupy that and how we internally [00:26:00] process that.
And I think in your case, because you were occupying these roles at a very young age, are these perception and coverage was, I think very, it made for a very nice, neat narrative that here's the youngest [00:26:15] university president or there's the, whatever. And so it, it there's this, the story that gets built around that has some curiosities, right?
Mariko: So I think first of all, but the idea of being external signaling to have a PhD, I don't know if you watched sex in the city, but [00:26:30] you know how Sarah Jessica Parker character had that gold necklace that's said Carrieon it. I was like, oh, I should get one that says PhD. Okay. Anyway, so I think in answer to your question, I think it changes with [00:26:45] every position and it changes not quite moment to moment, but it ebbs and flows over time.
I think sometimes to think about, or are encouraged to think about owning these positions either have authority or responsibility [00:27:00] in a kind of almost a static way. Not that the work is static, but like you are the person who embodies this role. And at least in my experience, I will say. Some of it depends on how much prior knowledge I felt like I brought to the role.
And [00:27:15] so there's my personal, my sense of myself as a person who can figure out an organization or institution figure out how to navigate within it, have figured out how to move ahead. The things that I want to move ahead and either support or be part of, or lead a [00:27:30] team. And each of those things requires a, both internal and external navigation around positionality.
So just to give a concrete example, when I was when I entered into DHS as a political appointee, I was not coming out of a deep [00:27:45] immigration background. I was not coming out of a deep law enforcement background or any law enforcement background. And so I knew that I was young as a woman and I was not an I also knew that I had the ear of the secretary I had influence and [00:28:00] I knew how to lead and cohere a team. And I knew the minute I walked into that office, that it was not coherent as a team. They didn't have a good sense of where they sat in the larger organizational structure. There were all kinds of power issues. There were external-facing power issues. [00:28:15] I could see the dynamics and how I could intervene productively in the dynamics that also required me to admit to the things that I didn't know.
So there was nothing to be gained by me coming in there and saying I know all the answers and I'm going to lead us in this direction. So I asked a lot of [00:28:30] questions and I wanted to know what people felt, what other people felt that the role that I had walked into, not my personal job, but the role that I had walked into what they wanted, that role to be.
Because it was still very much a role in formation. I wasn't something that was well-defined and so I had the [00:28:45] opportunity to really in a sense get under it and and try to understand it from multiple perspectives and then take things forward in the regular role of work and establish my authority and my ability in my capability as a leader with the team that I was that I was leading [00:29:00] through the actions rather than performing at them, my capability from the front end.
And because it's the department of Homeland security, the demands are constant and they're all urgent and it's super intense. So it's in the doing that you [00:29:15] figure out how to function most effectively as a leader, in that context, in the Bennington case. When I came in there, I knew.
That the board was on board with the vision that I had articulated, and I knew that they were behind me and I knew that the senior staff was on [00:29:30] board with the vision that I had articulated and what needed to happen to get us there. And so I had that wind in my sails and I knew what I was there to do.
And I think if you know what you're there to do, and you know that some of your core constituencies support you to [00:29:45] do it, then it's about doing the work. And the sort of personification of leadership part comes out of the doing of the work rather than the performance of the work.
On Confidence and Leading [00:29:53]
Britt: I'm curious, just to drill down a little bit into what I hear as being some of the [00:30:00] subcutaneous level confidence that is. Necessary to be able to go into a system that you acknowledge upfront that, you know very little relative to those who are occupying the system, yet you are in a position of [00:30:15] authority over them, so to speak.
And so I just wonder, where did that come from? Where did you get that confidence from? And is that something that you remember always having, that you had to learn it, that somebody suggested that you take that because even still that [00:30:30] requires a, at least from my experience that requires, I don't know the confidence, but also the trust that approach is not going to lead to an unraveling of just undermining your capacity to do anything because people are like, they don't know what they're doing.
Mariko: I would say a couple of [00:30:45] things. One is I think. In terms of where it comes from, I actually would connect it to where I started the academic origin story, which is an understanding of how power and authority as being non-static and being contextualized and contingent.
So [00:31:00] if you look at the world, maybe you look at the world in a way that you say, okay all of these things that are arranged or they have been arranged in a way. By people who are as flawed as I am, some of them, yes. Maybe, I couldn't build a [00:31:15] rocket to space, right?
There are things that I don't know that I'm not going to try. I will not be sending him into this space. There are absolute limits. But, and also I should say too, working at ASU there was a real sense that, these things that we take as received institutional structures and that they are [00:31:30] wise or wisely constructed, it's not necessarily true and think don't have to work the way they work now.
And of course, studying history that's, the history is is a is a long line of things that were changed over time. And so if you have, I think [00:31:45] that sense of mutability. Without hopefully the sense that you should be the master of all of that. Cause that's the other pitfall. I think, we talk a lot about the pitfalls of feeling insecure and imposter syndrome, which is real.
And I should say too, there are all kinds of moments [00:32:00] along the way where this just happened to me the other day. And I went out to dinner with a friend of mine and I was like, oh, I don't know about this and that. And he was like, you know exactly what you want to do.
You know what, you know what the right, what the right thing to do is, what the right thing for this constituency, that constituency, how to, you, you need to talk it out. [00:32:15] That's fine. I'm happy to talk it out with you. You just told me that, and what I can do for you as your friend and colleague who has similar experiences say, I agree with you that's the right thing to do, but you don't need my idea .
So there are always moments. I think anytime you enter into something new where you [00:32:30] were. hopefully, almost everybody is wow, why am I in charge of this? Shouldn't somebody else, somebody who knows more, whatever make this decision. And that's the moment where you say, okay, who are the people who know more?
Who I should go talk to both check my gut against them. If I have one or maybe I don't have any gut [00:32:45] feeling at all, I'm like, I know this thing is a problem or needs to be addressed and I have no idea how to go about it. And so the first thing is to say to yourself, even if you only say it yourself, I have no idea how to do this.
And then, okay, what do I need to know? And that's in a sense back to [00:33:00] the value of not just the PhD, the idea that you could start with a kernel of an idea or an insight, and then say, how do I go about figuring out the ways in which this isn't true. And how do I prove it to [00:33:15] somebody else that this is, or isn't correct or true or valid or worth exploring And so it is in a sense those tools and that ability to start from either a set of pre-existing conditions or preexisting assumptions that other, [00:33:30] that are received from other people or from even a totally blank slate and say, how do I even construct a frame around this? Who else has thought about this?
How do I understand the way that they've thought about it and think about that critically so that I can come to something that feels [00:33:45] right to me in this particular context, in this particular day, in this particular circumstance. And my mother who as is a very accomplished person at some point said to me, oh, I could never do.
I remember that was now 84. I said, I could never have done a PhD because I never had an original idea. [00:34:00] A mom, I don't think that's true, but also that idea that you could have an original idea or an, a new way of looking at something. Is in some ways inherits to I think the dissertation process when it goes well, and the confidence that can [00:34:15] come from that.
Mya: Can I continue on the confidence piece too? Because I think there's this balance that you strike right. Between having confidence within yourself, but then trying to get other people on board or to agree. So what motivates, or what keeps you [00:34:30] pushing forward? If you, like your friend said, if you know what the right thing to do is, this is what you want to do and you want to move forward with that.
How do you do that in a way that, potentially doesn't alienate people, but allows them to bring, bring them on board to go with [00:34:45] you.
Mariko: So I will say in general, If it's a big decision. I don't know that it's right until I talk about it. That's just the way that I am.
That's not some, for some people that's writing about it for me, it's talking about it. And sometimes also writing about it. So sometimes too, if I'm really wrestling with something, [00:35:00] I have to write it out. Not so much as an argument in the lawyerly sense. I actually really don't like that kind of, pros and cons or a contrarian sort of devil's advocate kind of conversation that much.
But I do want people to poke holes. I do [00:35:15] want to, always ask people like, what am I missing? Did I get this all wrong? What assumptions do I have baked in here that are screwy? How would you do it differently? Sometimes I won't say what it is that I'm thinking I want to do.
I'll say here's the [00:35:30] situation? What are like four different ways to go about this? Not necessarily what do you think I should do? Because first of all, that puts that it, depending on who you're talking to, that creates a power dynamic. That can be weird, but also because ideally for me, anyway, those [00:35:45] conversations are exploratory.
And as soon as you say what would you do? Oh, and I would you do differently? And I would do it this way. You should do it that way. Then you're in this kind of two-sided conversation or even two-sided conversation with yourself. Whereas if you say what are, I don't know what the [00:36:00] right number is, but what are five different ways we could go about this?
And also what are we trying to accomplish? What are five different ways we could get there then sometimes that opens up a different kind of conversation. But I think trying to be honest with myself about what I really don't know, and I don't understand.
And [00:36:15] what I'm really clear about, I guess I don't think of it as I don't think about it as confidence per se. And I have absolutely like moments of serious, like crippling doubt, but you have to get up in the morning and sometimes you have to, because of your job, you have to make decisions. And so the [00:36:30] question is just, how can you make the best decisions with the information that is not just immediately available to you, but potentially available to you or within arms reach or, two or three, network layers out from you?
What kind of information do you need to make the best [00:36:45] informed decisions that you can make? And sometimes you make the right. Then you got to reckon with that. Nobody likes that, but it happens.
Mya: That was actually going to be a question. Are there decisions that you would change I guess is or [00:37:00] would not have made? And how have you reckoned with those?
Mariko: I think one of the consequences, maybe of me being younger on the younger end of the spectrum for some of these positions and being also to be very Frank on the greener end of the spectrum, those things [00:37:15] don't always go together. But in my case, in some cases they did is to be in a learning posture all the time, always be ready for the thing that you didn't think of, and you never would have felt out on your own.
And so that's. I think [00:37:30] leads to a different kind of relationship to risk and leads to a different kind of relationship with your own authority. Maybe I don't really know another way but I've experienced other, I've certainly experienced bosses who feel like their job is to make you feel like they know all the things.
And in my [00:37:45] experience, all that does is make you feel like they do not know all the things they are not listening and they do not know the thing you're all to be. They don't know that. I do know, so having been on the receiving end of that multiple times, I think the it's the learning posture, that's key.
All of that in [00:38:00] terms of regrets.
I think I look back on some of the opportunities that I've had and feel like I just didn't bring everything I could out of them. It didn't learn all the things that I could've learned. I didn't trial things that I could have tried. [00:38:15] And I think sometimes, but I know that there were times when I didn't listen as carefully to the human side of how people were experiencing certain things about the institutional organization that I was running. I didn't know. I [00:38:30] actually didn't, I think know how to listen, or I thought that I listened to it.
This is one of the things about being college president right there, new people every year, you've experienced some that they've never experienced. You, they've never had this experience before. So that kind of [00:38:45] perpetual newness is both enormously exciting, but also. It's oh, I listened to the last class of students who were interested in X and we addressed it by doing a, B and C, but nobody who comes to you with [00:39:00] a fresh idea, especially a fresh faced person who comes with a fresh idea, 18 years old or whatever wants to hear people who are two years older than you, who may as well be like a hundred years older than you.
They already did that thing. Nobody wants to hear that. So I do think, and it's not helpful. It's not helpful for them, for their [00:39:15] learning, telling them what other people have already figured out is not, I think largely the way to get people excited about learning. So I think there are times when I thought I knew the answers when I didn't.
And I think the, those are the pinch points of their problems. That are the ones that [00:39:30] I regret the most. All kinds of other mistakes don't get me wrong, but those are the ones where like I have like shame associated with them or I have real regret associated with them. Not only because I could've done better, but because of the ways in which I could have done better.
[00:39:45] Mya: And that kind of honesty is appreciated because I think most people aren't used to hearing people who've had leadership positions or other otherwise led institutions, organizations, one admit they'd made a mistake, because there's also the external pieces where [00:40:00] people are like, oh we can't, we can't show that we've made a mistake because that you lose confidence and all those other things. But there is strength in that and there is. Also a vulnerability and just the truth, right? We're humans, we all make mistakes. The fact that you could see [00:40:15] what you could have done better or ways you could have done better to me illustrates that. Okay. I actually would trust then you to be able to one, not make the same mistakes moving forward and then be like, okay, that's to your point, somebody who's learning. Who's [00:40:30] growing. Who's not, as you said static either. So
Mariko: And I'll say too, I think sometimes I'm impatient. Sometimes I don't want to have a conversation that I know is going to be conflict ridden. And so I'll just say let's just [00:40:45] see if it works itself out. And sometimes that's fine.
And sometimes, it's if you really know in your gut like this, you've got to nip this in the bud. And it's oh, do that tomorrow. Today was a long day, but really you should have done it yesterday.
On Learning from Mom about Leadership [00:40:59]
Britt: So you [00:41:00] had mentioned earlier that your mother is very accomplished. So what have you learned from your mom about leadership?
Mariko: It's really hard for me to distill those lessons because it's it's it's just in my, it's like in the air that I breathe. When you asked about competence, [00:41:15] I can't speak for her inner life, but I think most people would say she's very competent. But I would say too that orientation to always asking the question rather than having the answer which is not to say that she doesn't also have the answer. [00:41:30] She asked the question and I'm, I know that I fall into that category too, but I think in general, the orientation to at least knowing what you, for sure don't know, and being willing to ask the question about that [00:41:45] and be exploratory and be yeah, I think having a kind of exploratory orientation towards your work and life. And also she had lots of different kinds of jobs over time. . And I would say that sense ofperpetual curiosity and learning [00:42:00] that my dad absolutely had that too, and was super intense about it. My father didn't graduate from college. I think he always regretted it. He read more and was more engaged intellectually in all kinds of things than most people I know in academia, he just was [00:42:15] super interested in the world.
I don't know if that's, those are leadership lessons, but I think the other thing though, just about my mom is that she comes from a generation where there were a lot of in the U S context, a lot of firsts, a lot of firsts for women, a [00:42:30] lot of firsts for people of color. And it just never crossed my mind that it wouldn't be or that it wasn't for me if I had been a person wired slightly differently, maybe I would've decided I wanted to go another path, but that should that be the right path for me, that it wasn't available that never occurred to me. And [00:42:45] I think that is the confidence piece.
And I would say too know my parents both made it really possible for me and prioritized. I think maybe without even, I don't know, I'd have to ask my mom if it was conscious or not, but [00:43:00] exposure to environments that are environments with people in positions of power. So that those all felt familiar and comfortable.
On the Pandemic Time [00:43:08]
Britt: I wonder if you wouldn't mind talking about what the last [00:43:15] year and a half has been for your own evolution as a leader, as a as a person just what's come up for you?
Mariko: I was new in this job I was six months plus into the job when the pandemic started. And I would say it [00:43:30] emphasized for me the need to have the discipline of learning, reading, thinking, talking widely and with a wide ranging perspective. And to that the obligation of funders certainly is to be [00:43:45] doing that all the time. And to never think you have the answer, even if you think you have a particular kind of problem or question that you're, that you want to support the solution for pursuit of to just always be in that learning and listening [00:44:00] mode and to.
I think for a lot of people. And certainly for me, the importance of seeing in person, what is the work rather than only hearing on paper or through reports, what is the work?
Mya: One of the things that I'm [00:44:15] interested in is, what have people gotten excited about what have, what has possibly inspired people in the past year and a half? Has there anything that, either a moment or something that has inspired or excited you?
Mariko: I think the [00:44:30] potential for change in society. And so it's both that the fear loaded way of looking at that is the fragility of our institutions, of our expectations about social relations, our expectations about governance and government, our [00:44:45] expectations about who is understood and experiences, who is understood as valued and experiences being valued and and our ideas about deserving.
And deservingness the conversation about meritocracy, all of those things, I think, there's a sense of the fragility [00:45:00] and brittleness of a lot of what people thought. That's the way of looking at it as a downside, the way of looking at it as an upside is there's a lot of movement that's possible.
Those things can be, those yolks can be broken in the way that we think about what the limits are can be [00:45:15] fundamentally rethought. So I do think that is inspiring and exciting. And I should say too, of course, there are people who've been doing that work and thinking about that rethinking and re-imagining for a long time, but now they can be heard in new ways, but [00:45:30] they are being heard in new ways.
They probably could have been heard before, but they are being heard in new ways. And their ideas are being amplified in new ways. And I think that's really exciting. And what I think about, I have two small kids, I think about the world that they could inhabit [00:45:45] and the ways in which it could be different from from the world that we inhabit now.
There's a scary, side to that and there's also just a thrilling side to it. And I think that. ideally the thrill isn't in the change for change sake. The thrill is [00:46:00] in truly what it makes possible, Because the change is going to be hard on a lot of people. Even if the end result, if one can call it such a thing or like the next phase, I don't think there's ever an end, but the next phase is better for a lot of people.
So I think that is [00:46:15] motivating. And I think that there's a real responsibility for anybody in a position of power to have their ears wide open. I think we talked about having your eyes wide open because it's like you're looking for pitfalls. But also to have your ears wide [00:46:30] open looking for a possibility you can, for ideas, really thinking about.
What is, what has been done that can be re-imagined in ways that make it better for more people. And how do we want to go about defining that collectively? The scary part is that we don't know how to go back to finding it collectively, but [00:46:45] that's maybe another conversation for another day.
On Being Questioned and Doing Interviews [00:46:47]
Britt: So I know you've been in a number of conversations interviews over the years and have become either naturally or evolved into being very skilled in being able to field several questions and all kinds of inquiries. I'm [00:47:00] curious and I'll give you two options here either: what's a question that you wish that people would ask you, but they never do, or what's the question that you most like to answer?
[00:47:15] Mariko: First, I will say that it's not natural. Like maybe it's become natural to be able to have this kind of conversation or speak in public. But I was a paralyzed public speaker. And then for a number of reasons, I think partly just, little bit of growing up and whatever [00:47:30] else. And by necessity.
So when I was at DHS, I was, you say I was the lowest, highest person they could put out in public around certain things. Congressional hearings and various other things, I was like high enough ranked that it was a real response. But [00:47:45] I was low enough, that wasn't going to be a headline. And I asked for media training, cause I was like, my mother saw me on Fox news. She was like, you did a very good job answering that congressman's question. And you should take the shoulder pads out of that jacket.
[00:48:00] Oh my God. I'm on television. And my mother has critiques for me. So I was like, I need media training. Cause I know I can deflect or I can whatever, but I'm having to give these speeches and whatever. To their enormously appreciative the communications office at DHS, they got me really good media [00:48:15] training and.
I first of all, recommend that for anybody who can get it, if you can squeeze it out of your job, if you can come out, come up with some way for somebody else to pay for it and get you media training, do it, yes. Get the PhD, blah, blah, blah, get media training. That is the [00:48:30] thing. Because it just it opened up for me a whole new way of thinking about myself and communicating.
And then obviously when I was at Bennington, I did a lot of talking and I gave a lot of speeches and so forth.
On Waving the Magic Wand [00:48:40]
Britt: So we're just about at the end of time, but this may be a potentially [00:48:45] fraught question for you given your last job, but we like to ask our guests, if they had the power to actually wave a magic wand and change academia for the better, what would they do?
Mariko: Oh, I have so [00:49:00] many answers we should have started with this question okay. What would you want an undergraduates or graduate students or everything
Britt: Just the whole lot of it.
Mariko: Then I have to think you have to start where the incentive structures lie, which is rethinking the promotion and tenure process. And what's [00:49:15] valued in that process.
And specifically, I would say valuing a wider range of knowledge, expertise, and areas of exploration. As well as valuing teaching and service differently in your typical promotion and tenure [00:49:30] process, because I think that would encourage better teaching, which then obviously that flows into both the graduate education and undergraduate education.
It would encourage a much wider aperture for society [00:49:45] in terms of what we understand and accept to be authoritative knowledge and voices. I think it would, it could be done in a way that dramatically increases diversity and inclusiveness and undermine some of the, [00:50:00] deeply in narrowly self-serving. Mechanisms for validating authority that are present in lots of departments and mitigate against the kind of narrowing function that many disciplines are drawn [00:50:15] to as a way of understanding their own value and authority. So if I had to intervene in one place, I think you have to look in any organization.
Where's the incentive structure who has the power. And how does that work? If I don't know how big is my magic wand, if my, the other thing that is a kind of different, [00:50:30] it aimed at a different target is fund public funding for every student. I think it's really simple. I don't, I is not necessarily simple in the politics are doing, but, public funding for every undergraduate.
Yeah. Graduate student. I don't think the, I [00:50:45] think the economic upsides are greater than the economic downsides. I think there could be all kinds of things done in that scenario that would control costs and higher education. I think some of the higher education costs have spiraled because of the nature of the [00:51:00] weird quasi market competitions we've set up among institutions.
Because again, you have to, I think you always have to look at what the incentive structures are. I think the vast majority of higher ed institutions don't necessarily want to be spending the money where they're spending the money, which in turn leads to the [00:51:15] cost inflation, et cetera, et cetera.
I think we're well past the sort of Baumol's cost disease way of thinking about that. But the positive incentives aren't in place to do it another way. And in order for that to happen at a either individual state system-wide level, Or at a a [00:51:30] national level, it would ideally come with a major infusion of funds.
And I do think some of the big private philanthropy is if they so chose, could inject those funds as a kind of on-ramp to public funding. And that's what I if somebody, if the magic wand where [00:51:45] money and I were in charge of a really big amount of money and because it would have to be at major scale for it to have that kind of impact.
And so if private money could create a steep enough on-ramp for the right duration of time, such that it wasn't forever, [00:52:00] but it was enough that people became accustomed to that as a.
As well as a small R right. So that government, there was an expectation that government would pick it up and a campaign to make government pick it up at some point in the future. [00:52:15] I think that would be also transformative because again, it would change the incentive structure and teams, the cost structure.
On Tri-Sector Leadership [00:52:21]
Mya: I'd give you the wand, I guess my last question would be you've worked in philanthropy, you've worked in higher education. [00:52:30] And you've worked with corporate partners, et cetera. There's this big conversation right now about tri-sector leadership and having leadership experiences, all three sectors, how would you like to be considered or what leadership [00:52:45] qualities would you like people to connect to you? As somebody who's led in these various different places and spaces,
Mariko: I'm trying to think of words that don't sound like they come out of a shitty business, develop like leaders book. [00:53:00] I think we have set up just culturally, like in business literature or whatever, which I don't read a lot. It's this is five steps removed perception of how these things are. And I did, when I became college, president people gave me all these books about the first hundred days or whatever. [00:53:15] Oh, atrocious in life in my view and not helpful.
But I do think we as a society, have to get over this idea that you either will be loved or feared. A it's like weirdly gendered and it's in the doing the desire to be liked. [00:53:30] And the idea that if you jettison the desire to be liked, you can just be an asshole because then it'll be feared and then you'll be effective.
I think there's, we have some weird counterproductive ideas happen to be gendered about leadership. So I think as a leader, you come up against them in yourself, or at least I've come up [00:53:45] against them in myself. Do I have to make a choice at this point about whether I'm going to be, if not loved or fear, but loved or respected or liked or respected, or is my authority if I make this decision, is my authority going to be undermined in some way.
And those are weird and thorny [00:54:00] questions and I think. Important to acknowledge that their word in thorny questions that they're not binary and that they always come up. In other words, it's not you, right? It's not you as a leader and your stuff. It may come up in a particular way for you or for me, [00:54:15] but I think it always comes up and it comes up for men and it comes up for women.
It comes up for people who are as credentialed as you could possibly be for your job. And it comes up for people who are don't have those kinds of, paper things to lean on whatever. I think I would like people [00:54:30] to say, or to experience me as considerate, creative responsive. But I think as much as anything else a leader in a learning posture, in other words, I'm always in that learning mode [00:54:45] and I'm clear enough in leadership that you don't cause nobody wants to work for somebody who doesn't, where they're growing, but never knows where they're going. So it's one thing to be in learning mode and to be in intensive learning mode for awhile.
But at some point you do have to [00:55:00] pick a direction and you have to be the, you have to be, ideally you're not tyrannical about that direction, but you have to be clear and communicate it clearly help people to understand why you're doing what you're doing. Invite input, but sometimes you just have to [00:55:15] decide like people aren't going to like this, or they're not gonna love it.
Or they would have done it another way. But I think this is the right. Because I've done my homework and I thought it through and I really listened.
Mya: And my part B of the question, where would you like to grow?
Mariko: So it's probably gonna sound really stupid when I say [00:55:30] that out loud, but there is so much that I don't know. I think but I said, I'm not going to be like building rockets or whatever. I don't need to, I don't need to learn that, but there's so much that I want to learn about different ways of seeing and different ways of [00:55:45] understanding the world. I think I need to, so I guess with that, I would say I'm not sure exactly what in that is where the, like, where the those are our learnings, which is different from growth, but I want to always be in that that kind of exploratory mode, [00:56:00] I think right now, where I want to grow, maybe will be different from where I want to grow a year from now. That's another thing that I think people sometimes think of as static.
Like here's the thing, that's my weakness, where they always ask you that terrible question in interviews. What are your weaknesses? And then you'll, [00:56:15] you have to do that stupid trick of saying a strength in a way that makes it sound like it's a weakness, but everybody knows that it's really a strength.
I think I would like to grow in my emotional range and capacity. I think I'm a very sort of cerebral person. And when I'm [00:56:30] uncertain, like that's where I retreat to that. Very rational space and to grow in my capacity to integrate. Sense of those things that you pick up when you are in person and you can see people about the way people are responding to integrate those [00:56:45] things in ways that are translatable in a way from like gut to head.
But with while not getting wrapped up in my own intuition, because I think that's also a danger or a pitfall and say oh, I just know the right thing. That's almost, without checking it against various external factors. [00:57:00] But I do think we tend to think people are static and what their weaknesses are.
And that's not my experience of other people. And my aim is to not have that be my experience of myself that I'm like stuck with this thing that I'm just, okay, calculus is never going to be my strength, but on that [00:57:15] sort of personal development level, that I'm just always gonna be stuck with this.
That I can't quite develop. I don't want to die that way. I want to work on those things and come up with new things that I need to work on rather than just chipping away at the same one thing. [00:57:30]
Mya: Cool. Wow.
Britt: Brings us to the end of our time together. I want to thank you Mariko for making time to have this conversation. Hopefully it's been as insightful and generative for you as it [00:57:45] has been for us, .
Dr. Mariko Silver, Reflection [00:57:45]
Mya: Wow. So that was a lively interview [00:58:00] , what did you think Britt?
Britt: I enjoyed the conversation a lot. I think one of the things that is sticking with me and I think if we had a little more time, I would've really liked to circle back and drill down on This issue that, people create things, which she didn't [00:58:15] use the language of social construction, but that's very much my orientation to it where things are the way they are only because we collectively agree that's the way they are. And as a result of that, those things can change when we collectively agree. Yeah. [00:58:30] Something needs to change.
And I think one of the things that I find so unique about her, and this was what I wanted to drill down on a little bit more, is that there's plenty of people who look at the world in that way and who are trained as whether they're social [00:58:45] scientists or psychologists or whatever that are able to critique the world through a lens social construction, but their capacity to take action and drive change is very limited. Or the other side to that is that [00:59:00] there can be a whole heck of a lot of Naval gazing associated with that. And. I think her life and her professional success has been a demonstration of the intersection of that orientation to the [00:59:15] world and life, but also in how you Marshall that awareness to impart a strategy to take action.
And I don't know that she identifies that as being a unique, in many ways a superpower, but I really [00:59:30] feel. That it is because it's just very unique in my experience.
Mya: Yeah. There, there definitely was this idea that, because in my head I was thinking, she sounds a lot like a social scientist or a sociologist. And I was like, okay, yes. [00:59:45] Again, like you're saying she wasn't using the vocabulary, but there definitely was this idea about. Understanding different ways of knowing, understanding different ways of seeing the world. But underlying that was just movement, [01:00:00] I think, in a way, or seeing that as something.
To be changed, right? Because I think academics often look at these structures and say they are the way they are because man made them so.. So they just are right. But her [01:00:15] presentation of that embedded in the way that she talked about it was this idea that it doesn't have to be, that it can be changed.
And perhaps that is some of the uniqueness that you hear, because the way in which she talks [01:00:30] about it, Is inherently as if the expectation is it's going to change or it should change, or it must change. And that for me, ties into her comments about the last year and a half. She was [01:00:45] inspired by the possibility and the potentiality of change.
And that resonated with me a lot when she used the word re-imagining, cause that's a word that I've used a lot in the last year and a half of, re-imagining the way the world can be or could be [01:01:00] structurally and. The recognition that there are people that have been doing that work that now have spaces and places to actually be seen and heard too was really just salient for me.
Britt: She actually is a [01:01:15] trained social scientist. We didn't spend any time exploring the actual degree. She's a trained geographer like me, which is both strange and unique. But in many ways I think for me, She represents the [01:01:30] kind of leadership that is, is so vital moving forward, where yes, you're able to look at the world in all of its constructions and all of its contradictions and hold those [01:01:45] as as a complex challenge. And yeah. Take action. So it's it's really this to put it in more simple terms, like a both and proposition. And I think that you just really embodies that kind of leadership, that in my opinion, the [01:02:00] world needs so, so much more of Whether it's the learning orientation to the work or it's just the inquiry based approach to how you work with people. Those are vital right now. And so my hope is that by virtue of the kinds of the [01:02:15] trainings that are happening. Cause even in the realm understanding various social constructs around power privilege or so on, if they're not coupled with the capacity to be able to hold complexity and to move forward with collective action.
in some [01:02:30] ways they're just creating another anchor point that is stifling. Stifling progression. Anyway that's really what comes to mind.
Mya: Yeah. There's a dynamism when you're talking about leadership, the ability to envision [01:02:45] and see, but also respond with action and not just I dunno acknowledgement or, just intellectual curiosity, if you will. And I think, a through-line for all of what she was talking about this idea of not being [01:03:00] static, right? The idea that institutions don't have to be static. People don't have to be static. Ideas are not static. And so again, this action orientation to all of those things I heard it a lot in the ways in which she [01:03:15] talked about a lot of these things that, again, inspires the idea that, okay, there's movement, there's potential for change. There is, Re-imagining, that's not just like laying out the architecture, but then like you said, the [01:03:30] strategy and a plan put in place to actually like, build something, not just imagine what it could be.
Britt: And I think that she might describe herself also as someone who's able to take those ideas and assemble them, or at least. [01:03:45] Be able to orient them toward a strategy, and again, moving toward some action or some actionable set of outcomes and in some ways, and this is not going to sound like a lot of overstatement, but In terms of alternative paths [01:04:00] that may happen as a result of getting a conventional academic training, especially one that's really steeped in the social sciences, the ways that she's applying the learning and she's applying her training is just a perfect representation of that.
It's not [01:04:15] about the sector. There's a need to be able to identify ideas assemble or nurture catalyze, however you want to frame it. But then having those lead to. Action. And that's where so much of the academic training [01:04:30] often falls flat, right?
Where it's we can get ideas, we can inspire them. We can play around with them. But then how that actually looks in practical terms, it's tough because it's hard. It's really hard. So I am. And I've always been very inspired by her [01:04:45] leadership and being able to move in that way and move around in those spaces and be able to knit things together.
Mya: It was interesting. She talked about, a person with three distinctly different degrees, sort of the history, the science and tech policy and [01:05:00] geography. And what she learned potentially from those different disciplines is able to do something, but there's something I think that's uniquely her, maybe it's her perspective, maybe it's just her approach to the world, maybe it's just who she is [01:05:15] that, brings it together in that way. And also when she was talking about, maybe her youth, is a boon to all this too, right? Like her greenness, gives her a different orientation to risk.
It gives her a different orientation of [01:05:30] looking at things. So one thing that I would have liked to try to talk a little bit about is generational differences in leadership, in these different institutions that she has been part of, Yes. She's been younger, how has that perhaps been different or how has that [01:05:45] been how has that shaped her more action oriented approach to the ways in which she's led these organizations.
Britt: So another excellent conversation and one that I think we'll both be reflecting on for some time.
Mya: Yeah. The only thing I think is that, [01:06:00] her point about her PhD being worth it I'm a hundred percent worth the effort and pursuing, and I think her story of the way that she persisted she paused and stopped and went and did other things, but finished it is I [01:06:15] think something that current graduate students can again, look to and be like, okay, there are multiple ways of going through and doing this that can be inspiring. And also again, help people feel less alone on the journey. Yeah, I got lots of bullet [01:06:30] points and keywords that I'll be thinking about for awhile.
Britt: Great.
All right. Until next time.