Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Jason Education, we talked so much
Speaker 1: about it, rightfully, talks so much about it. And one
Speaker 1: of the hardest working reporters always but certainly right now
Speaker 1: is Janet Lauren trying to keep in touch and trying
Speaker 1: to keep track of everything that's going on in higher education.
Speaker 1: This week alone, there have been numerous stories. Janet joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone. So, Janet, before we get to
Speaker 1: the President of Warhouse, who we're going to bring on
Speaker 1: in just a second, give us thirty seconds on state
Speaker 1: of higher education right now. Well, a lot of schools
Speaker 1: have sent kids home because of higher test rates of coronavirus.
Speaker 1: We saw on earlier this week, the University of North
Speaker 1: Carolina said students should go home because a lot of
Speaker 1: kids were testing positive. Yesterday, UM Notre Dame had eighties
Speaker 1: students test positive in one day and they decided to
Speaker 1: pause clastic, pause online I'm sorry, pause in person activity
Speaker 1: for two weeks and see what happens. In Michigan State
Speaker 1: yesterday said UM that they would they would not be
Speaker 1: having on campus program right. Yeah, that's our backdrop let's
Speaker 1: bring in David Thomas. He's President Morehouse College. He joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Atlanta on this Wednesday long,
Speaker 1: of course, as he just heard with Janet Lauren, our
Speaker 1: higher education finance reporter. UM. President Thomas, so nice to
Speaker 1: have you here with us. UM. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot on the plate of our countries, colleges and universities,
Speaker 1: the virus, reopening, virtual learning, the cost of education, inequalities. UM.
Speaker 1: What's top of mind for you right now? Well, top
Speaker 1: of top of minds for me is UM one making
Speaker 1: sure that the quality of what we offer online this
Speaker 1: semester far exceeds what we were able to do last semester. UM,
Speaker 1: and that we're also able to create community in this
Speaker 1: virtual environment, because that's one of the things that draw
Speaker 1: students to more House College UM. And so we've required
Speaker 1: all of our faculties who are going to teach UH
Speaker 1: this semester to be certified in online education because one
Speaker 1: of the things we learned is that there's a difference
Speaker 1: between online education and remote instruction. Remote instruction is where
Speaker 1: you essentially do what you do in an in person classroom,
Speaker 1: just being taked or delivering it on zoom or some
Speaker 1: other video platform, whereas online education there's actually a pedagogy
Speaker 1: to it that makes it much more dynamics. So we've
Speaker 1: invested in that. And the other thing that you know
Speaker 1: keeps me awake at night is UM. Uh you know
Speaker 1: whether or not we'll be able to bring our students
Speaker 1: back for the spring semester, uh, given what we're seeing
Speaker 1: happen with the virus UH, in particular in the state
Speaker 1: of Georgia, where our positivity rates testing rates are in
Speaker 1: double digits right now. Well, you made the decision quite
Speaker 1: early on among colleges that you could not do in
Speaker 1: person because there was too much risk for everybody, not
Speaker 1: only the students, but also the other people working on campus.
Speaker 1: Now other schools are seeing their just decisions may not
Speaker 1: have been such a great idea to invite students onto
Speaker 1: campus uh, and they're having to pivot at a very
Speaker 1: late date when kids are already there. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about what went into your decision UM to be very early? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was very UM, very straightforward. We very
Speaker 1: early on UM decided that the number one priority for
Speaker 1: us would be keeping our students and our staff and faculty,
Speaker 1: uh say, from a health and wellness perspective, and then
Speaker 1: our second priority was ensuring the quality of what we
Speaker 1: could provide educationally. And the last, the third priority was
Speaker 1: you know, what's what what's going to be the financial
Speaker 1: impact because we have to stay viable financially and being
Speaker 1: clear about that uh made it pretty uh straightforward for
Speaker 1: us to move, you know, through our decision tree and
Speaker 1: to wind up being among the first schools to say
Speaker 1: that we would be fully remote, especially in the context
Speaker 1: of Georgia, where we also faced, uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: very confusing political environment where literally at one point we
Speaker 1: had the governor suing the mayor over whether mass could
Speaker 1: be mandated in the city of Atlanta, um, because the
Speaker 1: governor was not going to allow that to happen in
Speaker 1: the state of Georgia, and we were going to mandate
Speaker 1: mask on our campus. Uh. And it's hard to enforce
Speaker 1: a rule, you know, when students might raise the question, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's not legal in the state. If the man
Speaker 1: can do it, how can the college do it? Um.
Speaker 1: So so that just led us, you know, on a
Speaker 1: decision tree, and when we saw the rate of positive
Speaker 1: tests going up, UM, that led us to reverse our
Speaker 1: earlier decision, which was that we would be in a
Speaker 1: low density hybrid format UM and UH. But it was
Speaker 1: you know, in many ways, it was pretty straightforward because
Speaker 1: we just very clear about, you know, what our priorities
Speaker 1: were in our principles UM. And so President Thomas, no
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you know, you may also know
Speaker 1: that we were the first school, uh, first scholarship granting
Speaker 1: school to cancel fall uh football in the country. UH.
Speaker 1: And we did that almost three months ago. Uh and
Speaker 1: using the same set of principles. And so President Thomas,
Speaker 1: I have to ask you pivoting a little bit away
Speaker 1: from your day to day job, you know, figuring out
Speaker 1: the mechanics of this university. You have studied organizational behavior,
Speaker 1: you have taught UM this over the years. You were
Speaker 1: the dean of a fantastic business school, my alma mater,
Speaker 1: Georgetown University, before you came to this job. I do
Speaker 1: wonder in your job, especially in Atlanta, especially at this
Speaker 1: incredibly press he just historically black college, what is your
Speaker 1: take on what we have seen around racial justice, racial unrest,
Speaker 1: but also more importantly the move towards really starting to
Speaker 1: talk in a serious way about diversity in corporate America.
Speaker 1: What have you seen what have you observed of late yees.
Speaker 1: So it's UM, it's you know, it's it's it's I
Speaker 1: don't quite know what the word is. But what we've
Speaker 1: seen is the confluence of two pandemics. The first is
Speaker 1: the COVID pandemic and the second is the pandemic of
Speaker 1: institutionalized racism UM in our institutions and organizations. UH. And
Speaker 1: you know, if we look at COVID, it's revealed just
Speaker 1: stark inequities in health outcomes along lines of race. And
Speaker 1: then if we look at the pandemic of institutionalized racism,
Speaker 1: what it brings our attention to is the fact that
Speaker 1: there are still policies and practices that give license to
Speaker 1: uh the conscious and unconscious biases UM that devalue um
Speaker 1: black black lives and brown lives uh in our country. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's very interesting to me that these two viruses
Speaker 1: had been come together and so powerfully paint that picture.
Speaker 1: The you know, the other side of it is that,
Speaker 1: in ways that I'm not heard UM in my almost
Speaker 1: forty years as an academic studying at the intersection of
Speaker 1: organizational change, leadership, and race, so many leaders now willing
Speaker 1: to use the words institutional racism, systemic racism. Um that
Speaker 1: it's you know, not just about changing people's attitudes so
Speaker 1: they say they're not racist, but really looking at, you know,
Speaker 1: the underpinnings of our social systems, whether it's for profit
Speaker 1: corporations or educational institutions or the police force. And that
Speaker 1: really gives me some hope that, um, you know, we
Speaker 1: will see that this isn't just a moment, it's actually
Speaker 1: a movement to really move us towards, uh, the ideals
Speaker 1: that underpinned the American idea. So in that sense, I'm
Speaker 1: hopeful more House has been particularly impacted because we are
Speaker 1: the only historically black college uh committed to the education
Speaker 1: of men, and black men have very much been part of,
Speaker 1: you know, the picture of what institutionalized racism looks like
Speaker 1: because of George Floyd. Uh. That's that's not to deny
Speaker 1: that there's also black and brown women who have been affected,
Speaker 1: like Brianna Taylor, but we've really been at the full gram. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, here in Atlanta, I had a student who
Speaker 1: was tased pulled from his car, had done nothing wrong
Speaker 1: other than talked to someone from his car that the
Speaker 1: police didn't want him to talk to. And UM, you know,
Speaker 1: we had to spend time helping to get him released,
Speaker 1: his his record expunged. UM. And I've had other students arrested,
Speaker 1: so I've had to deal with things on that end
Speaker 1: of the continuum. And on the other end, We've had
Speaker 1: a number of people reach out who want to partner
Speaker 1: with Morehouse College because they really want to take this
Speaker 1: moment seriously, UH and make a difference. UM. And that's
Speaker 1: been in the realm of philanthropy UM, as well as
Speaker 1: creating opportunities for our students and partnerships UH to advance
Speaker 1: other aspects of the college. So it's you know, UM,
Speaker 1: it's really captured a lot about the complexity of of
Speaker 1: race and social justice UH in our society, both the
Speaker 1: best of it and the worst of it. Before we go,
Speaker 1: Jan and I know you want to ask one more question. Yes,
Speaker 1: if we could just talk a little bit about football again.
Speaker 1: You were very early on in saying this was not
Speaker 1: a good thing for your community, for the health of
Speaker 1: your athletes, and can you talk about it again. That decision,
Speaker 1: it is manifested in divisions, in in athletic divisions. Some
Speaker 1: have said we can't do this. The sec in in
Speaker 1: the South where you are is continuing and again talk
Speaker 1: what went into that decision and the concern about the
Speaker 1: health of your athletes. Yeah, um, you know, when I
Speaker 1: looked at it, what I one of my principles was
Speaker 1: I would not place any uh segment of my student
Speaker 1: population at more risk than any other segment. We looked
Speaker 1: at football and we just couldn't justify the idea. And
Speaker 1: at that time, we thought we might be able to
Speaker 1: come back in a low density residential format, but it
Speaker 1: just became clear that our football players would be at
Speaker 1: greater risk uh than our other students. And we coupled
Speaker 1: that with the fact that the black community has been
Speaker 1: disproportionately impacted. So the likelihood that you know, we would
Speaker 1: have positive cases on our campus was fairly high. Our
Speaker 1: students are student athletes would travel to other schools. UM
Speaker 1: we had designed a very rigorous protocol to keep our
Speaker 1: students safe, but we couldn't guarantee that all the schools
Speaker 1: that they would visit to play at would have similarly
Speaker 1: rigorous protocols because it's very expensive, you know, to test
Speaker 1: every player every week or twice a week. And UH,
Speaker 1: we also started with the assumption that um our athletes
Speaker 1: are students. First, we admit them to more House College
Speaker 1: with the expectation that they're going to graduate from more
Speaker 1: House College in four years, not that they're going to
Speaker 1: play football for three years and go pro. And UM,
Speaker 1: we just ask ourselves, you know what, what do we
Speaker 1: owe our students? And we say we owe them safety
Speaker 1: and we owe them in education. So the other thing
Speaker 1: that we did, and if you read our announcements, UH,
Speaker 1: in the first paragraph, we make very clear that we
Speaker 1: will guarantee every student athlete their scholarship because we brought
Speaker 1: you here to graduate from Morehouse. UM. And the fact
Speaker 1: that you're a great football player, UH is a dimension
Speaker 1: of merit, but it's not what determined whether you got
Speaker 1: into more House College. And so UH, I'll be quite
Speaker 1: honest with you. I made the announcement without I made
Speaker 1: the decision without talking to another president in Division one
Speaker 1: or Division two UM, and made the decision announced it.
Speaker 1: We put out a public announcement, woke up the next
Speaker 1: day to a plethora of UM you know, calls and
Speaker 1: UM emails. And it was only in the first interview
Speaker 1: I did that I realized we were the first school
Speaker 1: to actually cancel football and the scholarship in school, and
Speaker 1: I was actually shocked. Yeah, well you've got You've had
Speaker 1: a lot of good company since then. Listen, we could
Speaker 1: talk to you for the rest of the day, well
Speaker 1: into the coming back. You're gonna have to come back
Speaker 1: and spend more time with this. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: David Thomas, President of Moore House College, such a awtful
Speaker 1: guy and experience teaching at Harvard and as I said,
Speaker 1: at the dean as the dean of the business school
Speaker 1: at Georgetown mcdonndah school at a time of unbelievable growth
Speaker 1: and where he is now a really important role. And
Speaker 1: uh we we remember also Robert Smith of course, uh
Speaker 1: that huge move uh basically taking on all of the
Speaker 1: student debt there at Morehouse. That's stemmed from a conversation
Speaker 1: over dinner with David Thomas when that all happened. Our
Speaker 1: thanks as well to Janet Lauren, our Education and Higher
Speaker 1: Education and Finance reporter,