Interview with Ken Spring, November 16, 2017

Ken Spring Transcript November 16, 2017

Sitting in front of the Janis Ayers Academic Center

Karandjeff: Okay so today is november 16 2017 and I'm here with my sociology professor Ken Springs for my interview of a modern leader.

What?

Spring: Spring Singular

Karandjeff: Spring singular, okay, so my first question is "what part of your personal biography or background led you to this position?"

*Music in background*

Spring: Do we need to go somewhere else?

Karandjeff: It'll be fine because I just type it up as well

Spring: Oh ok, um can you repeat that question now I'm sorry

Karandjeff: Yes, "what part of your personal biography or background led you to this position?"

Spring: Oh my goodness every part. Um, I grew up in a strict catholic family, in a small catholic town, where the ideas of um, community and community responsibility were sort of uh, intentionally preached. At church, at home, and with my extended family. Um..and so that idea of uh of education was always big. My parents, my grandparents, none of them graduated college, it was very important though that I went on to graduate from college. I went to a small private liberal arts university, at the time was ranked as the best liberal arts university, and I don't know. I think the educational model was just broken. It was broken in my high school, I graduated from a public high school and had a lot of the same teachers that my mother had when attending the high school, and it didn't push me. And it also didn't really inspire me. And I've always kind of been curious, and always sort of wanted to dig deeper. I would always research, and sort of look for um, a better understanding of things. So, when I got to college I was wholly unprepared, and didn't really know how to navigate that world and then I ended up at a small place called the Nueropa Institute, which was uh a weird funky little Buddhist school that wasn't I mean sort of Buddhist in a way that was formerly Baptist. So, uh you know, if you wanted to dig into Buddhism you could, but it wasn't a requirement. But they had a unique approach to education and the classroom and you know my experience in college before that, was a professor standing at a lectern and lecturing and then walking out, there was no interaction with students while all of that was going on I was also a product of reaganomics and the idea that you could go and get a degree in business and turn that into a large career, and uh, um very superficial, and so I'm on the receiving end of all of that, get a degree in business and they'll give you the keys to a BMW when you walk across the stage at graduation. And when you say that to a 16, 17, 18, 19-year-old that sounds awfully good. But the further along you go, you realize that it's not necessarily, um there's something more you know, and I was um already on that path to seeking something more. So at Neuropa they had, they had on the first day of class, they had this-- SO um the plan was originally to go to into medicine and be a doctor, specialize, and that wasn't working out-- Um well that's not true, I had dinner with um my friend Ian Woods and his parents and his father was an OBGYN and his mother was a head nurse at a big hospital, and I remember having dinner with them and they had a conversation about malpractice insurance. And malpractice insurance was so ridiculously high, that I then was like "Oh I want to be a corporate attorney" I mean something completely different, so that's why I started studying business, originally the thought of "Oh I'll just go into business, if you try to help people, then you have to pay out all this money, because you know, people just like to see you and get things for free" and that was kind of my mindset going into it. But I get to Neuropa, and Neuropa, they uh started off class by saying "how did you get here, like what brought you here?" and through that ring there were all these people that had done so much and they were inspiring, in different ways of going back to "I was raised in a household that pushed a Waldorf education" or "I was raised in a household that pushed Montessori" which were not things that I had experienced because you know, growing up in this small community, just surrounded by a big city, is still very stuck in that mentality of "you just go to school locally you don't need to do anything beyond that." Because most of them of course were built around a factory, that city was built around a factory, so a lot of them were products of their parents moving there to work in the factory and then they graduated high school and went and worked in the factory. But by the time that I was graduating high school that factory hadn't hired anyone for you know 15 years. So, uh they were just on a series of laying off more and more people. So that experience of how'd you get here people went around and told their stories, and there was a woman who was sitting across from me and she said "How did you get here so fast?" when I said "my bit like I'd been in college for 3 years" then she said "but how did you get here so fast" and that was like an Ah-Ha moment for me and I like at that point in time, was like I'm going to go, like I'm going to be a professor. I want to teach young people to learn all the shit that they've been taught and put to back together and figure it out for themselves. Not preaching a specific way of knowing and even my classes as a sociologist, this is just the way that makes sense to me, and how I make sense of the world and it's a way that I, and what I like about sociology is it integrates all of the larger social institutions, and I've always been fascinated with business, and I have you know a lot of economic classes under my belt, and business classes under my belt, and an undergraduate in education, and graduate school, um and I've always been fascinated with Law and so i have those classes under my belt, and I just wanted to absorb more and more and that's just, it fits with sociology and trying to understand those institutions. Trying to understand politics and government, and the economy and how those two work off one another. Um and the relationship to then how those system structure uhhh families and opportunities, so and media. I grew up in a house where we didn't have a lot of, I didn't have a lot of opportunities to absorb media, but I did absorb media, I absorbed a lot of it, I just uh that wasn't something that my parents pushed and didn't expose me to. So when I got to Neuropa, Neuropa became a point in which, I really paused for a moment to say "Huh, we have a broken system, how can I go contribute in a way that is going to affect change?" And I mean I don't know if I am successful at that or not. I mean I certainly fail daily, but I think it's how you learn from that failure, and respond from that failure, attempting to get better at your craft or your calling. For me I spent five years as an administrator on this campus and I think I was good at that job, I don't know if my skill set was necessarily tapped into, but I enjoyed it. And I learned from it, and I think I am a better educator as a result of my time away. DUring that time, I was teaching one class per semester, so I didn't have a lot of interaction and engagement with students, and um during that five years my teaching was terrible. You know I had 50 hours of work a week focused on doing administrative stuff, and I would come into the classroom and be so scared and frustrated, I just really couldn't focus in on what I needed to be doing. So, so that question in a long run, is every bit from birth had sort of led me to the position of why I chose to be a professor. I approach my classroom and size it up as quickly as I can, but intentionally and spend countless hours studying and trying to understand all sides of an argument so I can push my students to think outside of their box. So if I have a class that I perceive to fall on a more liberal spectrum, then I will come in with the articulation of the conservative view as well, as well in discussing some of the obstacles of particular ideologies. And I've had students say "all we do is talk in classes" ha-ha an I feel like there is a whole lot more work that goes into those classes when all we're doing is talking, because you're trying to navigate a conversation, and sort of put people in uncomfortable situations, where they feel safe enough to discuss their, uh their opinions. And of course I want them to be able to back their opinions up with some sort of substantive fact, but certainly I don't want to downplay experience. As the women said to me at Neuropa, "how'd you get here so fast?' they all had these amazing experiences, and I was kind of awe inspired by them, but in the end, they were sort of awe inspired by me, because I was the young one in the room, who was sitting in the same position as they were, and they didn't know how I got there so quickly. SO yeah, my thought is, I wanted to come back and teach people to unlearn their stuff and I wasn't even sure, like at that point, I wasn't a sociologist I had taken one class in sociology and it was an intro to sociology class over the summer, I got a C in that class, but I thought a lot and I worked really hard in that class and it made me think, and I um, just kept taking a lot of classes and finally pieced my all together like "oh I'm studying sociology" so I think that is a long way of getting there.

Karandjeff: Okay the second question "what cultural identities/experiences are most salient for you?"

Spring: What do you mean by that?

Karandjeff: Like, what do you most identify with, part of growing up, like your family life, and experiences that you have had that made you who you are today.

Spring: Um, let's see, my family is Ukrainian, my mother's side of the family is Ukrainian, um and I think that plays a, it certainly plays a big portion into our holidays, and traditions. I think growing up, in a working-class family, where my father, worked at a factory, and my mother worked at a grocery store, she was a produce manager at the grocery store, my dad worked on the line at the factory, and then he was a member of the union, they both were in the union. I think that uh, certainly instilled in me, a work ethic. My, father's factory would open up its doors to the community once a year, and you would go and walk through the factory and tour it and then they would have hamburgers and hot dogs, and a cookout at the end, and it was just a way to you know bring everyone in my hometown, their fathers worked in this factory, but as you would be walking around the factory, and people would be working all of the fathers, you know my father, and my friends fathers, would be standing there saying "this is why you need to get an education, because you don't want to end up in a place like this." And you know it was just kind of loud and hot and so, you would hear those, those statements, and it really resonated with me, and I just wanted more. I saw my parents, you know they got paid a decent wage, but they were miserable. They hated their jobs. They came home and just talked about how much they hated their jobs, and I was like I don't want to do that, I don't want to hate my job. And they were in a position to where they couldn't quit, because they didn't have anything to fall back on. They didn't have education, they didn't have um, you know they had experience but that experience was so limited to those positions that they were really marketable elsewhere, so you know those two things combined like, even getting my Ph.D, in sociology I was planning on, I didn't know if I was going to go into the research world or if I was going to go into teaching, I wanted to teach but you know the job market is so crazy, you don't know where you are going to land and, so I wanted, I jumped into opportunities to work in a research institute, then I took any opportunity I could to adjunct teach a class so that I could stay marketable. And even going into administration, of trying to stay relevant in that area but still work on my specific craft. So I would say uh I identify as those two tied to Ukrainian to a Ukrainian Catholic, I mentioned that earlier in the first question of I think culturally, those played big roles in my life. My parents pushed sports and academics, they didn't really push anything else. I mean they were sort of pushing music but, not for me to play just like, they would always have music playing around the house. But I didn't grow up with a lot of instruments or opportunities to participate in band or anything like that. Certainly, no theater, certainly no uhh like it was just sports, and I was required to play some sport all year long because they thought that it helped with discipline and uh helped keep me out of trouble. And sort of my way of responding back to them pushing me into doing sports and I like sports and I am an athlete and I played sports in college, and I was a professional BMX racer for years and have excelled in most every sport I have participated in, but they really wanted me to play football, and basketball so instead, I played soccer and wrestled. And I was really fast and good at track, uh and so instead I took up tennis. And so I guess I just wanted to, I wanted to be me and I wanted to get out from the shadows of my grandparents, and my father, and my dad's dad was a big boxer, they tried pushing me to boxing and I didn't want to do that. And that is very intimately tied to that working-class mentality. SO being of that small, that small area, and the sort of stars of the town were the football players, and the basketball players, I wanted to run off into my own world, and I was the star of our soccer team, and so I wanted to just go off and do my own thing, and BMX was also similar to that. You know at the time it was completely different, well it was emerging, and so there was no one before me in my family to sort of reside there. So that's what I would say. I think I'm done there.

Karandjeff: Okay, um

Spring: Is that what you were going for?

Karandjeff: Yeah, yeah, and then I mean we have already kind of touched base on this, but what experiences have most shaped you as a leader?

Spring: My dad started soccer in my hometown, and I remember my dad and Benny Woods and Jan Meril, all sort of getting soccer up and going in our community, uh and the efforts that they did, to uh sort of take in all of these other families where they had no idea what it was, and to introduce them to it. And my dad worked full time at the factory, but he woke up every morning, and made me breakfast, and somehow picked me up from school, coached my soccer team, brought soccer to the community, and was just like also in the mother's club at my school and just make big batches of food and just bring it into the school. And so, I think I saw what being a leader in the community meant, by just watching my father. And, and a part of that is showing up and being present, listening to other folks and following through and doing work. You know I don't know if anyone would call my father a leader per say, but my dad in my high school yearbook, had as many people writing notes to him, as they did to me. And so uh I think, seeing that, and you know he was just always of that mindset, is of that mindset, of you always do 110% which I don't believe in doing more than you can but, you know it doesn't matter if it is a practice, or it is um listening to a friend, if you're listening to a friend then be 100% there, be 100% present, if you're going to do work then be 100% there, um yeah and so he pushed me to strive for more, and be better. Um and so in BMX when I was nationally ranked you know I would go to a race, and be winning the race by 15 bike lengths and he would be screaming at me to peddle 10 lengths past the finish line, because if you give up or if you let up then someone else is going to be there to do better and they're always aiming for you and yeah I think in many ways, I don't know if I have come to terms with the conversation of being a leader. Although I did come across this is interesting, I just came across this book that was put together by my preschool teacher, when I was four years old, and she wrote in the book, about um-- like who, who I was at that time, and her observations of me. Her observation of me said, hold on, I'm trying to uh, it's when you want technology, technology fails. Ummm in her note, she essentially said, "You seem to be more of a leader than the other children" and so I'm guessing yeah, here it is, (more of a leader, yah and more of a leader than other children--.) And I don't know I think in part because my dad taught me that it's okay to fail. And I don't know if there is a leader out there who hasn't failed or come to terms with failing. All of us fail all of the time. I'll come out of the classroom and be like oh I just bombed that lecture, it was terrible, but that inspires me to do better next time. And you know I have always been intention in paying attention to my failures and why I fail, and how I fail. And certainly, you want to fail with dignity, which I don't always do, I don't know if any of us always do something. Um yeah so, I think it is important for us to pay attention, and it's okay for us to be critical of ourselves, and the things that we do and be critical of others, and our family. I mean being critical of something or being critical of another, doesn't have to mean you are, you are giving up being unconditionally present and attentive, and loving. You know I fail and screw up, pretty regularly but I know that my wife will like, be there, and pick me up, and put me in line. And I think that's what we do to ourselves, um if we're doing it right.

Karandjeff: Okay and what does leadership mean to you?

Spring: Um... in some ways I think that it means getting out of the way. Getting out of your own way, um allowing other to excel, I mean I think, I think of leaders that I've had in my life, that have either been that of the sort of aggressive hounding type, and sort of focus and nitpick. And then there are others who like I've had, and I just really wanted to work for. Like they could say, jump off the roof of that building and I would like, be like when? Right now? I want to be there for you and I want to, and I want to get to that point. I would like to get to that point. I don't know, I mean there isn't like an answer for a quality leader. Um I think there are several characteristics, that I continue to work on, from listening, and being present. So yeah, I think listening, and being present, modeling the type of behavior, and work ethic that you want others to aspire to. Goodness gracious I think there are all sorts of things that go into being a leader. I come back to the idea though that really good leaders make those around them better. Um, in all ways, they make them feel better, they make them want to be better, make them want to do more and, make them want to aspire more than they even think that they can or deserve. And I think we all deserve the world, I don't know that we have to put false limitations on things. Um, yah.

Karandjeff: Okay and how would you characterize your leadership style?

Spring: Hm. I would say that I am a want to be inclusive, um I pay attention to the details I think details are important. I think that I try to listen, and I think that I try to get out of my own way. Again, I don't know if I'm always successful at that. I am always impressed by leaders who, stop and talk to sort of the lowest member of the hierarchy. Are intentional about knowing what's going on with them. I don't know if it's always-- hm yeah, certainly there are points in time, when necessity will dictate that you spend more time doing other things right, but you know from myself I try to pay attention to what I see in my students and what expression is on their face, and their body language, and all those things. If they are feeling sick you know go focus on you, if they're feeling sad like you know or if they are elated to celebrate with them, to take a moment to sort of lift them up higher. I love seeing my students do amazing things. And I brag at my students all the time and I don't think it's about bragging on my students, I'm just amazed at all of the great stuff that they so, and I want others to share in that excitement, and sort of like to function as an ambassador, uh for them so that's where I see myself. I am still uncomfortable with thinking of myself as a leader. I mean I recognize that I have received a number of accolades, I think some others might put me in that category as well. I am working on, and my wife helps me work on this too, of taking a time to sort of pause and reflect, and appreciate, the things that I have done, um, and I sometimes do that. I don't do that often.

Karandjeff: What is your professional strengths and weaknesses?

Spring: Oh um, my professional strengths and weaknesses.. I don't know, I think that I would say um..I think I put in work, and I am not afraid to put in work, and I think that is probably my greatest strength. My wife will ask me a question on something, um and if I don't know the answer, I'll spend the next 8 hours searching for it. Even if I find the answer in 30 minutes or 20 minutes, or 2 minutes I'll always spend the next 8 hours researching every aspect of question in whatever angle and way so that I can truly understand the complexities of the stuff, and you know like she'll ask me something as simple as "what would you do if we won X amount of dollars in the lottery and like we don't play the lottery, but I immediately jumped into understanding tax rates and tax brackets and education plans and the incentives in investing in education for my nieces and nephews, and what would be most accessible to them and be most beneficial to them, moving forward, and so I sort of function in that world, which has a whole lot of skills, I can read critically and think critically, and speak critically, and pay attention and understand, or at least I attempt to pay attention and understand but I think it all boils down to I'm not afraid to work. So that's what I am going to go with.

Karandjeff: Leaders help to turn ideas into action to empower others. How do you accomplish this?

Spring: Um-- Yeah. That, that is big. It's sort of like the Nike ad, you just have to do it, and that's really what it comes down to. I think it is important to assess the situation, and develop a plan, but sometimes you can spend so much time assess and developing that nothing ever gets accomplished. And I don't, want and my wife will think i made a really rapid decision, and just run with it, but she's learned that I'll spend 60,70, 100 plus hours doing research and so when I am ready to act it's just like go mode. I think sometimes it just has to be go mode.And so you have to be able to effectively communicate and plan a strategy to those who are in, working in tandem with you. I think you need to be able to effectively communicate the plan, i think you need to work on your strengths and their strengths, to understand that some people's strengths are in the heavy lifting, and that doesn't mean that they can't do other aspects of it, but i think that, as you lay out a plan and communicate that plan, the folks who are more equipped to handle certain things will go and take care of those tasks, and then come back together to help lend a hand in other areas that require that .

Karandjeff: So going based off of that, that goes into our next question, Do you feel it is important to delegate people, and if so why, and or how do you delegate?

Spring: Absolutely, I think it is necessary, otherwise it is just you and you are going to have a massive burnout. But it is also is important for you to do a lot of the work as well. I think if you only delegate, then your workers, you'll lose those folks you are working with, your teammates, your workers etc.. Your students, in my case, if it's only, if its completely lopsided, I think that that is intentionally dangerous, and hazardous to accomplishing any goal. Um, yeah so, you just have to recognize what is being done and what needs to be done.

Karandjeff: Ok so how do you measure success, and how do you learn from failure?

Spring: Hmm, um. Failure. You pay attention to it. You try to understand why you failed, how you failed. The ways in which you failed, and try to circumvent it the next go around. The older I get the less I take failure personally, in some ways take it. I mean I just understand that it's going to be a part of the growth process. In success how, how do I, was it how do I handle success? Therapy. Years of therapy. That's what has gotten me to, really before therapy, I would get success and then I would get depressed. And then I would go back and chase something else, and try to be bigger, better, do more. Um, and my therapist got me to a point where I could pause, and reflect and be critical of it in the same that I was reflecting and being critical of my failure. And, and I think that it is also important to highlight those, the successes of those around you as well, so not just, I mean, and that's not to say that I don't stop and sort of have these moments that I feel good, because I do. But I cert- I don't know, personally I don't rest when that happens. Um yeah, that's where I am.

Karandjeff: Okay, then what are two or three actions or steps that enable others to be successful?

Spring: I think you need to do work, and involved in that work would be learning to read and think critically, umm and that would be for all situations. And I think you need to learn to listen, and you need to learn how to effectively communicate. Because what end up happening is that you think you are being completely clear in your communication, and people are receiving it completely differently. So you'll go back and forth and they are receiving one thing and you think you're communicating something completely differently, or your intention was to communicate in a completely different fashion, and it gets lost, and uh yeah, um and sometimes you just need to listen. You just need to listen to what people around you are telling you. And that maybe, that maybe listening to people's body language, maybe listening to verbal communication, that maybe listening to the signs that are you know around you. Certainly you look at the current political administration and how Trump won the current political administration, it shouldn't have been a shock to anybody of the democratic party or the republican party because if they would have just sort of stopped and listened to the american public they would have realized you know that there is, a group who is sort of screaming and screaming, and screaming for someone to pay attention, to what was ailing them and no one was paying attention so finally, they showed up in mass, and voted someone who was as far away from the political spectrum as they had an option for. And you know you see that with Bernie Sanders and the democratic party, and you see that with Donald Trump in the republican party. Like neither one of those are you know status quo democrat or republican candidates. So yeah I think listening.

Karandjeff: Okay, what advice do you have for building relationships, and trusts with organizations?

Spring: This is good. You need to go to the organization whoever the organization is surviving and sit down with those folks first. And again you need to listen. You need to, like you can't come in and say "this is what needs to be done." You need to listen to what they need. And figure out your strengths, and what you can offer to that situation. I think that is what it is absolutely vital, otherwise you are not going to have any ownership, and, and if you don't have that ownership then it's like going to go nowhere. But if you can get, if you can build that relationship, and go in and say " I have resources, and I have to figure out which resources are going to be of the best use for this issue or this organization" and then go back to the organization and say "This is what I'm hearing what resources do you have, here are the resources that I have, who are the other potential organizations that have the resources we don't have, that we can combine with them to then deal with this problem." I created the YMCA program, uh the literacy program. I was going to the YMCA and I was seeing all of these young people showing up at the Y and the only thing they were pushing was athletics and being healthy but they weren't pushing education at all, and what we found was our educational system was lacking and people were looking, and they just weren't being held accountable. So we, we went and talked with them and asked them what they wanted, and you know they, and we created programs and educational outreach programs, and they said don't call it education, and do put education in there because then they'll turn away and not know part of it. But then we would show the drabbest of documentaries in there, and let me tell you, they were so excited to think and talk and speak about this stuff, and in that we uncovered the problem with, with literacy, and math literacy as well. And so we figured out here are our resources. You know being a professor at Belmont I have resources in terms of access to a lot of smart young people who can serve as mentors to these young people and what we are finding is a lot of these young people, need people who knew more people who were in prison or killed than who went to college. So if we could introduce them, and sort of offset that and give them people in their lives who had been to college like, even though my parents didn't go to college the expectation was always you're going to college. There was no expectation of otherwise and of something else. So I think that it's, you need them to buy into it, and they only way they can get them to buy into it I if they have a voice in the creation of it. And think organizations in general, sometimes do a bad job because they have resources that are tied to money, and they're saying "If I'm going to put my money into this then I need to know, you know that X, Y, and Z are going to be the outcome." So we get so focused on outcomes, and afraid of failure that I think we limit our potential, as opposed to saying "you know what, I am going to create this thing and it may not work, or it might win an award" and so that's sort of where we were, and we created this program and it started to get good, and we changed it up and we you know recreated it, and it sort of took off from there, and I got out of the way, and let them run it. And I think that, that's really important know when to get out of the way and back off. And so now, like I'll go and tutor but I have no control over any of the rest of it. They'll call me up and go "we want to schedule this" and I'll help them in ways that I can, because they know that I'll be a resource for them. But I'll otherwise you know let them do what they need to do.

Karandjeff: Okay, and last question. This one is kind of like, what do you want your legacy to be?

Spring: Woo. Um--. I want my son to be a really good person, who is sitting down being interviewed by a student and him saying "my father showed me how to be a good human being. That is what I want.