00:00:00Tamara: Today is November 6th, 2015. I'm Tamara Kennelly, and I'm here with Vice President and Dean of the Graduate School Karen DePauw. This is our fourth interview. So you were honored by the Graduate Student Association when they established the Karen DePauw Fellowship in recognition of your work in changing graduate education at Virginia Tech in 2004. This happened really only after a few years after you arrived. The things you did in a relatively short time must have just made a huge difference in the lives of the students. We've talked about various things you did, but I just wondered if you had any comment on that--coming from the students seems especially important.
00:00:52Karen: Yes, I think it's very important, and I was very honored to have it come from the students. It was a surprise; I had no idea that anything like this was coming. I think it was, in part, for what they anticipated that we would do as well. Because in two years how much can one accomplish? We did set some things in motion, but I think it was really to recognize what we worked on--because we had plans for the Graduate Life Center at that point and transformative graduate education, these things were happening. I don't know why they did it. You'd have to ask them [laughter], but it was very much an honor, and it's--I've had a number of awards and things over the years, but those which come from the constituency groups and the people for whom I do the work really mean a lot.
00:01:54Tamara: You in turn have worked to honor graduate students, and I wondered if you'd tell about some of the ways you've done that.
00:02:02Karen: We tried and accomplished several things over the years. One that we had an achievement--Graduate Students of Distinction--I think is what we called it. This was when we were still printing things. We identified all of the grad students who had earned some kind of distinction or honor, and at the time of commencement, we actually published this for a while. That was to recognize everybody across campus, because grad students were not recognized very much, if at all. So we pulled that together, so that was one of the things. Because that was getting to be so large, such a large number that we're not doing that anymore. Colleges and departments and programs are doing a lot more of that, and I think that's best. Now we're into all the social media, so I'll tweet things, and we'll put it on Facebook, so it's a way of recognizing the graduate students for their efforts. We also have a number of fellowships that we give to grad students, which is a recognition of their accomplishment. We can find a number of those on the website. I think, Tamara, that you may be getting at some of the other things that I asked President Steger some years ago, [which was] to have a reception for all of the grad students who had received fellowships or special recognition awards. He hosted once a year a reception. These are small things, but yet very important. Some of the grad students who attended some of the first commented that they had never been in the Grove, and when they brought their faculty members, their faculty members had not been in the Grove.
00:04:27Tamara: That's major.
00:04:29Karen: It was kind of significant that Steger opened up his house to honor, to have a reception for some of the grad students. We have a Distinguished Graduate Alum, so it's someone who is an alumnus, and we give that annually every year. We have the Preston Society, the Outstanding Dissertation, the Outstanding Thesis, Graduate Student of the Year, and GTA Excellence, and a number of others that I can't even remember all of the things. We have a whole long list that we give out at Grad Ed. week. We've also-- I serve as advisor to Alpha Epsilon Lambda the AEL group, which is for leadership among the graduate student population and interdisciplinary research. So in that way we're honoring the people by having them join, if they meet the qualifications, they can join the organization. The Bouchet Society -- Edward Bouchet, the first African American to receive a Ph.D., not here but at Yale. We are now a chapter of that organization. We had I think seven of our grad students recognized last year. I was also recognized as a member of the Bouchet Society. That's a relatively recent one. We are going to have a display in the Graduate Life Center soon about that because that's really new. We have maybe twelve universities who have chapters of the Bouchet Society.
00:06:10Tamara: All African Americans?
00:06:14Karen: No, the way we have defined our chapters--it's in honor of an African American. Those that we put forward for membership are those whose scholarship is around diversity and inclusion. So we have taken that approach. We have an Academy of GTA excellence, which we are honoring graduate students who meet certain criteria. Those are just some examples I guess.
00:06:51Tamara: That's a lot.
00:06:52Karen: The full list you can find on the website.
00:06:56Tamara: Okay. Do you get many alumni coming back to Virginia Tech, to the Graduate Life Center?
00:07:06Karen: Every year in the fall we do a graduate alumni homecoming, and it is held in the GLC. I don't know, maybe eight years now we might have been doing this. We will get anywhere from about forty-five to about--I think the high was a hundred that came back. That's not bad considering it's graduate alumni homecoming, and many people are return visitors, they come several times. Now that's just on that one event. I will frequently have grad students who have been here since I've been here come back in and say hi, or they're in the area, and that's because they have a connection to the grad school, to me, and to the Graduate Life Center. They come back and visit, which is great.
00:08:10Tamara: Yeah, getting that connection and possibly mentoring for other people in the future. I wonder if you'd discuss a little bit some of the technological innovations that have occurred at the graduate school on your watch.
00:08:31Karen: Just about everything that and how we use technology now has come under my watch simply because of the timing. Before 2002, there wasn't a lot that was electronic or digital, so what we have created initially, obviously a website and an electronic catalog. On the catalog, typically the phases of technology as I call them is 1.0, 2.0, and moving towards 3.0. 1.0 for me is what we did, what we were doing all over the place where we take something and we make a PDF and we make an electronic copy of that document. I didn't want to do that with the catalog; I wanted to jump to the interactive, and so we put together a catalog that has the information that we need, but it is interactive in that it has links to various places and other documents. it uploads classes from banner. The departments annually have to update that, so they are the ones that can go in and write into it. It is a living document. The e-catalog, or the electronic catalog, was one of the things we did. On the website, we did a featured graduate student of the month. Essentially where we are asking the grad students to go in, upload a photo, answer some questions, and then it goes live-- I mean, it's automatic. We did the scheduling on the webpage. All of the exams you can find those now as they are being held; they are uploaded. Once they fill out their scheduling form the information is grabbed and moved over onto the website so people can see. Now because we are 2015 social media, the tweeting, the blogging, I actually have about, I think, thirteen different blog sites that we are managing. We have one for the grad school, one for me. and one for classes. We are doing a lot of use of blogs, Instagram, Facebook, and there's probably some other things in terms of the social media. Probably one of the biggest things that we've undertaken is the electronic signature system trying to get that. This is not just a copy of a signature being put on a letterhead, but it is where the verification of someone going in and signing a plan of study or signing for the scheduling form. We had to create that to have it all be interactive for the electronic signature, and we are putting all of the applications, the recruitment, everything is going online. We are moving away from paper almost completely. In the application process, we were with a vendor for a while, and now we've built our own because the vendor couldn't do what we needed to do, so we built the whole online application, and that's interactive with the recruitment. We are going all the way through to the final exam scheduling and submitting of the ETD, Electronic Thesis and Dissertation.
00:12:35Tamara: Do you have an IT department then, as part of the graduate school?
00:12:39Karen: Yes, in fact one of my colleague's years ago--there was a person who was doing IT when I got here, but it was not as advanced as we are right now. At one point, I had four IT employees. Central IT didn't have the resources, the time, nor interest, and grad school didn't have the priority in Central IT, so I decided to just hire these people and do it on my own. Virginia Tech has led the way with technology. We have a virtual Grad Life Center too. We're not using it much right now, but we built all of that so that people could build a little avatar, go in and explore, and do workshops and view documents in the virtual GLC. We were very much ahead of our time. We're still ahead of many university grad schools.
00:13:47Tamara: At another point I'll have to talk to you about what part of those foreign digital materials we should be archiving because that's pretty amazing. I want to switch gears in the things I'm asking you about and talk about some of the incidents that have happened and how they affected the graduate school and how you dealt with them. So the first one, I was wondering how the graduate school was affected by the William Morva incident in 2006; first day of school.
00:14:21Karen: Yes, that was very interesting because that was not only the first day of school, but it was the first day that we moved into the Graduate Life Center.
00:14:28Tamara: Oh gosh.
00:14:29Karen: Then when they thought he was in Squires… that's correct because they thought he was--
00:14:39Tamara: Yes, they thought he was, but he wasn't.
00:14:42Karen: So the things that I recall about that is--thinking about this was the first day that I had moved the grad school and people were living there--we had this incident, and we had to go into kind of a lockdown because they didn't know where he was. I remembered looking out my window and seeing the police cars in the parking lot and all kinds of activities. There was concern, as there should be among the grad school staff, so we locked down. I mean we closed up as we were supposed to. I guess, in all honesty, we were told not to let people into the GLC, and I went down to the main area, and there were people who were outside either on the parking lot side or on the bookstore side that wanted to come in, and I let them in. I guess I'll just fess up to it, because I was not going to have somebody standing out there potentially getting in harm's way. I violated that rule. I told people about that later. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that, but that was a judgment call. I'd rather have them inside. Then when he was found someplace else, then we could open everything up. It didn't last long, and I think a greater reaction was the aftermath after April 16th.
00:16:36Tamara: Well that was the next thing I wanted to ask you about, and just maybe take us through your day that day. I know that's really hard.
00:16:46Karen: Yeah, because that was after--I mean April 16th was before, right?
00:16:51Tamara: April 16th was after Morva.
00:16:53Karen: After Morva, oh yes, that's right.
00:16:57Tamara: Because 2006 was Morva, and the school shootings was 2007.
00:17:00Karen: Right, it's the other one that you'll ask about.
00:17:01Tamara: I'm afraid so.
00:17:03Karen: I got them out of order here. So April 16th I was actually in--I had a standing eight o'clock meeting over in Burruss, and two of us were there, the provost and another vice provost were not in the room. The provost was driving some place. Anyway it was John Dooley and I who were in that space, and Provost McNamee's assistant Gale, I believe was her name, she came in to say that there was an emergency and that there had been a shooting, I believe. I can't remember exactly how she said it, but that we weren't having a meeting and that we weren't to say anything, but that we were to go back to our respective offices. John's office was in Burruss, but I had to walk back to the GLC.
00:17:55Tamara: So this is probably a little after eight.
00:17:58Karen: Yes, just a little bit after eight, so I thought, okay so I won't say anything. We didn't know a whole lot. At the time I walked in to the GLC, they knew more than I did. The staff, because some of the employees had relatives who worked in the police department, and there were some pieces of information that was getting out there. So I actually called over to the President's office because I felt like I needed to get more information because there was nothing public at that point, and I wanted, well I said, my folks already know, and I don't know exactly how they know, but they know more than I do. I wanted to transmit that information because if they thought that they were keeping it a secret, it wasn't, and we didn't know what the accurate information was. Then in the GLC, I mean obviously people were upset initially, and then when the rest of the killings, shootings occurred, then that information was traveling fairly quickly, I guess. Then people were becoming much more concerned. I mean there was already concern, and then to understand the extent of it. I remember getting, I think, a phone call or something where people were implying that it was more than a few. Then a lot more than a few were killed. Probably sometime then the university was closed. I can't remember those details. I went over to the Inn at the end of the day to see how I could help. David Ford, John Dooley, and I did a lot of trying to work with the various family members that were there. Just how everything--just whatever we could. There were no jobs assigned. We just wanted to be there. I stayed there till probably about eleven o'clock at night. I think at that point most everybody was notified, and we were trying to help out with some of the grad students because there was some religious--I mean there was a Muslim who had a certain time frame of some things according to the ritual that needed to be done, so we were just trying to help and see what we could do. The provost is the individual who had to tell all the families, so I was just there till about eleven o'clock that night, and then I finally left.
00:21:16Tamara: Was there a lockdown in the GLC earlier in that day then?
00:21:22Karen: Oh I'm sure there was. I don't--
00:21:26Tamara: Maybe when there was that period between things.
00:21:29Karen: Yes, because there wasn't before during that period when Cho was actually moving across campus, apparently going to the post office and back. I'm sure we were in lockdown. I mean I don't remember that as much as I do the Morva one just because that was the first one that we had experienced. Yes, we were impacted like everyone was. Again, I don't think we got much work done that day, any place on campus.
00:22:10Tamara: What about in the aftermath, were you involved in things in the aftermath working with the families?
00:22:18Karen: Yes, I was over at the Inn much of the next couple of days, meeting with some of the families, trying to identify some folks who could work with the families of the grad students. I know I talked with the families of the grad students, some of them that were there at one point--just trying to assure them that we were going to do whatever we could do. Most of this was being handled obviously by the president and Zenobia Hikes and others who were to be the lead folks on this. I was just lending support. Ultimately, I would end up giving the posthumous degrees, awarding those, reading the names and reading the bios of all of the grad students at commencement the next month. In that way I was, over the weeks and days, somewhat involved with the grad students' families. Each of them had a liaison, but these were individuals who had more time to devote to working specifically with the families where I still needed to do the other things. We needed to keep the operation--grad school--going. While honoring and working with those, but one of the hardest days of my career here was at that commencement because it was the first one in the morning. We were before--well I don't know, we must have been in the afternoon, but university commencement followed. It was the grad commencement where we were giving out the class rings and some things to each family. I was there before the ceremony, and then as the families entered--we had written a paragraph to honor each of the graduate students who were killed. I wanted to do justice to what they had contributed as individuals and as students. So they were all sitting in the front row. A very emotional time, of course. I remember thinking that I needed to get through this, which I knew I would. I wasn't sure how I would get through it. So I started calling the name of the first individual and inviting the family to come up, and I remember I got a portion of the way through and I started to get choked up, and what I recall is thinking to myself, don't go there. You have to keep it under control, and I did. I tried to be very professional and intentionally trying to connect with the family and with everybody around, to honor the individual. I think overall we did a good job. I remember when I finished, I looked around, and there was not a dry eye except me. That's just because I had intentionally, and there were other dry eyes, but it was a very, very emotional time, as it should be. Then I remember having kind of a sigh of relief because I got through that. What we had to balance was honoring those students and not detracting from the commencement of those who were living and graduating. I think the balance was good because we needed to be celebratory for the others, so I couldn't have just the posthumous degrees be ones that set the tone, but to be celebratory and respectful. I think we did an okay job; we didn't hear too many complaints. Just kind of an interesting tidbit is that because we were first, and people were watching or listening around the world for what was happening at [Virginia] Tech, my son heard my voice on the radio and on T.V.. I don't think I was ever shown, because there was a lot of media coverage, and some other people sent notes saying, yeah, I heard your voice.
00:28:20Tamara: Your son was hearing it from where?
00:28:23Karen: California.
00:28:24Tamara: California, wow.
00:28:25Karen: Yes, that's why it couldn't be early in the morning here. For a while, over the years, I would see some of the families as they would come back, and time has moved on.
00:28:43Tamara: Did you find that--well I have a question for that one--with the undergraduates, they had an option of whether to take the grade they had or to go back to classes. Was that an option in the graduate school as well?
00:29:00Karen: We used the same option.
00:29:04Tamara: The same thing on all levels?
00:29:07Karen: Yes.
00:29:08Tamara: Okay. I wondered if afterward you found that many of your students, faculty and staff experienced some level of post-traumatic stress.
00:29:20 Karen: Yes, I think there were a lot of people who were impacted differently. We tried to be understanding of the grad students, providing counseling services in the GLC or sending people places. We were very respectful of where they were in that place. In terms of staff, I don't recall anybody saying they had post-traumatic stress syndrome. But we have some different staff now, so I haven't followed them, but whatever people needed in terms of time off or coping. Yes, it was all there.
00:30:23Tamara: The counseling sessions or whatever people needed.
00:30:26Karen: Yes.
00:30:31Tamara: What did you do personally for yourself to heal? You were having to keep your feelings pretty much like you said.
00:30:46Karen: It was interesting because I don't know what has happened particularly, specifically in my life, but I have been able to cope I think fairly well with big crises, many crises, or whatever over time. I did not suffer from PTSD. Obviously, I had to take some time, but I didn't do much in particular other than acknowledge, be involved, and keep moving forward on what we needed to do to honor the past and celebrate the future. In fact, I reflected on the fact that I wasn't having too many challenges during that time. I wasn't impacted as emotionally as others. I don't think I'm a hard person and not caring; it's just how I was dealing with some of the crisis. I didn't, other than just know and process some things myself, I didn't do anything special.
00:32:06Tamara: Were there changes made in the GLC or the way it operated as a result, or for security reasons, or anything that came afterwards?
00:32:16Karen: Well as it happened across campus, they changed the doors so we don't have two handles. We just have one handle because Cho had been able to take two handles on a door and locked them closed, so that was changed around campus. We ended up with the signs, the warning signs with the messaging. That was university wide, so whatever happened in the GLC, happened across campus.
00:32:47Tamara: On the same--
00:32:49Karen: Nothing beyond that.
00:32:53Tamara: Do you have any comment on Virginia Tech's response to the incident?
00:33:00Karen: Yes, I have a lot of thoughts. I don't think I really can share all of them, and that's just because I think we did the best that we thought we could at the moment. I'm saying that collectively. I think we might have lost a little bit of our humanness in working with the families. It's a very difficult time obviously, and I would come down on the side of trying to make connections with the family and understanding where they were coming from, and apologize, which the university wouldn't. That's why I probably shouldn't say too much more. Simply because, I don't ever want to put the, I don't want to hurt the university in what it did or didn't do, I just tend to be more on the side of, yes, I'm really sorry that we are in this situation and how can we help?
00:34:27Tamara: Well you're probably ready for where I'm going next.
00:34:31Karen: [Laughter] Yes, I know where you're going, the next six months or eight months.
00:34:35Tamara: Yeah, January 2009, but it seemed like it was one thing right after another, or the one I'm thinking of where it was that awful incident where the grad student from China was decapitated by a Chinese doctoral student right in the Au Bon Pain in the GLC, which is in a different place then it is currently now. So I wondered how you handled that incident.
00:35:02Karen: Well interestingly enough I was teaching that night. I was probably fifty feet away from Au Bon Pain. I was actually having my first class of the Global Perspectives Program, and we were in room B, and just on the other side of the lobby was Au Bon Pain where it occurred. I was just convening class when all of the sudden I saw the flashing lights of a police car and heard the sirens and heard people running into the building, so then I kind of stopped class. I said, let me go see what's happening. So I went out, and that's then when I was told. By that time they had him out of the building because it happened so quickly with the female. I didn't go near Au Bon Pain at that time; well I was already close, but they told me what had happened, and that he was arrested. Actually, I didn't know about the beheading at that time.
00:36:15Tamara: Just that he had killed--
00:36:17Karen: Something had happened, and they had it under control. So I went back into the class, and then we were going to--not realizing the seriousness of it--we were going to move up into the graduate school offices and continue some of the conversation as need be. They could not go in the hallway; they had to go outside to go up into the classroom. By the time I was making my way back, I was finding out and getting kind of a status, and I had to walk by Au Bon Pain because there was no way to get to my office, so then I could see the extent of what had happened. By the time I got upstairs, people were emailing each other, and… anyway I canceled class. No one was going to be--nor I--could pay attention at that point. Then I went back downstairs to see, because it's in the GLC. The president and provost were not in the area, so it was the police and me. Larry Hincker would come over later; Tom Brown was around for a while. I was in the facility for quite a long time. The announcement that went out to everybody, the message said, "Murder in the GLC." At that point my phone went off, because everybody knew that I was in the building. Some of the people wondered; several of them said, I'm glad you answered the phone.
00:38:23Tamara: Yeah, people were scared.
00:38:25Karen: In fact, Shelli, my partner, was in Florida when she got that message and was obviously a bit upset, but I did answer the phone, so then she knew I was okay. We learned, [Virginia] Tech learned from that that even though that was the factual information, that's not how we lead with a message. You don't say, "Murder in the GLC." So fortunately, we've changed some of that language.
00:38:55Tamara: How would you say it?
00:38:57Karen: "Incident," rather than. It could have said, "Student on student incident" or something rather than leaving it nebulous.
00:39:10Tamara: Yeah.
00:39:12Karen: It was just the simple line, and I didn't think about it, but I was in the building, and I knew it wasn't me, but we did have a serious incident. I spent some time with the police chief; they were handling most of it, but we had to find out who he was and who she was. I was trying to get someone from the Chinese community, and actually I located the individual that I wanted. He was in China; he was flying back from China. I needed someone who could--we had to call the family. It was twelve hours difference, so it was almost midday in China. We called the family, called the mother, and she was at work. That was from my office. We went up to my office to make the phone call to her, to let her know. Whether or not it should have come from a graduate dean, we now have protocols, but we didn't really have all the protocols that we needed, so I was doing what I thought was the best at that time. So we notified the family, and obviously, the mother was very upset.
00:40:51Tamara: You personally had to speak with her?
00:40:52Karen: I didn't because--
00:40:54Tamara: Because you don't speak Chinese, but this other faculty member or whatever could.
00:41:00Karen: Yes, so he was in the room--
00:41:01Tamara: You were doing it together in a way.
00:41:03Karen: Yes, it was in my office just to let her know. Trying to find someone in the middle of the night who speaks Chinese and is willing to come in, but it worked, and so she was notified. Then there was discussion, or sometime in there, about were we going to close down the GLC. I said, no. Au Bon Pain, yes. It had to be closed down because they had to clean up everything and that took some weeks, but I didn't want the GLC closed down. We needed to keep having people in and out. Again, we need to be very respectful of what had happened. This was very close to Chinese New Year, and their event was scheduled later that week in the GLC because they had been doing that. It was held, and that was their choice. I personally came down on the side of yes, let's hold it and celebrate her life. There was a memorial and things for her, but it was the Chinese New Year, and so these things could be folded in. It was a lovely event, if I can say that. I was there for part of it, but again it was one of those moments kind of like the commencement celebrating one, who had left us under very horrible conditions, but then going on and celebrating her life and celebrating the Chinese New Year. There were makeshift memorials and things, kind of like April 16th, that were outside of the GLC, or maybe they were inside. I think there was a table and things that people were doing. Ultimately, I would end up meeting the father of the individual who did the killing. He wanted to talk to somebody; he wanted to talk with me. He was very, very upset. I only saw him once I believe, and then ended up having to meet with the family of the deceased woman and dealing with all of that. I guess what I want to share too is that the young female had just arrived at Virginia Tech. The story should be out there, but she had just arrived, and the individual who killed her wanted to be her boyfriend, and he came in with--we didn't know it at the time--several bags of knives, and she agreed to meet him, as the story has been told to me. We, the grad school, had just processed the paperwork to get her fiancé to come to the United States because he was coming to visit, and she was all excited. Truly, earlier that day she had left the grad school with that paperwork. She had family in the states, and ultimately her family and her fiancé and others would come to the states… And I got sued.
00:45:09Tamara: You did?
00:45:10Karen: Yes. Kim Beisecker, who was Director of the Cranwell Center, and I, and a few others--papers were filed to sue us. That's not well known obviously. The case finally got thrown out.
00:45:37Tamara: By the family?
00:45:39Karen: No. It was a young attorney who got to the family and, in my opinion, convinced them that they had a right to sue. I was being sued on the grounds that I should have protected her more. So we went through depositions and we went through all kinds of meetings and then--I really can't remember all of the details now--but it was thrown out. The court just finally said there's really not a case and that I had some, I think it was immunity, because just in my role. It wasn't immunity, I just can't remember what it is right now. It was not my fault nor everybody else that was named. It was finally just thrown out.
00:46:43Tamara: Was it difficult to go through all that?
00:46:45Karen: Yes, it's not very fun to go through depositions. I spent a lot of time with Kay Heidbreder as we were being deposed, to talking with the family, trying to be very helpful, and then to have the lawsuit. I understand people's rights to do it; it's not the first time. Some other cases they have a right to do that. Fortunately for [Virginia] Tech it was resolved by not going forward. It doesn't ever replace the family. I hope the family didn't pay anything to what I will name as an ambulance chaser. I mean there was no case.
00:47:41Tamara: They were in a vulnerable position with losing their child.
00:47:44Karen: Exactly, yes. I don't know how I would handle it, but hopefully I would--anyway. We were talking about Chinese nationals who don't speak English. A couple family members did, but that's probably things that people don't know. I was sued over that.
00:48:05Tamara: Did you do anything to purify or transform that spot in the GLC?
00:48:13Karen: Well they had to take out all the furniture. They had to remove all of the carpeting; I mean there was blood all over.
00:48:20Tamara: I imagine it was awful.
00:48:21Karen: So everything had to be changed. Most people did not see it. It was only the police, and a few people, and I that saw that, and it's not something that I wanted to focus on. That was closed down. It was boarded up so no one could see, and they did a terrific job of doing all of that on that evening. When we came in the next morning, because I was in early the next morning, they were still finalizing it so that we could use the space, the multi-purpose room, the lobby, all of that was usable and people could come back and forth, but Au Bon Pain obviously was closed and boarded up. They went through all of the processes that they have to, to sanitize it, to clean it up, bought new furniture, and then we opened it up. I remember when there were two grad students or former grad students sitting in that space when it happened, and I knew them both, know them both. I was very concerned about them and making sure that they were okay in all of this, and they managed through that. But they were witnessing part of it then took off. There was another individual behind the desk who I think maybe called the police or something. She experienced some--as anybody would--trauma at that time. I went into Au Bon Pain when it reopened and thanked all of the folks for being there, whether they were there or not, but for being part of opening it back up. So it wasn't changed, well it was changed because of furniture and everything else, but I didn't want it closed off.
00:50:36Tamara: The room where it was, isn't that a study room now?
00:50:41Karen: Nope.
00:50:42Tamara: It's in the same place?
00:50:43Karen: Yep.
00:50:43Tamara: Okay. I didn't--
00:50:44Karen: No, it hasn't--it's the same place. Now what we have done, which has nothing to do with what happened there, but the side where there was all the glass, we now open that up, so that people can enter through the door or through the side, so it's a more open space.
00:51:07Tamara: There are students actually living upstairs in the GLC?
00:51:12Karen: Yes, they've been living up there for all the years we've been open.
00:51:17Tamara: So people living there dealt with it all right? I mean I'm sure they were upset, but--
00:51:24Karen: Yes, I'm sure they had counselors going in and having conversations. We had some of those around just making things available for whatever people wanted or needed. I guess part of my approach is to talk about things, so we would have some conversations. It's a few years ago now, so memories are fading in some ways.
00:52:08Tamara: What are the changes as a result of this incident? I guess one is protocols as far as notifications of the family and maybe protocol of what you, or how you let the campus know. I just wonder what other changes occurred as a result of this incident.
00:52:28Karen: Well whatever the--it was probably the combination of the variety of things that developed protocol, that was April 16th, but then it had to apply here so that we have a university response team and approaches. I'm not involved in those details.
00:52:54Tamara: The threat assessment.
00:52:56Karen: We have threat assessment, and I know, and I will talk with them on occasion, and they will contact me or the police, but whatever has happened in the GLC is the same that is happening across the university. I guess for the incident, the beheading in the GLC, that happened in the evening, so that it didn't impact as many people. My class, yes, and others that were still there, but there wasn't a whole lot of traffic in and out of the GLC. And the GLC was still relatively new. So within the first year and half of being in the GLC, we had the three major--
00:53:36Tamara: All those things happened. So when you met your class again, you talked about it? Did you just pick up with class and go on?
00:53:44Karen: No, we would talk about it, and I was also teaching a Monday night class and the Global Perspectives, so we talked about it. Some of them wanted to know--because I was there. I got a phone call from the Provost McNamee wanting to make sure that everything was okay that evening because it became clear that I was the person there, so from the academic side of the house I was the only person there.
00:54:19Tamara: The only person?
00:54:21Karen: Larry Hincker came over for a while; the police were all over it. Tom Brown was there, I mean the typical thing, so individuals. The president, I think, got ahold of me like the next day or so.
00:54:37Tamara: That would seem, I mean you could handle it, but it might have been good to have some other person or two with them. They could probably tell that you were--but still to do it all by yourself.
00:54:52Karen: Yes, it would have been nice, but I wasn't worrying about anything. I had to do things; I had to get it done. We did what we needed to handle it that evening, and the police and the facilities people they were terrific in just getting things done, but there were some decision, any decision--well they knew my wishes of not closing down the GLC.
00:55:26Tamara: And that was a big decision?
00:55:28Karen: Yes, I was pretty adamant that we were not going to close it down.
00:55:34Tamara: Was there any ramifications for that? Anybody object?
00:55:38Karen: No. It meant that they had to close up Au Bon Pain.
00:55:43Tamara: Of course.
00:55:46Karen: We needed to be able to do what we needed to do to again move forward respectfully. I guess that's kind of been the story of my life is just keeping going; respecting what is happening and honoring that, but not standing still. Taking those moments to be still and quiet, but not to be dragged down by incidents.
00:56:29Tamara: To have a place where your students can still go. Knowing that they can still move forward in their individual paths.
00:56:41Karen: Right. Graduate community, as you know, is very very important. To build that we have a sense of community, and people came together around this, and we had built the space and place for the GLC for building graduate community, so these were sad moments, and we had lots of happy moments there. That happens in anybody's life. Happy, sad, and everything in between, but we kept the spirit of community going and addressing as many parts of it as we could.
00:57:26Tamara: Well thank you for talking about all of that. I know it's hard. This is sort of a corollary kind of question, but I just wonder as more graduate students enroll, do you find that you need different kinds of support systems. I mean I guess you have in a way, with childcare, but when you have more people, are there kind of more support things that have to be added just to help people function and make their way in the system.
00:57:55Karen: Well, yes. I would say we have Student Services, and we have the Graduate Student Ombudsperson's Office. We have a counseling service, and we have counseling that comes into the building.
00:58:09Tamara: What does the ombuds office mean?
00:58:11Karen: That's a confidential office where grad students can come; they don't see me. We have hired a person-- we are the only office at Virginia Tech to have an ombudsperson.
00:58:24Tamara: Where they can bring up an issue if they have an issue?
00:58:26Karen: Yes, whatever they want.
00:58:28Tamara: And it's supposedly a neutral person?
00:58:30Karen: Yes, it's a neutral person. Initially they were housed at the other end of the GLC, but now their office is within the grad school proper. But there is a separation. The ombudsperson had a dotted line to me, but is independent. We developed that as part of the services and the support for graduate students, so they had a place to go outside of their department or program. I have an open door policy; people can come see me. Some do, but my title scares people away. They are afraid to bring up an issue sometimes. Some are not; they will come in and tell me anything. So we developed that office as part of building community and creating an affirming environment for graduate students. In terms of, as we grow, those offices might expand, and it's really important to make sure that the grad students know that we have all of these. I want to turn the question a little bit because in building community, the grad students deserve to be able to find people of like mind, identity groups, so that's what we have built. Childcare is one of them. So we have families that can come together. The childcare co-op or the Little Hokies Hangout type thing. We have a group that's relatively new; we've had it, then it goes away, then it comes back. It is the over-thirty grad connect. Graduate students over thirty in this kind of environment are fewer because we have a whole lot of undergrads. Obviously, they are eighteen to twenty-two years old, and then we have the younger grad students. So a group of over-thirty decided they wanted to get together, so we created the opportunity for that. We have the HBCUs, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, a connect group there. The Native American and American Indian group, the LGBTQ group, the Chicano Latina group.
00:01:00Tamara: Are people going to all these groups?
00:01:01Karen: Oh yes, and we will have lunches once a month. We call them "connect lunches," so we will have people who come all the time or people drop in. The grad school pays lunch for them. It's a way of building community. A lot of what folks really are looking for is somebody that they can connect with. We are creating that. If we create that kind of community, then maybe that is enough to have them feel welcome and to feel a part of it.
00:01:37Tamara: So they have the lunch for a particular group, like whatever group it was the Native American group or the Chicano group, or the LGBTQ or whatever it was.
00:01:47Karen: Yes, and so we do that regularly and keep expanding to whatever the folks want. So that's a way of rather than--we call it "Connect," so it's really about building the community. We do have career services that come into the building that grad students can take advantage of. It's career services, but rather than sending the grad students over to their building, they come into ours. The Counseling Center is there, Statistical Consulting, the Writing Center, we have these kinds of programs that we bring into the GLC, not permanently, but on certain days so they can get the help that they need. We do a lot of workshops on financial planning; there's a whole long list of those things. We do a whole lot of student services that typically does not happen in the grad school.
00:02:57Tamara: No, I didn't think it would. Probably for students who are coming or who are even living on campus it's a way to have a friend of some kind.
00:03:09Karen: Yes. I've got one of the largest staffs in the country because of the number of programs and opportunities we have in the grad school. We've been recently visited by associate deans in two other grad schools that want to see what we're doing. So we stand as a very unique place in all of the things that we do.
00:03:37Tamara: Can I ask what the numbers of staff are approximately?
00:03:40Karen: Over fifty.
00:03:41Tamara: Over fifty.
00:03:42Karen: Yes, that includes Northern Virginia as well. That's a good size, because the responsibilities of the grad school range from the identification of talent all the way through admissions, international, academic progress, visas, to student services to graduation recruitment and diversity initiatives of alumni, fundraising, IT. I now have an assessment person, the ombudsperson; we just keep building on the responsibilities. The staff has increased in size to some extent, but it's the responsibilities that we have and when we have more grad students. A lot of them aren't here; a lot of them are outside of Blacksburg. That's why people from other places are coming to see--physically coming, and they are checking out the webpage. We are used as a model. I was told at a conference last week that the Vice President of the Council of Grad Schools was headed off to speak-- he was invited to speak some place, and he was using Virginia Tech as one of the three or four models.
00:05:06Tamara: Who would be the other models?
00:05:08Karen: I don't know, I didn't ask him. We have the most variety, but there are others who are doing other things in technology for example.
00:05:23Tamara: I see. So from when you started, the staff must have been much smaller when you first came.
00:05:32Karen: Yes, probably. It was still a good size staff. Actually, yes it was smaller, but I just can't remember as far as numbers.
00:05:41Tamara: Not the numbers, but maybe the reconfiguration just to reach all these groups and the idea of making a community for people. So how does that connect with Northern Virginia National Capital Region?
00:06:01Karen: The Northern Virginia Center, which is in Falls Church. That center essentially reports to me. I have an associate dean up there who is also the director of the NVC [Northern Virginia Center]. I don't run the facilities, and we have a staff and crew up there. That has been a standard operation up there long before I got here. It has grown in size. Anything graduate any place in the world falls within my responsibility. We have a vice president for the National Capital Region, and he has more responsibilities for the research part of it and entrepreneur and connections, but he doesn't have the daily responsibility for graduate education. That's mine. Now I work closely with the college deans about what happens up there as well as the vice president up there.
00:07:04Tamara: So where in the world, or what places in the world are you having to deal with as far as your responsibility?
00:07:14Karen: Well wherever graduate education occurs, obviously that's in Falls Church, it's in Alexandria, it's in Manassas, it's Richmond, Roanoke, all of those. As we have grad students in the VT MENA program out in Alexandria, Egypt, the graduate education part of it. I have responsibilities there. The content is delivered by the faculty in engineering, so that's a classic one. We have dual, double degrees, and those are approved throughout the graduate school. We have some of those in Europe and England and in Germany as two examples. There will be graduate students over in Switzerland. I don't have direct responsibility for the facility; that one is really more of the study abroad type program. Two primary places are in Northern Virginia and Blacksburg plus Roanoke and Richmond, but it's wherever we have graduate education. Ultimately there is responsibility there.
00:08:33Tamara: You were able to integrate them more in the other places, like the National Capital region, to integrate them more closely with the graduate school here.
00:08:44Karen: Yes.
00:08:46Tamara: Is that still something that is under construction or being worked on or is that--
00:08:53Karen: Well I think we are in a pretty good place because the staff that are up there, we communicate weekly, and if an admissions--we have an admissions person, an immigration person up there and a support person, and they work closely with the staff here. Because we are one networked system, so it doesn't make any difference where one is, but they can access and work on the files for admission, for example or approving examinations. So somebody could be sitting in Falls Church working on students in Falls Church or in Blacksburg and doing all of the processing. It's kind of like telecommuting, only they're in their spaces, but working with each other.
00:09:48Tamara: So that's part of the technological change, the student in Falls Church or wherever they can go up--
00:09:56Karen: And everything is--yeah.
00:10:00Tamara: Wow. We heard something in the library yesterday about the National Capital Region is becoming more of a focus. Do you feel like that is liable to grow as more of a focus for the grad school as well? That there will be more--
00:10:20Karen: It's actually been a focus of mine, but I haven't been able to get other people to be as supportive of the growth and opportunities that we have there. There is a tremendous group of constituencies up there that we might be able to serve, undergraduate but mostly graduate education. President Sands is very interested in it, so we are going to have, and there's going to be a lot more. We will, I think, grow graduate education there. We will grow some in full time and some in part-time. It will be more integrated. President Sands uses the binary star up there and here. I don't know that we should be doing binaries because it should be more integrated, but he has emphasized that a lot more.
00:11:18Tamara: Could you explain what the binary star is?
00:11:21Karen: Well I don't know where it is comes from, it's not technology. I actually looked up the definition at one point, and now I can't remember, but basically it's one point and another point that are equal and connected.
00:11:41Tamara: That they're not just little objects that are up there.
00:11:43Karen: No, they are not a little satellite going around the moon. But there's both stars. My argument would be, up there we have multiple locations, and we have some throughout the state, so I see it as more as an integrated plan. What President Sands is doing is emphasizing the National Capital Region, which he should. There are so many opportunities to leverage the connections and to provide educational and research and engagement opportunities in the region.
00:12:21Tamara: That's interesting. I guess I didn't ask this earlier, but are there different approaches used for the international graduate students as a result of the incidents, but also as the university grows?
00:12:43Karen: Well our international population is increasing. We do international orientation; we have programs and opportunities for international students. Shortly after both April 16th and the beheading, reaching out to the various groups. I mean I personally after April 16th talked with the Korean students and the Korean-American students, as well as then more Asian-American students. And did some of that again after the beheading. I needed to be inclusive in that way because we knew Cho was Korean-American and the other two students were Chinese. Some of the population and other students won't know the difference, so I needed to reach out in a couple of different ways. So we have a lot of things for international students. I want to encourage them to become much more a part of helping us to become more international as well, not just them coming to us, but that we can leverage the knowledge and understanding that they have. Like right now with everything that's going on with Iran, we could have, and there have been some incredible conversations about Iran. We need to learn from each other. So we are trying to create those kinds of learning opportunities as well.
00:14:31Tamara: So the reaching out to the Chinese and Korean students was to let them know that there was not going to be a racist backlash, or to see what their concerns were?
00:14:43Karen: To see what concerns they might have, to let them know that I was available to help however, and to make clear the understanding that indeed some of them, although they weren't Korean or Korean-American, they could be associated with that. Just because not everybody is as familiar with the difference. So just to be available. There were only handful of individuals who came to chat, and that's fine. I wanted to make sure that whatever I could do, I would be there.
00:15:27Tamara: You never know with a handful, the word could get out in a way.
00:15:30Karen: Yes, it was spread around and people knew.
00:15:39Tamara: Would you explain the Communicating Science Initiative?
00:15:44Karen: Yes. Communicating Science is related to Alan Alda and the Center for Communicating Science that he and his colleague developed at Stony Brook in New York. There's lots of information available on the web about Alan Alda's goal to get scientists to communicate more clearly to the public. I saw Alan Alda at a conference of the Council of Graduate Schools where he brought some of the individuals, the doctoral students and postdocs who had gone through his program. We could see how they had changed from how they would originally deliver their content in scientific terms versus when they were speaking to a more public audience. It's not dumbing it down; it is picking the words that are accessible to others than those who are trained in that science. So he developed this program. I was at the presentation and came back and thought we should do something like that here. I talked with Patty Raun from the theater [Director of the School of Performing Arts] and Sue Ott Rowlands, the dean of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at the time. She and I co-funded Patty to go to the summer workshop that they had in Stony Brook. She came back, and she was positive about it, and basically it's theater. It's based upon improv and theater projecting; not projecting in terms of voice, but it is finding the ways to make one's science accessible to listeners outside of the discipline. In higher education, we are so trained to talk to people like us, people in our discipline. We need to be able to talk, as Alan Alda says, in videos to the legislatures, to the public officials, so they understand the value and what it is we are saying about our science. So anyway, we developed the program. Patty Raun has been teaching the course. Originally it was a one-credit; now it's a two-credit course. We are offering now multiple sections, and we are looking into whether or not we will become an affiliate of the Alan Alda Center officially. I think it's absolutely critical that our graduate students are trained to communicate beyond their discipline.
00:19:01Tamara: Well it seems like with the push for interdisciplinary work that that would be necessary as well because you can't go back into the comfortable jargon because someone from another field might not really--
00:19:21Karen: Yes you're right. It fits in with interdisciplinary programs that we have as well as being--so to communicate across disciplines and to communicate outside of the disciplines, like to the public.
00:19:34Tamara: Or to the possible funders.
00:19:37Karen: Yes. The people who make the decision about our funding or the grant.
00:19:46Tamara: It seems like you've reached or exceeded many of your goals, such as enrollment of Ph.D.s, percentage of Ph.D.s, Ph.D. production. Are there other goals that you still want to pursue?
00:20:01Karen: I continue to want to create opportunities and programs through which the grad students can better prepare themselves for wherever they're going. It's less about quantity and more about quality. We will have to meet the metrics as numbers if the president and the provost want that. That's fine, but I want to make sure that they are adequately prepared to assume a number of positions either inside the academy, inside higher education or outside. So we have been preparing the future professoriate, preparing the career professional, the citizen scholar, the communicating science. I want them to be able to understand inclusion and diversity, so these are programs, opportunities, communities; these are skills that they need to be successful in the workplace beyond just what they get in their discipline. Yes, that's what we're continuing to do.
00:21:08Tamara: You mentioned one thing about Dr. Sands and his interests and that suddenly there is an ally who is interested in this. I know he is very new, but I just wonder if there are new directions he is encouraging you to go in. I wonder if maybe that's one of the major ones that National Capital Region one, but I wondered if he's encouraged this.
00:21:39 Karen: Well he's got the initiative called Beyond Boundaries is one of his, which is also related to expanding. He's challenged all of us to think about higher education at Virginia Tech in 2047, so that's a long way away. It's not a strategic plan, but to think as to what education might be and how we would deliver and how we would engage. It's something that we have already been trying to do in the graduate school, to think beyond the traditional ways of what we've been doing. One of the sub-categories is a Global Land-Grant. I've been using Global Land-Grant for ten years.
00:22:31Tamara: Oh my gosh.
00:22:34Karen: In looking at things differently, what I feel like we have now in the leadership is a strong commitment and the encouragement for us to keep doing what we're doing and to push ourselves even more, and for others who haven't been, to encourage them to start thinking a little bit differently. Into thinking along interdisciplinary lines. What is learning going to be? How is technology going to inform? How is it going to be in 2047? Just how wonderful; it'll be twenty-four seven education. Information will be accessible at any time in many different ways. We will still have some traditional classrooms, but with the use of technology, we will be able to not have to deliver the basic information, because we can have that. It's more a different type of skills and understanding. I don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but I'm delighted. The graduate school has actually been kind of on the cutting edge, and we have a president and a provost who are pushing us to go even farther and more quickly, which very honestly the grad school had led before and now we have a president and a provost. The grad school--I was left alone to do what I wanted us to do, and we did it, and we're doing it. Yes, and now there's the president and the provost, and they know what we're doing. Both of them know.
00:24:32Tamara: They're into it. They're pushing with.
00:24:34Karen: Yes.
00:24:36Tamara: I saw that you tweeted that you and your students, I assume you were there, were having lunch with the provost. I thought that's pretty cool.
00:24:45Karen: We do that regularly. There's only been one time that I tweeted when I wasn't there, but yes, I'm always at those things when I'm tweeting away.
00:25:00Tamara: Can you recall the most recent one? What kind of concerns were coming up or kind of the discussion that was coming up at that.
00:25:09Karen: Well it was actually--one was yesterday.
00:25:13Tamara: Yeah, I think that's the one I noticed.
00:25:17Karen: Where sometimes in the past few years it's been concerns, this one was focused on Beyond Boundaries and destination areas and how graduate students--actually going back to one of the goals, I want to move away from the language of surviving graduate school to thriving in grad school and that's part of what our conversation was about. How to get us, and how to create, and how to thrive. I'm going to mess with the language so we don't use "surviving" anymore.
00:25:54Tamara: You seem able to make changes happen very quickly, so do you know what the secret of your success is?
00:26:02Karen: Well I joke, and people know that I say that, I want change yesterday. I tend to want to move quickly. Part of me thinks it's taken too long to get to this point, and that we have not changed quickly enough because it's been twelve years. In terms of how universities work, change is glacial in universities, so to have the significant changes that we've had in ten to twelve years is pretty good. So I think I have not taken no for an answer. I have continued to engage with people, get people working together to make the change, and having them understand where we need to go, and people get excited about that. I've stopped--early on I would ask the question, can we do this? I don't ask that anymore. I say, how do we do this? We have adopted a can do attitude. Status quo is unacceptable. Tradition--I have a great deal of respect for tradition and history, but we have to keep moving. Kind of a theme for today I guess. It's important; life is changing very quickly around us. Especially now with the twenty-first century. I think it is having a vision. I had a vision; I continue to have that vision. I have the passion to commit to keep pushing. As I think about it, I'm willing to do the work, and I have done the work. I'm not pawning it off on others to do. I'll get in there--I mean I can't do this by myself, and there are a lot of good folks that are playing the pieces of it. I hear them, and we move forward, but I'm willing to make the decisions, and I'm willing to roll up my sleeves. I had to do a lot of that very early on, and I still do, but it's being open to ideas, inviting people to make suggestions, being willing to be criticized and told they don't think it can happen, and then it can happen.
00:28:49Tamara: Then having it happen--
00:28:50Karen: Then having it happen. At the GLC we celebrated ten years last week or two weeks ago. I don't think that everybody--some of the early players--they didn't think it was going to happen, but we are going to make it happen.
00:29:12Tamara: I was going to ask you about things that make you feel especially proud, is it the fact that it is, or that you've made it happen, and it's moving forward.
00:29:25Karen: Proud is an interesting word. So I won't use that word.
00:29:33Tamara: Oh okay.
00:29:34Karen: No, no. A lot of people do. It's been used a lot. Pride to me comes--I'm pleased when something happens, but "proud" tends to imply much more ownership than I'm willing to accept. I don't know. I picked this up like thirty years ago, and so I don't think I've used that term again. Because who gives me the right to be proud of something? It then implies that I think that I have done, that there's ownership, and so it's all about me. I have played a role in all of that, but it's really a collective. I like to be more on the humble side. And you didn't mean it that way; you just hit one of my words, one of my triggers that I don't use. Rephrasing your question to yes, I am very very pleased. I am so ecstatic about all of the things that we have been able to accomplish. It feels good to have people wanting to come to see what we're doing.
00:31:01Tamara: To be a model.
00:31:02Karen: I had just yesterday--I hadn't responded to the email yet, but I had a new grad dean, not here but at another university. He wants me to serve as a mentor for him, because people have been telling him that I'm the one that he should go to. That is very, very satisfying to know that it's what we've done. It's not who anybody is, but it's the accomplishments, and it's what we've done. It's going to last. I'm not going to be around here in 2047, and neither is President Sands. I mean he might still be alive; we both might be, but it's a matter of, to have what we've done here continue. And it will. It will change and grow and get better. Yeah, I'm pretty pleased with what we've done. We've been successful, especially given that some people said, nope, not going to do it.
00:32:10Tamara: And the challenges--what are the hardest challenges that you see?
00:32:17Karen: It's still the cultural change. The faculty who have been around for awhile--we were not trained in the way we are trying to do things now. So it is hard to make that cultural shift. I say more about the faculty, but there's others who--as human beings we tend to be comfortable with where we are, and we are not wanting to make too much change because uncertainty comes with it. It is the culture of being open to change, being willing to take a risk. Another term I haven't used today is taking risks. I take risks; they are calculated. I'm not going to put people in jeopardy, but I'm going to go out there. I do not fear failure. I think these are things that we need to instill within the graduate students. So the cultural shift, which we're doing, but that's still challenging. The system that we have, the university system, not just [Virginia] Tech, but other places is not terribly inclusive. It is not particularly open at times. It is really the system that needs to have greater flexibility in that and to continue to evolve. Banner, for example, gets programmed one way. It can be reprogrammed, but we've got to get people who are willing to do that. So I also look at the system and how we can make it better. Why do we have--well I know why historically why we have classes taught in three credit units, but why don't we think differently about it? We are, and I want us to think about the system and how we can get more dynamism, more flexibility because I think we'll have greater quality--it doesn't lessen the quality. I'm tempted to say money, but I don't want to put it that way. Its resources; we have to think differently about the resources that we have and how we use them. Just throwing money at a problem is not going to solve it. We have to leverage the resources that we have and think about doing things differently.
00:34:58Tamara: And have some kind of vision.
00:35:00Karen: Yes. I think that has to happen, and some of us live at the 30,000-foot level and that's where we are good at that, and others live at different levels, and we need everybody too. I know I can function at a 30,000-foot level and have a lot of vision. I can do work and carry things out, but I'm not as detailed as a whole lot of others. They are the ones on my staff, they know, and there are some great detail people. They say, we'll do the details. I can't think at the 30,000-foot level. So it's finding the diversity of thinkers and doers to make it happen.
00:35:55Tamara: Are you tempted to try your hand at a different level of administration? Talking about levels [laughter]. Maybe that's too personal a question?
00:36:05Karen: No, it's not because I am frequently invited to apply or have been nominated for various positions. I don't aspire to a position. I would consider something that provided challenges and tasks that needed to be done for which I was a good match. I just got one today, president of the university.
00:36:44Tamara: That you were asked to be president of a university?
00:36:47Karen: To apply. So those things happen. Part of it is when you get to these kinds of levels and have enough experience, people are going to nominate, whether or not it's a good match. So I have not closed the door on anything, but I'm not actively seeking. Some people have said, so why don't you go do that? Or they're surprised. Part of my response is, look at what I have here. Look at what we've been able to do. I can impact seven thousand graduate students and many more because that's just enrollment for over a year. There are plenty of universities that don't have seven thousand students because I get to work with the future. So in order to affect change, I'm choosing grad students. Undergrads, you could do the same, but I think it's easier choosing graduate students for impacting and getting them to think differently and to be those adaptive thinkers that we need. That's not a bad deal to have that kind of impact and potential. It could happen, you know, another position, but I also said I would never get a Ph.D., I would never work in higher education, and I would never become an administrator. So I'm challenged by opportunities and tasks. If something else happens that I'm interested in--I mean I don't need to have another position. I mean I don't need to aspire to a higher position because I feel pretty good about what we've done. I can be very satisfied. I know the people that have gone through the program, and I don't know all seven thousand students, but I do know an awful lot. The impact that they will have is far greater, and it multiplies out.
00:39:07Tamara: How do you find life in Blacksburg? I don't know if you live in Blacksburg.
00:39:15Karen: Yes, I do, it's a Blacksburg address not very far away.
00:39:22Tamara: You're in the area.
00:39:23Karen: Yes. I mean I'm seven minutes from here. I'm fine with it. I wish we had better restaurants since I'm kind of a foodie. I like university towns. I've spent the vast majority of my career now either at Washington State University, which is smaller than Blacksburg, and here. It is not as diverse as I would like it, in a number of ways, but it's a great place to be comfortable in living. I have traveled a lot, and I do travel a lot. I said the same thing when I was in Pullman, Washington. It was a great place to raise a kid, and it was a great place to come back to, but I would go crazy if I never got out of Blacksburg. That's just who I am, but it's a very good place to live, but I want to travel too.
00:40:30Tamara: What do you like to do for recreation?
00:40:32Karen: Well I used to like to play golf, but I haven't had enough time to do that. Somebody asked me that the other day. I like being out on the water like Smith Mountain Lake. Actually, I like quiet time too; my work around here is pretty hectic. I like traveling, and I like good food, but I've already said that. I like to go to movies. So it just kind of depends.
00:41:13Tamara: Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about?
00:41:18Karen: Oh I don't even know [chuckles], because I can't even remember everything that we've talked about.
00:41:28Tamara: I have to get you the transcripts I got sort of--or anything you wanted to say more about that you've already talked about that you wanted to add.
00:41:44Karen: I think we probably talked about inclusion and the inclusive VT initiatives. That's been a passion, a commitment, a dedication to inclusivity here. Yes, I put together the three initiatives of the grad school, and they are very much related to what we have already been doing with the affirming GLC and holistic admissions. I see now with our new president and provost a strong commitment to inclusion and diversity. So we've talked a lot about a number of things, and there's always more to say. There are details that could be teased out on a number of things, but this is not a biography.
00:42:45Tamara: Well maybe sometime in the future we will have another session.
00:42:48Karen: That's fine, whenever. I am happy to do that.
00:42:51Tamara: Thank you very much.
00:42:54Karen: You're welcome.
00:42:55Tamara: I really appreciate it.
[End of interview] NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END
