Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to four Decades at Gonzaga, a conversation with Gonzaga University President Thane McCullough. In this podcast, we will hear from Gonzaga's 26th president, reflecting on his experiences over his nearly four decades in the Gonzaga community.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: When they asked me to take on the role, I was daunted by the.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Proposition and talking about what's next.
I'm your host, Sarah Schwering, a two time alumna and presidential communications specialist here at gu. In this episode, we'll talk through the early years of of Dr. Mercola's presidency, share stories of some of the most impactful people in his life and career, and discuss some of the biggest challenges he's had to face over the years. Welcome, Dr. Mukullo.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Thank you very much, Sarah. It's great to be with you.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: So, Dr. Mercullo, in 2009, you were asked to rise to the challenge, becoming interim president and then inaugurated in 2010. What was your first reaction when they asked you to be president?
[00:00:56] Speaker B: My first reaction was no.
It really was. I mean, I had been part of the process to identify the next president for the university, and the bylaws stipulated that it needed to be a Jesuit priest. So when they asked me to take on the role, I was daunted by the proposition. Julie and I had three very young daughters, the youngest of whom was four or five. Being a good parent was a really important thing to me. And watching now several presidents working for several presidents in succession and watching how much they traveled, how many late nights and events they needed to be at, and part of it was just overwhelming. So I really was not at all confident that I could do the job. Initially, I was not thrilled.
I ultimately was convinced to do it only by the fact that we were going to try it for an interim period and then be searching again. And I felt if I could be helpful during that interim period, then I would obviously want to be.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: So at your inauguration, you talked about how important it was to hear two things from leaders in the Gonzaga community. One, we want you to do this. And two, we're here to help you. What did it mean to you to have that level of support from day one?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Well, it meant a lot. I mean, one of the things that is maybe not self evident, it wasn't as obvious to me even then as it is to me today, is that the job asks of the person in it to be accountable to a lot of different constituents. And we have responsibilities to our students, to our faculty, to our staff colleagues, to fellow administrators. But we also have responsibilities to our alumni who provide so much support to the members of the local community of which we are a part, to the federal and state government officials that we have relationships with. There are just a lot of different constituents who. Who expect to have a relationship with the university and therefore the president. And so especially having been asked to step into the role as an internal person who had already been a part of the university for a while by that time. But to have the support of our Jesuit community and of the board and of the broader community was very, very important. And I was appreciative that people were willing to serve symbolically as voices to speak to that.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: So when you became president, you mentioned you were the first lay president of Gonzaga, and yet many have described you as being as Jesuit, as the Jesuits. How have you integrated Gonzaga's mission into your daily life, both personally and professionally?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Well, I was sort of raised here at Gonzaga by the Jesuits to a certain degree. Jesuits served as mentors of mine, as a student faculty and chaplains, as a staff member co workers in our residence halls and in student affairs, and as board members and as spiritual guides and really as individuals who have always encouraged me to continue to be a part of the work and to do the work. So if I am identified with the Jesuits, it's because I've been the beneficiary of their tutelage and their support and their sponsorship. And I think that's the way by which I came to integrate an understanding of what the Jesuits desire for Gonzaga and desire for students and desire for the world is. And I've been very, very fortunate because over the years, I've had a lot of experiences that have brought me in contact with Jesuits outside of the university and even to the headquarters of the Society in Rome. And I've been privileged to meet and to have chances to dialogue with two of our Fathers General.
And so each and every one of those conversations played a role in helping me to understand where the Jesuits are, where they're moving, and what they want for Gonzaga.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: So talk to me about that first year as president. What were some of the biggest surprises that you encountered?
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Well, I think one of the biggest surprises was that people were very supportive and very willing to give me room and space to try to introduce new things and to try to do some new things. And I really felt like the first few years internally were years that generally went fairly well and that where we had some challenges, people were willing to pitch in and they were willing to work together. I was immediately challenged in terms of certain decisions that members of the community were asking me to make. I think that's also very natural because people want to know, like, is this all really just window dressing, or does the leader really mean what they say, and are they going to stick by the principles that they articulated, or are they going to waver in the face of challenge? So I don't think it was an unhealthy thing, but it was a new experience. I had largely spent most of my life behind the scenes, and so even though I had been working very closely with, for example, Father Spitzer, a previous president, or Father Glenn or Father Coughlin, people wouldn't necessarily have known that I would have helped them. But I was doing it behind the scenes, and that was a role I was more comfortable with. Being out front, having to make the decision, having to be very public about why you're making a decision. That's a different role.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Well, you had mentioned in our last episode your introvertedness. I'm sure that was a bit of a push at times.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Super fun.
Yeah. I mean, the nature of introverts is that, in part, in my experience, if, say, an introvert is in a very public situation, like a big cocktail party, where they're going around, they're meeting people, at the conclusion of that, they're drained of energy, they're like, they want to go and, you know, hide under a rock. Whereas extroverts actually gain energy from those kinds of energy they love, you know, being. So I. I would sometimes come away from some of these things just, you know, wrung out. But over time, I think you get better and you develop your skill at maybe being able to at least give people the impression you're more comfortable, whether you are or not.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: So you've talked a lot about the importance of Father Coughlin supporting you as a student upon your return from Oxford, as you assumed the role of president. Talk to me about his support for you in this role.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Well, Father Coughlin, having served as our president for 22 years and then having served as our chancellor, which was a somewhat honorary role, but did have an important aspect in that he was very much one who would continue to cultivate relationships for the university and with people who were connected to us, he really understood in a way that very few other people in our environment would have the demands and some of the things that university presidents are compelled to do. And so his whole attitude towards me from the very beginning was one of gratefulness. He said, I and we as a family were making a huge sacrifice that, you know, a lot of people out there might think well, you've got all these great, wonderful things that you get to do. But he was looking at the totality of recognizing that at the end of the day, you're the one who has to figure out the budget, and you have to figure out how all this stuff is going to happen. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that means that you. You really are doing very complex and stressful work. And so he was incredibly gracious and, and said, you know, I want to be helpful. Just let me know what I can do. And that was hugely supportive. We really, really made a huge difference. And one of the ways in which he did that, and I asked him was to introduce me to people who had been generous to the university, but with whom I didn't have a relationship. And so he made a lot of introductions to people who were and have continued to be very generous and were very, very good friends of the university as well.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: So you said that the obligation to serve is a fundamental part of. Of Jesuit education. How would you say that assuming the role of president provided you a way to carry forward the longtime legacy of others and build upon the foundation of the past?
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Well, especially as we've more recently been in the process of anticipating transition to a new president, it's allowed me an opportunity to kind of really reflect on this construct. And I am not a fan of what I call the cult of personality when it comes to leadership. I think leaders play an important role, but they don't play an important role in isolation. They play a role in collaboration with people who want together to make something happen. And so the board of trustees that ultimately makes the decision about who will serve in this role, I've shared with them. I think it's important that they not think about the president as much as they think about the presidency. And they think not so much about a person as to think about the institution.
And I feel very, very blessed to have been a product of this institution's educational experience, to have learned through that some of the traditions of the institution, to have gotten to know people who have made the institution what it is, and to have had the benefit of understanding why a Father Coughlin or a Father Spitzer or a Father Glynn, predecessors of mine, made decisions that they did and allowed me to understand that my role is really to be just part of an ongoing story of the evolution of this institution over a long arc. My hope is to do everything I can to support our next president in understanding as much as possible about some of that prehistory so that they can make sense out of the places we've been, the places that we are, and the places that we've been thinking about moving, and then appropriate that and make that their own as well.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: You bet. You've recently shared that your leadership has been guided by maxims. Of those maxims, what's the one that you continue to go back to on the regular?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: The most important of the maxims that I've tried to share with people is the one that I frame as I'd rather be trusted than liked.
It actually works well in combination with my introversion, by the way, that I don't put a lot of pressure on myself to get out there and be liked. But the reality is everybody wants to be liked. I mean, you want. You want people to be happy with the decisions you make, and you want people to feel that you do care for them and you respect them, and that relationships are important. And doing this work in communion is an important by way of how we do this work as a Jesuit university. But if people don't trust you as a leader to be making decisions that are in the collective interests of the institution, if they think that what is motivating you is something other than wanting the best for the place and wanting the best for them as members of the community, it will impact their willingness to follow and to work alongside you. And I think trust is the essential ingredient of. Of all healthy relationships. And so I realized that there are very different schools of thought around leadership effectiveness. But in my view, trust is the coin of the realm when it comes to leadership, and especially leadership in the academy, where some of the greatest challenges have happened or occurred is where people may have wondered whether or not the commitment to principles or something like that was in question. And. And it's always been super important to me to reaffirm and assert that there is kind of unwavering set of principles that guide me and that my understanding of doing this work well and effectively is, in fact, dependent on having strong, trusted relationships with the people with whom I work.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Yep. Let's talk about some of those relationships. You've often said that it's about the we. The work is about the we and the power of relationships that guide this place, that support this place. So becoming president of Gonzaga, I believe, helped you to realize the dreams of others who came before you. You know, a lot of those individuals, some of whom are still here today, some of whom are not. Who would you say are some of those individuals that you were able to help realize what they dreamed Gonzaga could be?
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Well, actually, Quite recently, I had an opportunity to visit with father Spitzer, our 25th president. You know, it was almost like for me, we could have been talking yesterday. Even though it's been almost 16 years since he left Gonzaga, completing his 11th year as president, I have always appreciated having had the opportunity to be a part of his administration and working to reimagine the ways in which we thought about our financial aid strategy and making Gonzaga a place that more students could afford. All of the commitment that he had to take a Gonzaga that had fallen on some really stressful times, which is the Gonzaga he found, and make significant things happen that would bring greater prosperity and greater opportunity to the institution.
He followed in that the great contributions and leadership of Father Coughlin. And so I see them, you know, as being really, really significant in terms of setting tone and direction for the institution. But as a student, because we were a small community, I got to know a lot of people, some of whom I became co workers with. Father Art Dough is a kind of a legendary figure, especially for those of us who were at Gonzaga in the sort of mid 20th century period. He was a towering figure. He was incredibly funny. He was also incredibly intimidating. He was a personal friend of Bing Crosby. He was really instrumental to that relationship and the, you know, the contributions that the Crosby family made to Gonzaga. He knew an awful lot of people, and so he got some wonderful people to campus. People like Sister Laura Michaels, who were in the university ministry department at the time. She and I knew one another up until, you know, her passing and got great chances to work together and to know one another as friends and colleagues together with others of her sisters or society. Another legend, Father Tony Lehman, he was one of the residence hall chaplains in Dooley hall my freshman year. And he was a remarkable individual. And Julie and I actually had a chance to work together with him in a non university capacity in marriage prep classes.
Just a lovely, wonderful, kind person who was gregarious and loved everybody and seemingly knew everybody. Although I knew some of his tricks.
You know, I wouldn't be at Gonzaga but for Sue Weitz. Sue, our vice president for student life in those days when I came here, and then even up to my earliest years as president, she was the one who gave me the first opportunity to work here and several others beyond that, chances to grow within student affairs. So some great, great colleagues here at the university and I have to mention some wonderful benefactors as well. I mean, John Hemingson, who is an Inland Northwest contributor, he's very quiet about all of his generosity, but He's a benefactor of many causes and really wants so much for North Idaho and for Spokane and its prosperity. Fritz Wolf, former chair of our board and never an alum of Gonzaga. His son is an alum, but he really attached to Gonzaga and became a really significant person in the early years of my presidency as our board chair and a mentor and somebody to really inspire. And he also was of like mind when it came to my attitude about GU which is we were kind of possessed of an inferiority complex that we didn't deserve. Our aspiration should be to strive to be seen as what we are, which is really actually an amazing place that does have a place in the pantheon of American higher education and should be recognized for that. So Fritz was really, really inspiring around that. But there are just so many people who have been generous to Gonzaga and instrumental to my work, because without that support, you know, we can't go places that we need to go, and we can't do things that we need to do.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. So. Myrtle Woltson, an institution in Spokane's history and our Regents history, I remember when we were made aware of her transformational gift of support for our institution. We deemed her our angel on the hill. I think for some folks that know where her house was located, she looked down at GU and she saw Gonzaga grow. She saw she grew with the institution and always believed in the power of what we could do. Talk to me about the relationship with Ms. Wolts, and how did that come to be?
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Well, Ms. Wolson, as you mentioned, was an individual who had most of her life lived here in Spokane. She was part of this, you know, social scene in the 20s and 30s and into the 40s. And so having been long a member of the Spokane community, it probably, you know, would come as no surprise that she, among other people of means, were of interest in particular to the Jesuits who were looking for financial support.
So her relationship to Gonzaga began quite a long time ago. And it began through the development of relationships that Father Coughlin and probably other Jesuits as well, cultivated. I came to know her when Father Coughlin let me know that her personal representative had reached out and wanted to meet with the president.
And so that was the beginning of really a fantastic set of interactions and engagements, not only with Ms. Wolson, but with her personal representatives, her business manager, Monty and Mark Danner. It was amazing and wonderful to be able to get to know her, to have the opportunity to understand her view of the world, to become aware of how much respect and appreciation she had for her father, who. Who taught Her a lot about business and a lot about investing, and to come to learn about some of the experiences that she had had. One of the things she shared with me is that something that really had an impact on her. We had a student athlete who had gotten in trouble, and she was a big fan of Gonzaga basketball. She followed Gonzaga basketball. She came to Gonzaga basketball games when she could, and she was tracking very carefully what was happening with this student athlete. The decision that was made was to give that student athlete another chance. Even though there had been a problem and an illegal issue or whatever. I don't know, she really respected the fact that Gonzaga gave this young person a chance and created an opportunity for him to redeem himself. And she thought that that was a mark of something worth supporting. And so, in her own quiet way, she actually began supporting Gonzaga very quietly, very kind of under the radar. But I believe that character mattered to her, and I believe that she really saw young people as the future, and she wanted to do something that would help Gonzaga continue to be the kind of place that gave people a chance and a great education.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: What did you think? What went through your mind when you learned about her transformational gift?
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Well, you know, it was interesting because in the time leading up to her passing, we got more and more specific about what it is that we would do if she was willing to support Gonzaga. And we had settled on the performing Arts Center. You know, we went back and forth in discussion about how large it would be, what it would involve, some of the specifics that she desired for it. She was a huge fan of music. She was herself an accomplished musician, but she loved, more broadly the arts, performing arts. She loved dance and theater, and she would travel distances to go and participate in arts events. So we had a pretty clear sense of what it was that we would try to do if she chose to make Gonzaga the target of her benefaction, the recipient of her generosity. What I did not realize is that she would choose to basically leave everything.
So not only did she grant to us wonderful properties in Seattle, which we continue to hold, but also her home, her car, you know, apart from a very small set of bequests, she gave Gonzaga everything, all, everything in her house. And so this was a tremendous and incredibly generous act. And really, I believe to this day, given the continuously accumulating value of these properties, remains one of the largest single gifts to a university by a private individual in the state of Washington. It's an enormous act of generosity, and, of course, I was very, very grateful. But what was even more Fun was then being able to work with her representatives to bring her vision to life. And, and we have today scholarships that are supporting students and a wonderful performing arts center and these amazing properties that are going to be developed and will continue to generate support for students. So it's just a fabulous legacy and I'm very, very honored to have been a part of it.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: So when you talked about the maxim of rather being trusted than liked, you started to talk about some of the challenges that have happened that have occurred during your presidency that you've had to navigate, that you've had to lean on others to trust in decisions and be a part of those decisions. So let's start at the beginning. When you first took over office of the President, our country was still deeply affected by the 2008 recession and Gonzaga was impacted by the bankruptcy and ultimate settlement of the Oregon Province. So looking back at that time, how did you remain confident that Gonzaga could make it through in a world that was so uncertain?
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Well, you know, to a certain degree you don't have a choice. Leadership compels people to act in a way that inspires people to believe that there is reason for hope. And the inspiration you hope becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I mean, I think it can work the other way too. I think if you telecast to people that there's nothing but doom and gloom on the horizon, it can have a concomitant impact. So I really like this saying that I've used with people once in a while when they mispronounce the way we pronounce Gonzaga. Most of the world pronounce Gonzaga, Gonzaga. And they're right, but we pronounce it Gonzaga. And when I have to remind them of that, I say to people, look, you know what? Others zig, we zag, zigzag. So a little bit about dealing with the aftermath of the 08 financial crisis was in figuring out how we're going to zag. And a lot of institutions, because the value of their endowments dropped and they became very concerned about whether or not they were going to raise any money and these kinds of things, they zigged and they pulled back their support and they decreased the amount of money that they were giving to students. We didn't, we went the other direction. And so as a matter of fact, in response to the sort of 0809 crisis in 2010, we actually enrolled one of our largest classes in part because we kind of went for broke and said, if everybody else is going this way, we should go that way. And I think part of the story of Gonzaga is doing that is to say, it may seem intuitive that given this set of facts, we should go in this direction, but actually, we think that it might be better to go in that direction. And we've tried to do that in a number of ways and a number of times. In truth, you don't know how it's going to end up. And when it comes down to it, a lot of the work of leadership is about exuding confidence in the face of uncertainty and hoping that it works out. And even if you don't get exactly where you thought you were going to go, you probably have a much better chance of getting close. And that's sort of the attitude that I've brought to it. But we did find ourselves confronting a lot of challenges in those early years.
The bankruptcy was a hugely difficult time, psychically, for the Society of Jesus in the Northwest. It was a hugely difficult time for the church because the diocese, as well, declared bankruptcy and was dealing with its settlement. Nobody really knew what that meant for Gonzaga as a Catholic Jesuit university, for that matter, you know, for other works of the church. And indeed, we didn't really know exactly how generous people would be when it came to fundraising or how. How we would deal with some of the challenges of our investments. But you just kind of go to work and you roll up your sleeves and you continue to focus on the positives. And as we say in the office, I don't know, we'll figure it out. We just figure it out. We go step by step and see where each step is taking us and then try to proceed from there.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: Gonzaga was one of very few institutions that opened in fall 2020 with a full hybrid program. If you could reflect back on that time, what went into that decision?
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I know that there were other institutions around the country that also did. I think we were certainly one of few in the west, because on the west coast, there was a lot of concern about what reopening would mean. What first went into that decision was focusing on the question, who are the best people in the the country who are working this problem and what are they learning about the virus and how to manage it? And I turn to the resources of colleagues at places like Johns Hopkins University who were led at that time by a president who was a virologist and were developing plans for reopening for higher education. They reflected an incredible amount of work and acumen around how institutions needed to imagine this and think about it. We were obviously paying very close attention as things were evolving to who is most impacted by this virus. And it became clear as time went on and as the virus continued to mutate that age mattered and that there were obviously a lot of confounding factors. But as a general statement, those who were elderly were more susceptible or vulnerable than those who were younger. And so here we are kind of stacking data up, scientific data. But the other thing that really drove us was the question of, what are we here to do and how are we going to get it done? And the reality is there are disciplines that we offer at Gonzaga, like nursing, that are incredibly difficult to do over Zoom in their entirety.
Senior design projects in engineering are impossible to do on Zoom exclusively. But there's a whole host of other things that demanded, if you will, that we really examine carefully. The question, can we close? Can we fulfill our mission if we close? And our decision was, let's try to see how we can create opportunity for as many people as possible using as much optionality as we can.
That, to me, was key to the strategy. It was, if you need to continue your work remotely, we'll create the mechanism for doing that. If you need to be in person, we'll try to create the mechanism for doing that. One of the things that a lot of people didn't realize at the time but became obvious as time went on, we never closed, in part because we never didn't have students. So we had students who were international students whose countries had shut their borders and were not letting anybody in, including their own people. A lot of people have forgotten about this, but, you know, like, Australia was closed for, like, two years. New Zealand tried to insulate itself in a big bubble. We had students from countries that similarly were just simply not accepting people for a time. And we had to support them. They were on our campus. They needed to eat. They needed to be taken care of. We needed to continue to create a safe environment for them. And that's part of what drove these decisions, too. So very, very challenging, multifaceted time, but really driven by the question, how can we continue to do the work we're here to do, but do it as safely as possible and give people as many options as possible, whether they're faculty or. Or staff or students.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: What were the top things that kept you up at night during that time?
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Everything kept me up. I mean, of course I worried. I mean, during that summer, there were articles being written in higher education, you know, journals like Inside Higher Ed or the Chronicle, and there were people who were basically saying the functional equivalent of presidents of universities. If you reopen people will die. And to bear the heavy weight of recognizing that there is risk and that there is the possibility that notwithstanding everything you're thinking of that you want to try to do in bringing people together as safely as possible, someone might get sick and die as people were. That was very, very heavy burden. A lot of tossing and turning. And the way I described it was a period where there were no good options, like we were making the best choice we could between bad options. And that's a rare circumstance, but it was, I think, the situation that many in society found themselves facing.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: What would you say is the most difficult thing that you faced as president?
[00:35:09] Speaker B: It's always the worst moment when you learn that one of the students has died. Whether, you know, it's a situation due to an accident or an illness, or whether, you know, kind of self inflicted situation or somebody dies of cancer. When we lose a student, it's really, really tough because there's nothing you can do up to that kind of circumstance. We can usually try to do something to help.
You know, somebody finds themselves in a really bad situation and we could get to them and try to intervene and support if somebody's struggling and we can try to get them with the resources or somebody's lost their home and we try to gather together resources to make continuing at Gonzaga possible. All of those are situations where you still have the ability to perhaps positively impact their situation. But when somebody dies, it's a situation where your work now moves into a support of people who are grieving. Trying to be there with fellow students and family members, and making sure that the resources of our campus are surrounding them and sharing with them how much we care for them. But it's just a very, very tough situation. We have, over my time, lost students. We lost a student the spring that we were shut down and just a super, super difficult time. And being with people and trying to accompany them in their grief as parents and family members is always really, really hard, but very important at the same time.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: I would imagine that that was never something that you could have thought of when you stepped into this role.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: It was a little bit more integrated into awareness for me because my foundation in student affairs meant that I was very aware of what was happening in the student population.
And we had students who died while I was working in student affairs. We had students who died in the residence halls, but fortunately not very many. We had injuries and accidents and such, but we did lose students during my time. And also what you become aware of as a member of a university community is that you really do have people who span the age spectrum and the health spectrum. And so we've also lost faculty members and staff and Jesuits in some cases. It's been actually a quite beautiful thing to be a part of accompanying them through the end of their lives and to be a part of that and to hopefully be a support and consolation through some of those experiences, too. So it's a part of life, and you recognize that life has beginnings and endings, but it's probably not the first thing people think about when they think about, well, what does the president do? To be there to accompany people through grieving processes is, as it turns out, actually quite an important experience.
That has been important for me.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: You've talked about being asked to provide the eulogy at Father Coghlan's funeral. Talk to me about that experience.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: I was very honored to offer a reflection as part of the vigil because for me, it underscored an awareness on the part of the Jesuits and Father Coughlin's family that this was a really significant relationship for me and for us. I was honored. I felt really blessed to be able to bear witness to my experience of his life and the contributions that he's made, because it was a life well lived. He lived a long life, and it was a rich life, and it was a life that he would have characterized as filled with generosity and opportunity and many graces and blessings. It really could be a celebration of a life.
And my reflection attempted to capture the profound impact that he had. Yes. But also some of the humor that he brought, which is important and which is also very much a part of people's experience of him. And so I considered it a huge honor. And I've been fortunate because I've been asked to do that on a number of occasions over the years for different members of our community or Jesuits.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: So my last question is a big part of serving as president is balancing making tough decisions while still maintaining trust and morale. So what would you say is one thing that you wish more people understood about the role of a university president?
[00:40:06] Speaker B: The most difficult thing is that you're frequently in a situation where you can't actually talk about everything that you know. You have obligations to people to preserve their privacy and their dignity, to uphold the policies that have been created by your institution and to abide by them and recognize that as an institution, there are real differences between what the institution can say or do and what private individuals can do, and that that's just simply part of the reality of the situation. So what I what I wish more people understood is that if they had all the information that I do, I think they'd make the same decision. But I can't tell them all the information. I can't share that with them. And that's actually one of my maxims. I sometimes say to people, I am very confident that if you had all the information I do, you would come to the same conclusion. But the bad news is I can't share what I know. So we're just going to have to agree that this is the way that things have to roll. And that goes back to the earlier maxim. If people trust you, they may not like the decision you make, but they still believe that you're trying to make the best decision you can and that it's in the interests of the institution, it's in the interest of the individual that it should be in. If they don't trust you, then it's kind of game over. So no matter what you do, no matter what you say, they will choose to believe whatever they want to. But, you know, in a lot of ways, that's the way life is anyway. I mean, we cannot control what people think or what they believe. And so to try, I think, is a fool's errand. All we can do is to do our level best to make the best decisions we can based on the information that we have available to us and have confidence that the outcomes will bear out. That you are indeed consistently trying to do that.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Dr. Mercollo, for your time today. Stay tuned for the next episode where we will discuss the importance of Gonzaga's mission, share stories of some of the biggest accomplishments from his time as president, and talk through some of the most significant, significant changes occurring in higher ed today. We'll see you next time for more four decades at Gonzaga, a conversation with Gonzaga University President theanmallow.
