Brian Bruess: We know that a fracture or compartmentalized experience and higher education has a lot of struggle with the functionalization of higher education. The last 60 years, we’ve created a lot of silos within this entity we call higher education. That kind of fracturing or fractile of the whole experience can create lots of delimitations to learning. And so one of the ideas that I’m spending a lot of time talking about is that there’s lots of great benefits to a more integrated context, whether it’s like us two institutions doing strong integration or somebody that’s managing an interface within another department, or maybe there’s a merger acquisition conversation with another entity, which by the way, this is not a merger, it’s not a precursor to a merger, and nor is it an exercise in symmetry.

Keith Edwards: Hello and welcome to Student Affairs. Now I’m your host, Keith Edwards. Given the challenges higher education is facing right now. Now we need models of leadership that are mission-driven, student-centered, and nimble and adaptable. Today I’m joined by Dr. Brian Bri, who is the first president of both College of St.

Benedict and St. John’s University. He’s leading what they call strong integration and putting systemness. Into practice. I know these are new terms. We’re gonna unpack all of this. I’m excited to have Brian here and share this about what they’re doing, what is working, and how others can learn from it.

Student Affairs now is the premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse archives@studentaffairsnow.com.

This episode is sponsored by Evolve. Evolve is a series of leadership coaching journeys designed to bring clarity, capacity, and confidence. Empowering courageous leadership to reimagine the future of higher education. And Huron’s educational and research experts help institutions transform their strategy, operations, technology, and culture to foster innovation, financial health, and student success.

As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he, him, his. I’m a speaker, author, and coach, empowering, exceptional higher ed leadership for better tomorrows for us all through leadership, learning, and equity. You can find out more about me, keith edwards.com, and I’m recording this from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the.

Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to our conversation and our guest today, Dr. Brian Bri, who is the president of two Colleges, who I have known from his previous life and other roles. Going back, I think if we count generously, it’s almost 30 years. We’ll, prefer not to get into that, but Brian welcome.

Thank you for being here. I’m so excited for this conversation. Tell folks a little bit more about you, your role, your background before we get into strong integration and systemness.

Brian Bruess: Keith, it’s a real privilege to be with you again and to it is probably 30 years since this is my 35th year in higher education.

It’s hard to say that, but it’s really good to reconnect with you from those early years and to see what you’re doing on the landscape of higher ed. And so thanks for having me, and I am Brian Brief. President of College, St. Ben, St. John’s University, and my pronouns are he, him, his, and it’s great to be here in this conversation.

And Keith, you’re asking me to go back a few years. As I said, it’s been 35 years, but really proud to be the president. The first inaugural president of both institutions at St. Ben St. John’s. But before that, grew up in Wisconsin. And this all has relevance probably at some point. And went to a small liberal arts college in northeast Wisconsin where I met my wife Carol.

And then we went, we did five years of graduate school in Ohio where I did my master’s in student affairs, higher education. And then I did my doctorate, which was really one part. Applied statistics, a one part law, history, politics, organizational development of higher ed, and probably half the two thirds was developmental psychology.

Looking at the moral reasoning development and identity formation of college-aged students. I was particularly looking at. How women and men across the gender consideration develop a sense of moral reasoning and decision making and how they develop a sense of identity and purpose and how they develop mature and per interpersonal relationships.

That’s kinda how I got my start educationally my first. Job outta grad school was at right down the road from near Alma Mater. Mac Al was at the col college of St. Catherine at the time. Now St. Catherine University, where I was for 22 years. And I started as a dean of students type.

And then that became a dean of Student Affairs, enrollment management. And then it, they added technology. I became a vice president of Enrollment and Student Affairs for a number of years. For one year I was a interim CFO, which was, quite an immersion for a student affairs professional.

And then was the vice president of various types. Enrollment student affairs it. And then for the last few years at St. Catherine, I was the Executive Vice president, chief Operating Officer.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. I think in those 22 years you had 37 different titles. Is that right? It

Brian Bruess: seems like about every four years the job changed.

But I would say for higher education professionals that are moving up into the field. Trying to have that kind of variety and evolution of portfolio really helps build a broad perspective and one that’s really a great companion to a student affairs background where we’re looking at the holistic development of students.

And then from there, after that fabulous time of formation and training by a group of religious women called the Sister St. Joseph, I went, my wife and I, Carol. We went back to Alma Ma alma Mater, St. Norbert College and was the president for five years there. And then was encouraged to look at what St.

Bens and St. John’s were venturing off into. And that is the only thing, the only schools in the country that are doing this. Where you have two separate entities separately incorporated, separately accredited separate finances, separate endowments but a very common commitment to similar mission.

And so what we’re doing is called strong integration. And these two institutions have had a long history together and we can talk more about that as we go. But it was really intriguing to me because they were trying to. Do something new and innovative, believing that they needed to create a more nimble, adaptive response to all the disruption in the higher education landscape.

So one of the lead ideas, the biggest idea was this idea of strong integration where we hold out what’s distinctive about St. Ben’s and St. John’s, what differentiates them as Catholic Benedict and liberal arts residential campuses, one with a great tradition of offering educational experience uniquely suited to women and one for men, what differentiates them?

And then everything else we wanna think about integrating and. That’s a really complex set of ideas. But that’s what Drew Carol and I back to Minnesota. So it feels like a homecoming. And here we are beginning our fourth year. And just, it’s just been a thrill to come back to Minnesota.

That’s, so that’s a little bit of the background that got us to hear now.

Keith Edwards: I just want, but we’ll get to the strong integration. I just wanna invite you you mentioned our name three times. You your partner, Cal Reese. I say this in the best possible terms, a shadow president.

They’re getting a two for one kind of deal. Do you wanna say more about that? I think you

Brian Bruess: should be careful how you describe it, Keith, because I’m not sure who’s in what shadow. Carol is Carol is just a wonderful scholar citizen of St. Ben St. John’s the number one volunteer at St.

Ben St. John’s, and she had a really wonderful, successful career as. As a scholar, she was at Hamlin for a couple years and then spent 20 years at St. Thomas down there in Minneapolis, St. Paul. And she’s the proud recipient of effective Merital status, and she’s the youngest person to receive that from St.

Thomas, where she was in, in the communication program. And she ran the family Studies program and just does a wonderful, has a wonderful history of teaching teacher of the year. Two institutions and just a wonderful scholar with, many books written and writing a new one now.

But her whole intellectual space is about taking her knowledge and expertise around interpersonal relationships, whether it be friendship, family, marriage, same sex marriage, opposite success marriage, and taking that research and parlaying it into improving human relationships. And we’re definitely a team.

She’s a wonderful partner in every way, personally and professionally. And she and our 100 pound Bernadoodle George, a therapy dog. They’re quite a team for both these two campuses. But yeah, Carol is a pretty significant partner in this journey.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. I was a, I think a sophomore student at Hamlin University when I was invited to be on the search committee that helped select Carol.

I’d love to say I was that prescient. That’s how I first was connected to you. And yes she’s wonderful and has been a partner all along the way. As you mentioned St. Ben’s and St. John’s, I’ve always thought about them as sibling institutions similar founding. But focused on separate campuses.

I just learned they’re six miles apart with a link bus in between earlier this week and talking with some of the folks at St. Ben and St. John’s and you’re the first president they’ve always worked closely together. Had some shared academics, I think that has. Become more and more over time, but you’re the first one to be the president of both.

They’ve had separate boards, separate presidents, and my understanding now you’re the president of both, but separate boards, is that still true? How are these institutions together and separate?

Brian Bruess: Yeah, great description, Keith. We, these two institutions have had a relationship of over a hundred years differing levels of integration.

They had a cognitive relationship where they were sharing faculty and sharing classrooms for a number of years. The academic interface probably goes back 40 years but just until recently they’ve only had a few areas that were really joint. And that included admissions it included the academic enterprise, and now we have all the academic units together in one grouping on one campus or the other.

Students exchange take courses seamlessly and attend activities on both campuses. But that the idea was after all these years of collaboration and sharing of some resources, the belief was for a vibrant, healthy thriving future, we needed something more substantive that could do this. As it relates to the boards, we used to have two separate 45 member boards.

And now we have 44 people that simultaneously serve on both boards.

Keith Edwards: Oh, okay.

Brian Bruess: So we meet together deliberate once and vote twice. Unless it’s on something that only impacts one of the other campuses. So if we’re voting on something related to football or lacrosse, there’s only one vote. St. John’s or St. Ben’s. But in all other matters, we vote twice. Some people describe it as a new model of called common boards, where you have the same people simultaneously serving as members of both boards. Separate bylaws. They’re very similar, but separate, separate entities separately incorporated, separately accredited separate finances.

And then a lot of what call Sharedness, a lot of collaborative, but two monasteries too. A monastery for of St. Benedict’s and in St. Joe for St. Ben’s. And the Abbey at St. John’s. And so it’s really four cultures that are at play as you’re thinking about change. And you think about evolving the place and what holds us together so joyfully is the common mission traditions,

Keith Edwards: yeah.

Brian Bruess: Of Catholic and Benedict and liberal arts and residential.

Keith Edwards: If anyone listening has ever had two bosses had reported to two different bosses, just imagine what it would was like to report to two different boards of 45 people at a time. What a mess that can be. Tell us about you’ve really set about.

This strong integration as you, you mentioned the distinctiveness of these two institutions, the distinctiveness of the separate institutions, and then also realizing some of the benefits of shared resources, shared staffs, shared vision. Shared purpose. They do share a lot. These aren’t just two campuses that happen to be near each other.

It wasn’t just proximity, it was the founding, it was the Benedictine order. Tell us about strong integration and this unique approach.

Brian Bruess: So the belief is that and I think from a learning perspective, a teaching perspective, whether it be a student affairs or a faculty point of view, when you think about the, a holistic approach to how we create educational experiences and opportunities for students.

We know that a fracture or compartmentalized experience and higher education has a lot of struggle with the functionalization of higher education. The last 60 years, we’ve created a lot of silos within this entity we call higher education. That kind of fracturing or fractile of the whole experience can create lots of D limitations.

To learning. And so one of the ideas that I’m spending a lot of time talking about is that there’s lots of great benefits to a more integrated context, whether it’s like us two institutions doing strong integration or somebody that’s managing an interface within another department, or maybe there’s a merger acquisition conversation with another entity, which by the way, this is not a merger, it’s not a precursor to a merger, and nor is it an exercise in symmetry.

In other words, we’re not trying to make the two the same. And so the idea is that the more integrated, centered around holistic student learning that the entire enterprise can be, the more likely we’re gonna get more students engaged in high impact practices, the more ways we’re gonna be able to.

Over deliver on our promise that we make in the recruitment cycle, and the more vibrant the community and the more impressive our outcomes, which are already top tier outcomes in terms of graduation rates and retention rates. But how do we ratchet that from a position of strength up? One thing we can control with all disruption in the environment is how we organize ourselves and how we create seamlessness and connectedness, and how we more partially curate what we’re inviting students into.

And so it matters to us. We think there’s something different with how we do leadership for women and men. And so the two student senates are separate. We know that at St. Ben’s campus ministry has a long history of helping women position in the church. Teaching them what their role is in the church and creating access to them.

Turns out St. John’s has been not focused on that.

They’ve been offering spiritual development for men and helping men develop healthy masculinity. So we keep those things separate. Our athletic programs are separate. There’s a whole host of functional areas. Residence life is separate. And then student activities, events, there’s some sharedness there.

We have what’s called a joint operating agreement that defines this sort of the systemness of this, what’s separate and what’s combined. And we’re also evaluating what the boards approved three years ago, and we’re unpacking that. And there are some things that are separate that I think should be combined.

So things like food service, grounds facilities campus safety, life safety, the two campus safety functions. I use the example around the grounds. Does anybody really care what type of lawnmower we’re using to mow these two sets of properties? Does anybody really care about that?

No, it doesn’t differentiate us, and so we should. Probably find ways of supporting staff and being responsive and creating volume savings by buying the same, more from the same, dealership and using the same mechanics to repair them. And there’s all sorts of ways we can create efficiencies.

Our goal is to create cost effective, educationally responsive, high impact experiences for students and for faculty and staff. So at every turn, administratively, would we be better, would students be better served, or how does this integration improve student experience? That’s really the kind of work that we’re doing day in and day out.

And the belief is that the more we do that, the more cost effective we are and the more high impact and the higher quality of the experiences. And so it’s really quite. A complicated set of undertakings, but it’s really InVigor, intellectually stimulating. And we see tremendous progress with progress we’re making and the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Keith Edwards: I get the sense, Brian, that it is challenging. Yeah, it is difficult. Should this be similar? Should this be differentiated? And I’m glad you said that ’cause I was gonna point it out. I think you love this. The challenge of it the uniqueness of the challenge. There’s always a new puzzle to figure out.

This is really invigorating and in talking with some of the folks I get an opportunity to work with they’re also invigorated by it. And what are we coupling? What are we uncoupling? How does this make sense? And as you just said, centering all of that is. Does this make students’ lives better?

Does this make their education better? Does this make the student outcomes better? Do you wanna speak to a little bit, to the invigorating challenge?

Brian Bruess: Yeah. I, I think when you’re in a simpler context and you’re doing some organizational change, it’s usually a particular piece of the ecosystem.

That you’re focused on. So what makes this particularly challenging is that it’s ecosystem wide, so it’s, and two ecosystems, or maybe three, four, probably. Yeah. Both mon, both monasteries and both, and college universities. So it’s a complex ecosystem. And so it’s about sponsorship, about governance, about organizational structure and programmatically.

And so that entire. Architecture of the ecosystem is under evaluation and change and so there’s a lot going on emotionally and pragmatically, and that’s both exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. Yeah, and I think it’s important to mo Keith that. Therefore, as educators, we also know as two teaching colleges that really prize pedagogy in the classroom and in the co-curricular space.

In other words, the how we do the teaching and how we do the leadership pedagogy, the how we do this strong integration matters a lot more in my estimation, my experience than the what we’re doing. And so we’ve been really trying to be very intentional about our leadership pedagogy in this work.

There’s lots of ways when you talk about systemness, there’s lots of ways to express that, and one of the ways that we’re trying to express it is not only do we view the task from an educational organizational development perspective as full of system thinking and systemness, we’re also trying to match that reality with our leadership pedagogy.

And so we’re using a more adaptive style. Leadership Ron Heifetz kind of style, where we recognize the tremendous disruption in higher education, be it demographics, be it perceived value be it complexity and compliance, and then you add the layers of state and federal governmental engagement.

At this point it’s just massive, constant, increasingly more intense disruption. So that teaches us, I think. How we do this becomes increasingly more important. So we’re taking an approach and we’re trying to engage and develop ourselves around this idea of adaptive leadership, believing that the times of the day require more adaptive response.

It also requires an emphasis on leadership skills that are about empathy, about listening about collective work about. Connectedness, more group process than autocratic or sometimes long. It takes a little longer sometimes. So we’re really trying to emphasize those kinds of leadership skills and that kind of a view and frankly, it’s very consistent with what I know about student affairs training.

You’re thinking about the holistic development of students, you’re thinking about the psychosocial, the cognitive and the physical environment that we create. So I think it, it matches our Catholic, Benedictine liberal arts perspective. This type of leadership, this type of moment. Not only does the world need more Bennys than Johnny’s educated to be critical thinkers and process oriented and understand the common good, but we as leaders.

We should reward and pursue and model this kind of leadership and this way of thinking in order to navigate it and hopefully enjoy it more too. So it is exhausting, it is exhilarating, but it’s also from a vocational point of view, really quite powerful.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. I love this example that you’re giving us about St.

Ben’s and St. John’s, the distinctiveness. And the commonality. But it’s a unique situation, right? As you said, it’s the only time this is happening and you’re not pretending to merge right there. This is the long-term plan. And I think as you mentioned, some people might be merging or they might have a campus here and a campus there, or they might even thinking about just academic affairs and student affairs.

But this is a really distinctive approach, this strong integration. However, this notion of systemness Yeah. I think is something that, that many of us could learn from and apply and you’ve really advocated for this in higher education beyond the St. Ben’s and St. John’s context. That could be really beneficial.

A strong integration is how you’re doing this with St. Ben’s and St. John’s, but Systemness is a bigger idea. I’m not sure I fully understand this, but I would love to. So tell us what Systemness is and how you’re putting it to use.

Brian Bruess: I would start by saying that Systemness is a way of thinking and viewing the world around us.

Rather than think of it in parts and divisions, think of it more holistically as interconnected. And Margaret Wheatley is maybe where I got my start into understanding systems thinking and systemness. She wrote a book Earl Way, way, way back, and I’m dating myself, but 19 90, 91, 92 in there, I think it was called The New Science discovering order and Chaos.

I think some version. You probably had it on your shelf there.

Keith Edwards: It’s on, it’s over there somewhere. Yeah.

Brian Bruess: Look for the blue one. It’s skinny, it’s blue but it’s Margaret Wheatley and the I think it was leadership in the new science Discovering order in Chaos.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Brian Bruess: But it teaches you to think in connected ways to see the relationship of the parts, not just the parts.

And that’s very congruent. With how we ought to be thinking about human development and how students grow and develop that we think simultaneously about their psychosocial needs and their cognitive needs and their spiritual and their, all the whole, however you wanna frame it, whatever health use.

Yeah. I go way back to Lee and Eyl camp and the way she organized the theories of understanding human growth and development. And those families of theories, the idea of thinking in a connected way to see the relationship as opposed to how we often train ourselves in organizational development, higher education in divisions, in units.

So student affairs departments. Yeah, departments. And it’s, we’re famous for doing it. Disciplines. We hire faculty, reward them for really deep dive into a discipline, doing research that no one else has done before. And then we bring ’em on a college campus and we start talking about interdisciplinarity and we start asking them to teach in different ways.

And so higher education is famous for compartmentalizing things. As leaders now, I think what students need and what contemporary learning theory is teaching us is that the human experience is much more connected. Therefore, it stands to reason that we should think about the environments and the policies and the procedures we’re de developing as interconnected systems of how we teach and learn, and how we develop for the benefit of human growth and human flourishing.

And so this idea of systems, this means that we think in more connected related ways that, you pluck a spiderweb over here and it ripples over here. There’s lots of images you could use but we wanna encourage our teams to think across boundaries, to think in interdisciplinary ways, and to imagine how the little things that we see over here can impact the success of a student.

We know that, staff that work in the dining services or the custodial team or just the micro experiences, interactions are deeply profound when we think about the humanness of what we’re doing. So I, I. Think of a systems, not only just systems theory, but educational application to that.

And then for, of course for us as Benedictine institutions, we think about communal living and connectedness and relation, from a Catholic perspective, it’s all about the integration of how we imagine learning and the world and the view of the world. And that the liberal arts is connecting knowledge and information for wisdom.

And so there’s a lot of synergy and harmony that comes from this kind of approach of thinking about the work and the experience. And at the center of course, you’ll hear me talk a lot about how the student experience and student learning and development is at the center of it. I just I just, there’s a lot to be considered in all this.

And I think the final thing I’ll say about this systemness is that when we pull it into our lives as leaders, as people, it’s also important that we approach it from a relationship rich point of view. And that every person in the organizational structure has equal influence as it relates to the single grow, single, develop the development of a single student.

And that, again, is a more of a systems approach.

Keith Edwards: Margaret Wheatley talks about a shift from a different way of thinking about this and moving into sort of a quantum way of thinking about interconnection and an atomic way, and a quantum way of thinking about it. I’m wondering, as you were talking, I was thinking about, I wonder if there’s a metaphor that you have for how this is, I was thinking about a symphony, but even you conducting this mayhem and noise into music.

But even in the symphony we have our horn sections and we got our string sections and there’s some silos and some things there. And of course you have to have some of these organizational structure to scale things and operationalize things. Is there a metaphor that really resonates with you, that as you think about where you are and all of these different people, faculty and staff, and administrators and students, these are both campuses with a lot of student voice too.

Brian Bruess: There’s so many different metaphors that we play around with, but two that I think a lot about, one is because it’s a human experience. I also often think about, groups of people. Maybe it’s a family and families are very, can be very different of a lots of kind of design.

But there’s a dynamic in a family. And so to me there’s a really rich way of imagining this collective work in a really creative way around the image and metaphor of family. There’s also a lot to be said in this work for building trust and understanding difference of perspective and difference of people and what.

Point of view they bring. So I like using metaphors that are human in their expression, but we also are really excited about the hexagon and in as a shape as you, you can see on my little pin here. And that hexagon, as a hive and the imagery of the bees and what has done and the energy and from an architectural point of view of.

From a chemistry point of view, the hexagon is a really profound symbol. So we’re using that hexagon, in relationship to how many hexagons. The honeycombs. There’s a beautiful metaphor there. But there’s a sense of interdependence that comes from these various metaphors. The connection of relationship and role and responsibility in these metaphors.

Each person, each part of these metaphors has a particular role that the others within that system count on. There’s a, you have to rethink the hierarchy of it in a more shared way. A lot of sharedness and good systems thinking, a lot of listening, a lot of empathy, a lot of collective consideration, discernment, a lot of these skills that are not always valued.

In a high-paced, fractured environment. So part of what we’re doing, Keith, I think is counter-cultural.

And in terms of higher education in today’s world, I also think it’s the kind of thing that students are really attracted to. They want a more connected world. They want to know a more peaceful space.

They want to be in a really healthy relationships. And I think there’s deep power in not only what we’re doing, but how we’re doing it as it relates to the kind of modeling that we’re doing for our students.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. It’s also a, a, a. Unique thing because there is this simultaneous distinctiveness

Of the two campuses. But there’s also shared there’s shared learning goals for the two campuses. Yeah. And for, in the classroom and out of the classroom, which I work with a lot of folks around their curricular approach. And usually we’re just trying to figure out what the beyond the classroom learning goals are to compliment the academic learning goals.

And you all said no, we’re gonna have one set for the classroom, in the classroom and outside of the classroom. ’cause we’re all working together across two different institutions. So there is this, we are so distinctive and we love our distinctiveness and we love our shared purpose history resonance coming along with that.

Brian Bruess: I also love occasionally I’ll invoke the the oak and the cypress score, not in each other’s shadow metaphor where each. Each of these two institutions has a proud, glorious history and current day reality. But it’s underneath where we’re at the core, at the roots of the tradition is where we’re really connected.

So yeah, there’s a lot of ways to play us out with metaphor. And of course there’s weaknesses in all metaphors break apart at some point in, and there’s something lovely about that too.

Keith Edwards: Absolutely. I wonder if we can help you nerd out even more. And expand this out because you’ve been there for four years.

This strong integration in bringing these campuses together while maintaining their distinctiveness and applying the systemness. And I’m imagining many of our listeners saying, this sounds amazing. This sounds really resonant with how I wanna lead or how I be led. I don’t think I could do that because of these reasons, or it’d be difficult here to do that because of these reasons.

And of course, you’re a president, you get to do whatever you want, which is the biggest myth. That’s not true about presidents. But I’d love to hear, you’ve been doing this for a while. You’ve been thinking about this for a while. I’m sure it’s gone great. I’m sure it’s not gone very well. What have you learned that you might wanna share with other higher education leaders, whether they’re presidents or vice presidents, who, this sounds really great.

What are some takeaways, some lessons learned that you might wanna share that would extend beyond St. Ben’s at St. John’s?

Brian Bruess: A couple that come to mind. One is, pedagogy. I’m speaking of emphasis on relationships emphasis on humility, listening, empathy. People often describe these as soft skills.

Try it. And I really, yeah. And I just think it’s the worst description because it devalues them. Yeah. So I, we think of them as essential, as catalytic, as prophetic, but they’re hard to do. In a world that’s asking something different from you in every other sphere of existence. So I think one, one thing to point out is relationships are complicated.

And so we have a multifaceted piece here. Know that those kinds of, that kind of leadership is hard. It’s really hard to do it in an environment when you’re trying to speed up. And I tease internally, I tease us because a liberal arts college has a change cycle of, let’s say 40 years. Most general education programs last 30 and takes 10 years to change it.

The Catholic Church is not known for quick change. It’s maybe a 75 a hundred year change cycle, and the Benedictines take it to another level. They’re almost 1600 years old. So our legacy doesn’t at its face inspire or suggest speed or nimbleness

Keith Edwards: or adaptable. Yeah.

Brian Bruess: So I think that the second lesson is know that, as you’re trying to do this, whether you’re the president, a vice president, a hall director, or a career advisor or a coach, or if you’re on the grounds crew or if you’re working in the cafeteria, is that pace and velocity and speed of change and disruption that relationship. You are not gonna be able to go as fast as you want.

If you’re bending toward more, more adaptive, more nimble. And so really forces you to remember the importance of what the culture’s ready for. What is the essence of the place invite? And then how can, the third thing would be how can you use the founding values of the place to inspire a more adaptive approach?

And one example is that, the Benedictine tradition invites us to be humble. Humility is a centerpiece of the rule of Benedict. But does that mean you can’t tell your story proudly? Can you know? And I had one of the sisters tell me that, yes, humility is real, and that’s something we need to practice, but we also are called a stewardship.

And stewardship today means that we need to be much more active and adaptive in how we navigate the success of our places. So do it in a way that honors both of those those pieces of our tradition. And so I think there’s something, powerful about taking your core values that have grounded these places over 280 years of collective history.

So when you go back to those grounding principles and you bring them forward in a contemporary way that’s relevant, it’s really quite liberating. And then, I think, I think another thing is that. I encourage people is to bring curiosity and joy to the work and we, our students are so well served when we invite them to be curious.

To really bring joy to this exploration of learning, and we should model that same thing. As hard as it is there’s a, not many days, these days where you get a lot of good news in the headlines, in the cultural context in which we’re in. So I think when we’re working together on important things.

We should remember to bring that joy. And sometimes that’s hard to do when you’re really tackling tough issues. And some days you’re in that a lot, right? But find that joy and that excitement in those little things and the people you’re with. And when you get a chance to do that over time, it really brings a different kind of, it’s a purpose and joy to the work. And I think we could all use, a little bit of that when we’re working through really disruptive, more disruption and challenging issues.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. It reminded me a lot of paradoxes, right? It’s both these thing opposite things at the same time. One of the things that I think about that I heard you speaking to a little bit is how do we slow down to go fast?

Brian Bruess: Yeah.

Keith Edwards: How do we slow down and have a conversation? You talk about the how, the process so that we can be nimble and quick going forward. How do we balance that humility with some boldness? And courageous humility is the thing that I’ve been thinking about. How do we be humble? Yes. And also bold at the same time.

And balancing those paradoxes. Also this disruption you were talking about all the disruption that sort of initiated this. And I’m remembering how quaint four years ago was and all this disruption, and I think so many higher ed leaders, I think are frustrated with the disruption or waiting for it to pass.

It shouldn’t be this way or when do we go back to normal? I just don’t think that’s happening. I think the disruption will continue and escalate when we think about. Society, when we think about technology, when we think about the complexity of students’ lives, I don’t see that slowing down.

I’m curious,

Brian Bruess: One, one quick thing, the, just a quick response to that, if I could. I agree with you a hundred percent on that. It’s also true that this latest round of disruption since the change of presidential leadership. Yes, it’s been a different kind of intensity and a different shape and tone and content and tenor.

But let’s be clear, higher education was disrupted before that.

Yeah. And we zoom out just a little bit. It’s just the velocity of it and the complexity of it has increased as well. So I think we also have to remember that, we’re here at a point in time. There was a point in time before that, and there’ll be a point in time after this.

And that the complexity, most of the things we’re dealing with from a systems point of view are not new. They’ve been intensified and made more complex. But we were in a disrupted space whether we knew it or not. In particular ways, going back, I’d say 10 or 15 years when higher education, I think started to really see the kinda disruption in technology and resources and the 40 year decline in federal and state support for higher education.

So I, I think we also have to just give ourselves a little perspective on occasion that, it’s, it is not gonna go away. It is gonna change and there’s gonna be ebbs and flows, and we hope the intensity shifts here pretty soon. But there, but it’s, but we’re in a disrupted space. For the rest of my career.

Yeah. And technology is gonna continue to evolve with AI and of course the complexities that our students are bringing to us is another kind of the change that we’ve been confronting with more emotional health questions and different kinds of dietary needs and relational needs. And so yeah, that complexity, that disruption we speak of is multifaceted.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. Before we move to our final question I’m just really curious, how are you leading differently now, four years into this journey?

Brian Bruess: I think that that’s a great question. The two couple biggest lessons I’ve learned is that I’ve already mentioned a couple of ’em. One is I’m not able to go as fast as I think we need to be going.

And so I’ve had a couple examples these first couple years where I’ve really needed to and this isn’t really trite at all, but I really have had to pause, pivot, and take a different pedagogical approach to certain problems because that’s what the essence of the place essentially demanded or required.

And so I think that. I’m working in a even more reflective and relationship rich way than I was before, and I’ve been doing it this way for a while. So I’ve tried to, I’ve learned to, to lean in more to those pieces of who I am and be probably a little bit more patient, come up with even more sophisticated ways of going about this.

That to me has been a big lesson, a big learning. And then the other thing, Keith, is that. We have created some momentum. That it’s not Jim Collins’ flywheel momentum yet. In other words, we’re not to that point, but there is some momentum. And so now I think we’re able to know that and then use that to our advantage as we continue to go forward.

And we came off a really great year. From a philanthropy point of view, set a record at both schools. And we’re off to a great start on another year. We’re seeing some improvements with some systemic changes relative to how we’re building our enrollment strategy. You’ve had a look into some of the programmatic things that we’re doing.

We’re launching a new. Positioning approach to how we talk about our experience to the world. We’re making big investments into how we market and advertise. And so there’s a whole host of strategic plan initiatives that are now in full motion. And so that compounding interest effect of making progress, I think that invites a different tone and temper of leadership once you’re in that space.

So you, you can feel that energy evolving. And then the final thing is that. It is all about relationships. And as we develop relationship equity and strengthen our relationships and understand each other better, then we can do more powerful, more impactful things on behalf of our students. And so I think the strength of our focus on relationships and increase communication, sharing more information a big believer that if you give smart people more information, they make better decisions and understand what we’re doing better involve the people impacted by the change. The ideas will be better.

They’re more likely to be implemented. Some of those basics of, modern connected systems kind of leadership. You start to see and feel that momentum and that’s exciting.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. I. Wonderful. Wonderful. This is great. I love hearing all about it. Unfortunately, we are running outta time. The podcast is called Student Affairs.

Now we always like to end with what are you thinking troubling or pondering now. So it might be related to this conversation, might be other things that are just with you. And if you wanna share with how folks can connect with you, you can go ahead and do that as well. What’s with you now?

Brian Bruess: Keith, thanks.

Thanks for inviting this conversation and really have enjoyed it. I continue to think about the real power that. We have in higher education to create spaces and experiences for students. The world has never needed more the Bennys and Johnnys that we’re producing. I know that’s true for other colleagues of mine around the country.

Students that are critical thinkers, they understand the common good, they understand the dignity of people, and they’re working to improve the human experience and we’re focusing on human flourishing. And so what a gift it is to be a part of that. And so I have great gratitude for being a part of that.

And I just wanna thank all my colleagues that would happen to take a run at this podcast. Thank you for their commitment to this kind of shared, collective work on behalf of human flourishing and the needs of the world. And it’s exciting to be in that conversation. And folks can follow me on LinkedIn if they like.

I’m, I’m on social media, but I’m not like. I don’t have to get great prowess that Keith, you do on, but they can find me at St. Bens, St. John’s. I’m on one campus to the other, or traveling to and from. But it’s great to be, to reconnect with you Keith, and thanks for inviting this conversation.

Keith Edwards: Yeah, thank you. This has been great. I’m really energized and really excited about what you’re doing. It’s great to have been able to hear about it from some of the folks there and to reconnect with you today. I really appreciate you being here for this conversation and sharing all of this, and especially for your leadership in this space.

I think it can have an even bigger impact as we reach more folks. So thank you. I also wanna thank our sponsors of today’s episode, evolve and Huron. As you just heard, higher education is facing unprecedented challenges. We need courageous leadership now more than ever, and poor leadership has never been more costly.

We need a new generation of leaders with the capacity to lead forward with, which is not optional, but urgent. These challenges are also full of possibilities for courageous leaders who are able to let go and move forward, accepting the challenges we are facing as real and embrace their agency to lead with and through these challenges.

At Evolve, we help leaders face these realities with clarity, capacity, and confidence. We offer leadership coaching journeys for leadership teams and individual leaders focused on executive leaders, emerging executives, emerging leaders, and those leading for equity and hereon collaborates with colleges and universities to create sound strategies, optimize operations, and accelerate digital transformation by embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas, and challenging the status quo.

Huron promotes institutional resilience and higher education for more information visit. go.hcg.com/now. As always, a huge shout out to our producer, Natalie Ambrosey, who does all the behind the scenes work to make. Brian and I look and sound good, and we love the support of your convers for view for these conversations.

The best way you can help support these conversations, reach more people is by sharing and subscribing. Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube or to our newsletter, which we share out each Wednesday morning with the latest episodes. If you’re so inclined, you can leave us a five star review. And help this reach even more people.

I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to our fabulous guest today, Dr. Brian Brees from St. Ben’s and St. John’s. And to all of you who are watching and listening, have a great week.

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https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/partner-insights/off-the-record/saint-ben-s-and-saint-john-s-president.html

https://www.csbsju.edu/news/strong-integration-proclamation-officially-signed/