00:00:00:10 - 00:00:22:22 Unknown It is so great to see people in person. We have been needing this and we're really grateful that you all could make it. I'm Christy Yates. I'm the associate director with Theological Horizons, and I work with Karen Marsh, and we are a ministry based on the Grounds of UVA that connects faith, thought, and life and our faith and work form is an annual series. 00:00:22:22 - 00:00:49:11 Unknown We do one each semester, and it's a chance to get people, leaders in our community to share their stories. Often stories that don't get to be told in the workplace and talked about there so we can see a different, more holistic side of them. And we're so excited to have Dean Jenkins with us this morning. And I'm going to introduce my friend Diamond first, Diamond Walton, who is an amazing person and a mom to two little ones and husband to a wonderful man. 00:00:49:18 - 00:01:20:00 Unknown But I'm going to tell a little bit about her professional background. MS. Walton has spent her career pursuing community, led solutions to public health challenges She has worked alongside community members to mobilize financial, social and human capital to address social determinants of health, such as transportation, built environment, and access to health care. She is interested in how income and wealth function and social determinants of health, and how reducing the racial wealth gap contributes to improved health outcomes. 00:01:20:19 - 00:01:41:02 Unknown So Diamond is going to introduce Dean Jenkins and have a brief interview with her, and then we'll have some time for some questions and answers afterwards. So to settle in, we're so glad to be in person. And for those of you on Facebook, we're delighted to have you with us as well. Thank you. Thank you, Christy. And for having us. 00:01:41:02 - 00:02:04:21 Unknown Thank you for hosting us Theological Horizons and thank you Dean Jenkins for being with us this morning. Um, so I want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself a little bit and tell you tell us a little bit about your background. I know your family grew up, you grew up in Maryland, and you have a really interesting story about how your experience working in your family's farm and a springboard of your career in accounting. 00:02:04:21 - 00:02:24:01 Unknown So I would love to hear more about you and your background. Sure. Well, before I start, I want to thank you all for the invitation and for you all coming today. So I am the youngest of four. So between myself, and my oldest sibling, there's five and a half years, so the four of us in a very close period of time. 00:02:24:12 - 00:02:52:04 Unknown So my oldest sibling is I have a brother and then I have there's two sisters in between us. My parents own a farm, but my parents also owned a trash company. And when you grow up in a family owned business, everyone has jobs. And in our family, the job may have been helping to bring in crops on the farm, maybe doing billing in the trash company, maybe even sometimes going up, taking the pickup truck out and picking up missed houses or whatever those things might be. 00:02:52:07 - 00:03:10:18 Unknown It's all hands on deck, right in the family owned business. So I'll say how growing up in that business kind of help me as working on the farm. If you ever want your children to go to college, have them work on a farm because you think about, well, you know, I should really be studying. This is this is really hard work. 00:03:12:03 - 00:03:35:04 Unknown Oh, that's a gift, right? So growing up on a farm, you learn how to work hard. You appreciate the the fruits of your labor. But you can see that working hard has these clear outcomes that are beneficial. So I think that was a really great learning experience. But for me, when I how I ended up in the field of accounting has a lot to do with working in my parent's trash company. 00:03:35:20 - 00:04:00:05 Unknown So I was responsible for helping my mother with the billing. And when I was in middle school, this is before personal computers. So personal computers became more common when I was in middle school and I had been taking a programing class in my school and I was using my parent's computer. I was I wrote a program with the help of my my teacher that automated their billing process. 00:04:00:14 - 00:04:25:05 Unknown And so my parents, of course, like this is the smartest kid ever. But I will tell you, it was a very simple you know, in hindsight, a very simple program. But I think what I learned from that is what I really enjoyed about that experience. What I learned from it was you know, being faced with challenges and thinking about how to use innovation, you know, to disrupt existing processes. 00:04:25:05 - 00:04:49:20 Unknown And if I look over kind of this expanse of my professional career, I think those have been kind of the hallmark moments are times where, you know, in a difficult situation, facing some some challenges, how to come up with creative solutions, you know, to expedite, make things more efficient, but also help to create and expand value and then kind of capture some of that value for the organization. 00:04:50:06 - 00:05:20:07 Unknown Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. You developed a whole career that help your family run more efficiently. That's that's fantastic. I'm one of five children, so I understand the need for everyone to pitch in and do their part. Um, so, you know, as you're talking about your transition into the accounting field, I'm curious about it because, you know, as I think about accounting, most of the time I think about taxes and audits that I don't think about more than nuanced implications of your field. 00:05:20:14 - 00:05:40:02 Unknown And so I'm curious, and over the course of your profession, what are some of the kind of the moral and ethical issues that you have come up against? And how have you used your faith to navigate those situations? Yeah, maybe I'll back up a little bit and say, you know, I was I was raised Catholic. So my mother was converted to Catholicism as an adult. 00:05:41:08 - 00:05:59:08 Unknown And like most children, raised in religious families, you adopt the faith of your parents. And then sometime in your twenties, you're you're faced with a variety of things. You know, you have to decide, you know, is this am I going to continue on this path or not? So I'll say I'm no longer a practicing Catholic for a variety of reasons. 00:06:00:03 - 00:06:25:09 Unknown One is, you know, the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, but also as an adult kind of taking more of a critical lens to, you know, my experience with the church. I attended Catholic schools K through 12. And so for a variety of reasons, you know, began attending Protestant churches when I was at university. And then when I married my husband, my husband was not raised Catholic. 00:06:25:09 - 00:06:57:07 Unknown And for anyone who is Catholic, it's hard. It's it's not easy to be Catholic. So so I think for us it was a good decision to go into a Protestant church. Also, my sister is a Presbyterian minister. And over the pandemic as a family, we've been attending her church, which is in Brooklyn virtually. And that's been it's been it's an interesting experience having a sibling who's a pastor, because I remember her when she wasn't a pastor so that's been great. 00:06:57:07 - 00:07:20:23 Unknown But so that's a little bit of a background. But when it comes to being an accountant, I think the thing for me that resonates with being an accountant is that accountants accountancy is about rules. I'm a fan of rules for a variety of reasons, one of which is when you understand the process and the guardrails to something, it's so easy then to see the opportunities. 00:07:22:02 - 00:07:41:00 Unknown So like even in the role as being Dean, I'm like, Okay, what's what's the process? Okay. Because it says we can't do these things. That means a lot of things that we but we can do that. There's opportunity there. And so I think just people who are accountants just our natural bent is to kind of see those opportunities outside of kind of what the structure is. 00:07:42:06 - 00:08:20:21 Unknown But accounting is often referred to as the language of business and I think what's frequently not appreciated about what happens in our profession is that we're very much communicating you know, how are resources measured and reported and allocated. And in a large extent, everything that we do in life is about resource allocation broadly, and our profession is the underpinnings of our economic society, which is so intertwined with everything that we do so I think that there's not as much appreciation for the contribution of accountants as there as there should be. 00:08:22:00 - 00:08:43:11 Unknown But as an accountant, you're often faced with ethical decisions where individuals, as you can imagine, there's a motivation to report profits at greater rates than perhaps are warranted, to perhaps allocate resources in ways that may be inconsistent with the mission or value of the organization. 00:08:45:13 - 00:09:06:10 Unknown But I have found that what your faith gives you, particularly a faith that's built over a lifetime, is it really clarifies for you who you are what's important to you, but it also helps you to navigate in these gray spaces that we find ourselves in. So the bright line there, bright, bright, line rules in accounting. Bright line rules and life. 00:09:06:10 - 00:09:27:10 Unknown And those are all super easy, right? Like, you shouldn't kill people. We know that. You shouldn't take money out of people's purses, right? We know these bright line rules, but these gray areas are where the faith that you've accumulated over a lifetime helps you to weigh the opportunities, the pluses and minuses. And then make an informed decision. Yeah, that's really helpful. 00:09:27:20 - 00:09:47:07 Unknown Yeah. And thank you for telling us a little bit more about your background and journey. My husband's a pastor, too, and so it is always fun to see him preach and then also know his personal life - it's not inconsistent. It's good to see a full person in that context. 00:09:47:07 - 00:09:54:19 Unknown So, yeah, it always it always scares me a little bit when she says, Oh, I remember from childhood and you're like, Oh, no, is that going to be about me!? 00:09:57:10 - 00:10:25:00 Unknown I know. I know that feeling So let's talk about your transition to the University of Virginia as you all moved into the new to this community seven months into the pandemic, which is a crazy thing. It still is a crazy time, but it was definitely a crazy time. So you're transitioning your career and your family here. Um, and I'm thinking about your children going school and obviously your, your, your career and your husband transitioning as well. 00:10:25:00 - 00:11:11:10 Unknown And so I am curious what that process was like for you, all that you learned imagining your new life here, especially in that time kind of little history. Yeah. So I was announced as the incoming dean at McIntire in May of 2020. My whole interview process was virtual, and then my whole first year as Dean was been virtual so kind of unprecedented in many ways that experience when I first was announced as Dean and then started in July, we had every reason to believe that we were going to be in-person that fall And so it was a process of every, I would say, maybe seven to ten days there being some update. 00:11:12:10 - 00:11:48:05 Unknown So living in kind of this constant state of transition is really challenging as a family. I think there was there were a lot of really interesting things that happen I will say that it's it's it's it was beneficial to us that my husband and I are both in professions that were not adversely affected by the pandemic And so our ability for employment, our access to resources, I recognize that, you know, we were in a tremendously privileged place and did not experience a lot of the, you know, economic challenges that many in the country faced. 00:11:49:10 - 00:12:17:22 Unknown But I will say from the pandemic, we were fortunate we we all had workspaces that we could be kind of on our own. But it was very nice to be all four of us in one house together. So my my daughter, who was a senior in high school, we had planned that my husband would stay in Lexington, Kentucky, where we were originally living so that she could finish her senior year and that I would come here to Charlottesville and kind of be back and forth between Charlottesville and Lexington, as it turned out. 00:12:17:22 - 00:12:43:10 Unknown My daughter dropped out of high school. My husband I love saying this. She dropped out of high school, and she actually attended a university online for her senior year and worked for a lot of nonprofits and so her senior year was an amazing experience for her. She started a nonprofit. She's probably maybe the only first year at UVA that doesn't have a high school diploma. 00:12:44:17 - 00:13:08:21 Unknown But it's you know, it's always it's funny because she had this really interesting and exciting final year of high school our son attended a 100% online, which was a terrible experience for him. I can't say more about that. I don't want you to relive that trauma. It was terrible. But again, I will say I feel very fortunate to have had teenagers during the pandemic. 00:13:09:07 - 00:13:34:11 Unknown I can't imagine what it would be like to have young children or elementary age children. We have friends who have PhDs who said it's really hard to teach people to read and to do basic math. You know, this is these are really hard things. But the transition has been a good one because the kids were online we were able to accelerate the move of the family to Charlottesville. 00:13:34:11 - 00:13:54:14 Unknown So we were able to move into Pavilion V on March 1 of 2021, which was way ahead of what we had originally planned. And it was so nice just to all be under one roof, you know, on a in an out basis. Yeah, yeah. And hey we were one of those families that have small children and we're trying to navigate an earlier pandemic like without child care. 00:13:54:14 - 00:14:18:20 Unknown So yes, I'm happy that we've moved to this phase and have more support. So, um, I was curious about, you know, as we're thinking about that, the experience of the pandemic, I can imagine even apart from, you know, that the transition and maybe the loss of maybe friends or social networks, if you moved to a new city, there may have been other cases and loss that you've experienced over the course of the pandemic. 00:14:18:20 - 00:14:38:23 Unknown And I know you know, you're in this new role and have a lot of this responsibility, but also are navigating the challenges that we all are facing everyday, especially in this, you know, again, in this period of history that, um, you know, something we've never experienced. So I'm just curious, um, as you've been experiencing the pandemic, how have you been processing it? 00:14:38:23 - 00:15:05:11 Unknown What are the things that have been helpful for you of you as you've been living through that? Couple of things. We again, fortunate in that we only had only lost one personal connection to COVID a sorority sister of mine. You know, again, recognizing that, you know, access to resources and things like that really had a significant effect on kind of how you experienced the pandemic. 00:15:06:01 - 00:15:39:01 Unknown I will say for our children, again, teenagers through the pandemic and social unrest, you know, we were able to kind of see a new side of our children, a new level of commitment to society and the lived experiences of individuals that also made us proud but also it's interesting to see, you know, their passion and their level of commitment, which is it has not cooled in the aftermath, but some of the things that we found that have been amazing is things that we share in common. 00:15:39:01 - 00:16:00:14 Unknown So we all share a love for good food. And over the pandemic, we all kind of have had unique interactions around food. So my husband does the vast majority of the cooking in our family. But over the pandemic, our daughter started baking. So like she bakes all kinds of pies. She made tiramisu last week, so she is all in on the baking. 00:16:00:21 - 00:16:27:20 Unknown But our son, who is six and never really very interested in cooking now makes up whole chicken and uses an air fryer to do all kinds of things even I have started cooking, so I normally only cook for a company, so I've been making buttermilk biscuits and my son, who he doesn't like to cook so much but loves to eat, he loves pumpkin pie. 00:16:28:01 - 00:16:42:19 Unknown I think I've made maybe in the last 60 days I've made for pumpkin pie. And you know, when you, when you're going to put the effort into cook, you really want someone to eat it. So I think I made a pumpkin pie on a Sunday and by Wednesday morning it was all gone. 00:16:44:20 - 00:17:05:18 Unknown So I think cooking is something that kind of has been great, a great bind coming together in our family. My husband and I moving to Charlottesville, we both play golf and so we've been playing more golf. The weather is is better in Charlottesville. So we've played golf. We we go out not I don't go out this weather. He's a he's a he's a 52 week a year golfer. 00:17:05:18 - 00:17:25:17 Unknown I'm not. But when it's nice out, we will go like maybe one evening during the week and maybe over the weekend we'll go out and play nine holes together. And he and I, when it's warm kayak on the reservoir here. So we'll be out maybe at 6 a.m. so we go before work. So we'll go out around 6 a.m. and kayak. 00:17:25:17 - 00:17:45:15 Unknown And so there have been these things that have been made possible because of the pandemic that you don't really think about when you only can spend time with your family. That I think have been really a beautiful experience of COVID in the midst of the other tremendous tragedy that kind of sits side by side with it. Yeah. Yeah. 00:17:45:15 - 00:18:15:03 Unknown Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I think we're all kind of looking for any ideas of how to relieve stress and take advantage of the, the bit of a slower pace of the pandemic. Um, so you, you are well into your role. You're over, you're into your role. And, um, I'm, I'm curious as you reflect on that this past year and think about yourself growing up from the, for the farm in Maryland all the way up here up to this point, if you could talk to your 20 year old self or your self in college and what would you tell her. 00:18:15:03 - 00:18:47:17 Unknown And maybe it wouldn't be anything different than what she was already doing, but what kind of encouragement um, I think I would say a couple of things. One, I think mindset really matters. I think, you know, as humans we have the default mechanism of like creating self-talk for ourselves. And I say one thing that I would say to my 27 year old self, but also say to my children is the way people treat you and what they say to you has says more about them than it does about you. 00:18:47:21 - 00:19:10:11 Unknown And I think it's hard to kind of keep that front and center at the top of your mind. We have a tendency to kind of absorb what people say and do, and we think that's a reflection of something bad in ourselves when in fact they're having a day right? It has to do with them. That's one. The second is to remind myself that, you know, failure is part of success. 00:19:10:20 - 00:19:30:20 Unknown You know, we live in a society where, you know, you're rewarded for going for being at 150% all the time. And we don't want to fail. We don't want to take a risk but the reality is, those of us who have tremendous success in life on whatever dimension that you define, we've achieved that because we have we have failed along the way. 00:19:31:20 - 00:19:55:04 Unknown And no, in our school, we have started when we have alums come and talk to students, we ask them, tell us your biggest failure and what you learn from it. Because we perceive that this person there, they must have done everything perfectly. There's a Steve Jobs quote that I love. And he he gave a speech at Stanford and he said, that when you think about your life, you can't connect the dots looking forward. 00:19:55:04 - 00:20:15:10 Unknown You only can connect them looking backwards. But we always think that somehow this the the person, the dean or whomever had a perfect plan that I set out at age 20 to be a dean? At age 20 I wanted to be an accountant that was it was a work at a firm. That was it. You know, life shifts around, right? 00:20:15:12 - 00:20:39:21 Unknown And you want to make the next best decision that you can but the things work out. Right. So taking it back to faith, I think about the the story in the Bible of the official who had a son who was sick and was going to die. And he knew that Jesus was nearby. And so he walks to have a conversation with Jesus and saying You know, I need you to come. 00:20:40:05 - 00:21:04:11 Unknown I need you to come and save my son. And Jesus says, you know, go home. Your son's been saved. He's going to live and the man is walking back to his home. And I think so much of our life is lived in that walk back to a promise and that's the hard part, right? The challenge is how do you keep the faith after the promise has been articulated? 00:21:04:11 - 00:21:21:08 Unknown Now you need a walk back and you don't know all of what you will find, but you know that you're going to find a good thing. But how do you keep the faith in the walk back home? And I think that's the challenge that we have because so many other things happen on that, you know, as you traverse that trail. 00:21:22:20 - 00:21:48:19 Unknown But you have to stay focus on getting back you know, getting back to that point. Yeah. That's because my sister is a pastor! First Church of Brooklyn. So, you know, coming to the close of my questions and my last one was: what's the question that no one has ever asked you? 00:21:48:19 - 00:22:14:07 Unknown And maybe it was, what is your biggest failure but I am curious if, you know, there's something that you wish people would ask you more about that you would love to share. I'm so this is so this is a hard question. But I'm going to think a little bit about undergraduates at UVA. And so I one thing I've learned since I've been at UVA is this perspective that many undergraduates have about the School of Commerce. 00:22:15:03 - 00:22:40:00 Unknown Part of this comes from my daughter, who says, well, everyone knows if you pick commerce, it's only because you care about money and you don't care about you don't care about people, you care about money. And I, I would love to have more conversations about with undergrads what's around what we do in the School of Commerce, how the things that we're really amazing at is teaching higher order thinking feels like how do you work with teens? 00:22:40:11 - 00:23:04:22 Unknown How do you identify and articulate problems? How do you marshal resources and allocate them to solve big problems and how the skills that you pick up in the McIntire School of Commerce are schools that are there are skills that are transferable across every walk of life. And that the way our modern society is organized is that it's organized around institutions, how institutions run. 00:23:04:22 - 00:23:30:14 Unknown That's true of a student club of a corporation, a nonprofit the skills that we teach in commerce is organizing people, gathering resources to solve problems. And I say this to my daughter I said, you know, you want to change the world, you want to change the world. For people who live in everyday lives, commerce is the catalyst through which our everyday life is influence. 00:23:30:14 - 00:24:10:17 Unknown There is nothing that we do that's not influence from the economic system that exists in this country and around the world. But if you brought your world view and sensibility about what change and improve lives look like to a boardroom to a corporation, think about the catalytic change that could take place. And so while I understand that there are many adverse things that have been done in the name of pursuing profits, those same mechanisms and channels that have been created is what allowed food to be in grocery stores during the pandemic. 00:24:12:02 - 00:24:46:23 Unknown And while a business major did not discover the vaccine, business people created the channels in which that vaccine, you know, got from an idea into people's arms. And so there is power in what we do in the school of business and I think of students who cared, who cared deeply about the world we live in, thought about the power that they could exert you know, within an organization that knew that the world would be a better place if they brought their perspective into the world of commerce. 00:24:46:23 - 00:25:03:02 Unknown So that's what I would like to talk to students about. I love that. I love that because I, I definitely, as a student, have that inflection as well - not that people just wanted to make money, but that, that it was, it wasn't as connected to the social issues that I thought were the most important. And so I really appreciate you clarifying that. 00:25:03:16 - 00:25:28:09 Unknown Um, so that's conclusion, my question, but I, we can, are we going to open up the other we have about 20 minutes to open it up for questions from the audience. You mentioned earlier in your talk that boundaries set really helped you see opportunities. I'm curious as to - has there ever been a time when you had a break a boundary? That I had to break a boundary? 00:25:28:09 - 00:26:02:09 Unknown Yeah. To achieve something, maybe for your faith? Are you saying like did something illegal?? You know we're streaming on Facebook right? I think - just going against the status quo. Oh yeah. So I am a nonconformist by nature. So going against the status quo is something I'm very comfortable with. I try to think of I think of an example when it was hard to do um, so I'll give an example. 00:26:02:09 - 00:26:21:23 Unknown So this is when I was at University of Kentucky and I was the, I was the vice dean, so I manage all the faculties part of my, a part of what I did. Faculty are people who feel as though they can do anything like I have this hard thing in my personal life. I can I can take care of it. 00:26:22:03 - 00:26:53:05 Unknown I don't need any help. Right. I, you know, and so I will say there are two occasions where I had to go to faculty and say, you may not realize this, but you're struggling and you need to step away. From the classroom. But faculties identity is tied up in our research, in our teaching. And, you know, being told that we're not serving our students well and that it's time to take some time off or to step away is a really hard thing to process. 00:26:53:21 - 00:27:13:19 Unknown So I will say it, it was probably easier in our community. Um, it would have been more acceptable to say, the faculty member, you just need to buckle down and get that work done. But I think seeing someone's humanity and telling them the thing they need to hear, even though it's not the thing they want to hear, can be a really hard thing to do. 00:27:15:02 - 00:27:51:13 Unknown So is that helpful? Okay. Yes, ma'am. Dean Jenkins, thank you so much for sharing with us. I just I'm a fourth year in Comm right now so it's really cool to get to know you better but I'm also also kind of asking you about boundaries, but something that I have really dealt with balancing throughout my four years here. And particularly with pre-Comm and Comm, is the idea of rest and the idea of rest in the Christian faith, but also, you know, being ambitious to go into these fields to, you know, work for justice within the world of Commerce. 00:27:51:20 - 00:28:13:10 Unknown And so I'm just kind of curious about you are obviously remarkable, accomplished woman, just how you approach rest - how you see it and how you do rest and just kind of I'm kind of you know, naturally ask the dean who like, you know, in my mind never sleeps or something like that. And so I just want to know your experience with rest. 00:28:13:19 - 00:28:38:12 Unknown I know it's a big question. Yeah. So I'll say I'll I'll say a little aside before I answer your question. I think this is true of, you know, people who are partnered, like if you're married or you have a life partner. So I'm married I think choosing your partner well makes a huge difference. So I'll say for me, you know, my husband and I, before we got married, had conversations about what we imagine our life would look like. 00:28:39:05 - 00:29:01:19 Unknown And, you know, do you want more education? How many kids do you want? What are we going to do with these kids when they're born? So my husband took ten years off of his out of his career to stay at home with our children. As I mentioned, he's a couples and family therapist. So I think choosing well, and if you if you're not partnered, I think choosing your friends well, your close friends well is really helpful and giving people permission to speak in your life. 00:29:01:20 - 00:29:22:14 Unknown Truth, but the things that you need to hear, I think that's just an aside. But with regard to rest I heard a story this has been many years ago about a pastor who had a mental breakdown because he was always giving and he let his personal, you know, his his emotional health just go because other people were in need. 00:29:23:14 - 00:29:50:19 Unknown And when he came out of that, what he did was the first thing he would schedule on his calendar for the year was his rest and relaxation. So he put that on and then he put the rest of his life around those commitments. So for me, I recognize that I need rest. So, like, I don't I don't have meetings on Wednesdays, which I will say it's hard for the people who manage my calendar, but I'm like, no meetings on Wednesdays, no meetings before 9 a.m.. 00:29:51:08 - 00:30:11:02 Unknown And part of that is because I'm a bit of a workaholic. So like my husband would tell you that during the pandemic I got more work done than I mean, like a lot of them, like two people. So my natural tendency is just to kind of buckle down and work. And so I have to schedule these times not to do that. 00:30:13:06 - 00:30:36:15 Unknown So I think that's really important for someone like myself who's fairly regimented and kind of how I manage my day. Scheduling those things and being intentional about those are it's really important. Again, also, my family will tell me when like you've been working, you're working too much, you need to stop doing this thing. No, you can't bring your computer downstairs while you're watching the basketball game with us. 00:30:37:18 - 00:30:58:18 Unknown So things like that. So I think creating systems in your own life for rest is really important, but also, you know, inviting your friends to tell you when you know you've done too much, you need to kind of back off. The reality is to particularly leading a business school, nothing's going to happen if I don't do something. 00:30:58:19 - 00:31:25:17 Unknown So if I say, you know what, we're going to push this till next week, it's nothing catastrophic is going to occur. It's, I think, being reasonable about what's important, what's time sensitive and what you can flex out in and out of, I think is really important. At the end of the day, I know that if I'm well rested and that I've had like some fun and enjoyment, that I'm much more effective at my job. 00:31:26:11 - 00:32:01:22 Unknown It's hard to convince yourself of that, though. So you kind of have to start off building that competency and fluency kind of in what you do. But it's hard to back off once you're, you know, you're all in. I have a really short one - what nonprofit did your daughter start? So it's called Dice and what she did and her nonprofit is she created a curriculum for diversity equity inclusion in K through 12 schools where students teach students. 00:32:01:22 - 00:32:49:06 Unknown So it's a peer to peer instruction and it's her curriculum is being used in some school districts in Kentucky. And so it's really interesting our our daughter during 2020 had a bit of a banner year. I mean she won national debate she won the state science fair. I mean, she had a banner year. She was she was on what is Gayle King's morning show right oh my gosh so so she's so this for her that senior year and stepping out of high school just created all kinds of possibilities for her and this is someone who would have had attended a math and science high school who was on her way to be a biomedical engineer is what 00:32:49:06 - 00:33:21:13 Unknown she wanted to do, but is now interested in educational policy. So she's kind of had a big shift and kind of like what her contribution can and should be to the world. I'm kind of excited to kind of see how it's all going to shake out well, this is sort of along that line. I feel like there's just so much fear right now in the world of money, finance, business inflation and student loan debt, housing costs that we're sending kids now, you and myself going to college and beyond. 00:33:22:08 - 00:33:52:22 Unknown I feel like there's a lot of potential for fear. So I'm curious where you're seeing signs of hope for these young folks, whether through colleagues at UVA or maybe nationally, like where are you seeing hope in this system that just feels like fear? You know, I see a lot of hope in Commerce students for example, students who say, you know what, I'm going to take this job, but here are the things that really matter to me. 00:33:52:22 - 00:34:17:05 Unknown So maybe I'm going to go to this investment bank or this private equity company, but I want to go into impact investing or I want to think about, you know, how to create this value and bring it to a larger set of people. So I think what's makes me hopeful is young people. So people who are in their twenties and then their teens thinking about what they're good at and where they can make a contribution. 00:34:17:16 - 00:34:44:12 Unknown But when they think about those things, they're thinking about a much broader set of people than they have in the past. So it always is heartening when I see people who, because of who they are, don't have a natural affinity for people who are less fortunate but who say, I care about those people and I'm going to live my life in a way that makes their life better, even though I don't have to make that decision. 00:34:44:12 - 00:35:13:03 Unknown And I see more and more people in this generation making those choices, which I think is really hopeful. And it exciting. So I think about like my daughter, who I say to her all the time, you know, if you were a finance major, you could make a lot of money. Or if you are a biomedical engineer, I mean, you're really smart, but she's choosing to do something that's meaningful to her to help, to help people that are you that are very different from her. 00:35:13:21 - 00:35:40:18 Unknown But she recognizes that investing her time and effort into making those structural changes is what's good for the world. And that means more to her. So that makes me hopeful. I have a question - what wisdom would you give to your students of the commerce school students who may be graduating who are going into jobs that might be very demanding on their time and more on their personal commitment, personal life. 00:35:41:19 - 00:36:05:12 Unknown And yet they want to maintain their faith, a religious faith. Like what wisdom would you give them heading into that with that that wish? Yeah. So I think it's I think transitions are really hard times, right? So transition from university into kind of your professional life is a time where I think a lot of people decline or walk away from things. 00:36:05:12 - 00:36:28:22 Unknown Right? So I'm I'm working in this very demanding job. I have to do these things. I want to be promoted, walking away from things in order to kind of create space for this professional life. So I recommend that before you go into that transition, get really clear on what's important to you. And as we were talking before about building and rest and relaxation, you build in those practices that we know that support our faith. 00:36:28:22 - 00:36:57:19 Unknown So does that mean, you know, building in a practice of, you know, I'm going to attend church on Sunday and I'm going to make sure that at least every other week I'm going to engage in some level of fellowship with people who have similar similar faith beliefs or similar world beliefs that I have. So I think making those commitments up front, putting those on the calendar and then structuring your life around that, but also being clear with your employer these are the things that are important to me. 00:36:57:19 - 00:37:23:20 Unknown You know, I do this on Sunday, I do this on Wednesday night, and I'm happy to accommodate things that I need to do for work. Outside of those things. But these things are really important to me. So I think building that in on the front end is really important because it's so easy if you don't make those commitments to yourself and articulate that you know, and verbalize that for your employer to those, for those things to be let go and you end up kind of compromising. 00:37:23:20 - 00:37:32:09 Unknown And it's easy to start a habit of, Oh, I can I don't have to go to church this Sunday. I can kind of go in the office and get some more work done. 00:37:36:06 - 00:38:01:19 Unknown I would also say, I think choosing your friends, your friendship group is really important. So when you start working, particularly when you're 21 or 22 and you come in with a class, I start at Pricewaterhouse right out of college and you come in with I came with the class of 36 other, you know, freshly graduated students, those people become your friends and it's so easy to kind of pick up the lifestyle of this group of people. 00:38:01:19 - 00:38:20:22 Unknown So I think it's important that you have a group of friends that you're regularly engaging with that have similar values and similar, you know, desires of what they want to get out of life because those are the people that kind of help you to make good decisions and help remind you of who you said that you want to be. 00:38:21:08 - 00:38:29:20 Unknown Because I think it's easy when things get busy and life gets hard to also lose those parts of yourself that are really important to you. 00:38:34:20 - 00:39:04:14 Unknown Yes, ma'am. I'm fascinated with your daughter's decision. As a college counselor for a long time, one of the things we suggested to students was they consider a gap year before they went to college. And I don't know whether there are ever students here who at some point in their four years take a gap year off. But I just think sometimes having that ability to think through what's important to you and that kind of thing and have a different experience. 00:39:04:22 - 00:39:30:00 Unknown And I guess with her situation, it sounds like there was a lot of experiential patterns of activity that gave her a chance to think more critically about what she was doing. I don't know whether you all have students to take a gap year before they come to Virginia or whether there are ones that take it during the time, but I'm wondering what you think about a gap year experience. 00:39:30:15 - 00:39:52:15 Unknown So it's I think it's a great, great question. So I know some of my daughter's friends who started as first years at UVA with her. It took gap years, and I think that was probably COVID driven in part, but you know, gap years, I think are becoming more common, more popular. I would say my personal opinion is if you're going to take a gap year, take a gap year with purpose, like it has to have some purpose. 00:39:52:15 - 00:40:10:19 Unknown It's not just a year off to go hang out. Yeah. Because our daughter talked about taking a gap year. And I said, where are you going to be working and where are you going to be living? Because you need to And so her senior year was very much like a gap year for her. But I think taking a gap year, you have to have a purpose. 00:40:11:23 - 00:40:29:03 Unknown So so for example, our daughter speaks Spanish. And so she has talked about, well, maybe I'd like to go and live a year in a Spanish speaking country. I'm like, okay, I get that. That that makes sense. So what are you going to be doing in the Spanish speaking country? So I think that there's a purpose to it, something that's going to enrich you as an individual. 00:40:29:18 - 00:40:52:16 Unknown I think that's helpful. Or an experience that's going to help you kind of figure some things out. So I think there are a lot of students who don't really know what they want to do at university. So maybe take a gap year and working may bring some clarity to that. I do think there's an alternative to a gap year between high school and college, which is a gap year when you're at university, which I'll say as a parent is risky. 00:40:52:17 - 00:41:18:06 Unknown So I always think if you walk away for a year, you might not come back! But I will say, look, like our daughter has talked about, well, you know, maybe I'll take a year off between second and third year to go and do something really interesting and you know, for her, I think that would be fine because I kind of know that she would go and do something that for her is going to help her clarify how do I want to spend my last two years at UVA? 00:41:19:20 - 00:41:36:04 Unknown So I think there's a role for her, a gap year but I'll just give you an example. Our son, who was a very different person, I probably will say to him, you need to go right on. Those are those that are going. So I think it depends on the person. I hope that's helpful. 00:41:44:12 - 00:42:07:06 Unknown Yes. What's life like for you and your family living on the Lawn? So my husband and I really enjoy it. So we have hosted the Lawn residents - the fourth years who live on the Lawn - and we've hosted them a few times at our house for for lunch or for dinner. And it's been great getting to know such a broad cross-section of students at the university. 00:42:07:06 - 00:42:25:05 Unknown So being in the in the McIntire School are our undergraduates represent less than 4% of the total undergraduate population. So I'm exposed to a very narrow, narrow set of students. But getting to know the students that are at other schools at UVA and kind of learning about their hopes and dreams for themselves has really been a lot of fun. 00:42:25:22 - 00:42:42:15 Unknown Our son, who is 16, has also enjoyed it. So the lawn residents invite them over to hang out in their rooms. And, you know, our son is not really yet into dating and so right now it's fine, but I'm like, this could become problematic. 00:42:44:17 - 00:43:04:00 Unknown But right now it's going really well for our daughter, who's a first year when she was, you know, the summer before before her first year started I said, well, you know, how frequently do you think we'll see you like? And she's like, we agreed on every other week she would come for dinner, but we probably see her three times a week. 00:43:04:12 - 00:43:28:06 Unknown Because, you know, free laundry, you know, food, you know, and also she plays the piano. So she comes to practice the piano at our house. So we see her a fair amount. And it's been really a gift, I think, for her brother, him being able to see her and she taking him places and doing things with him has been really, I think, a good experience for him. 00:43:28:06 - 00:43:57:14 Unknown Also, he loves the corner, so he now he's working. So he has money he has a debit card and he likes to go to the corner and get food, go with friends to the corner. So I think that's all of those things have been a really interesting experience for him. Our friends who come also love it, like they love walking through this 200 year old building and kind of hearing all the you know, the historical realities of living in the academical village. 00:43:58:18 - 00:44:07:03 Unknown We have some friends who are architects who come and who are like I would love to live here. And I'm like, There are no closets in this house. 00:44:09:20 - 00:44:31:21 Unknown So our we have bathrooms. I guess you got to count your blessings. There's bathrooms. But we moved from a house that was half the size of our pavilion, and we have two storage units because we don't have enough space for all of our stuff because - did I say there is no closet? There's no closets! But the rooms are very - 00:44:31:21 - 00:44:36:23 Unknown our pavilion is 7000 square feet, the room. But the individual rooms are huge. 00:44:40:01 - 00:44:56:15 Unknown All right. We'll talk. You have to help me with making my argument. But but it's been an amazing experience. Living in the pavilion and getting to know the other pavilion residents has been a lot of fun as well. 00:45:00:05 - 00:45:21:08 Unknown Yes. So this is kind of maybe an outdated question, but did you make any New Year's resolutions this year, or do you have any, like, things you're hoping to change this year? So I have adopted a New Year's habit for the year. So I am every morning I've begun writing down my intention for the day and I have found that to be really helpful. 00:45:22:19 - 00:45:47:01 Unknown So, you know, I'm guessing like most people at night, I'm laying in my bed and I think, oh, my God, these are the things for tomorrow I need to remember. But, you know, getting up in the morning and saying, you know, here are the two or three things I want to accomplish this day. And they're not always tasks but sometimes they're things like, you know, be be more patient when you talk to so-and-so today, things like that. 00:45:47:09 - 00:46:10:02 Unknown And then at the end of the day, just kind of reflecting on those intentions, I sit in the morning and then kind of like how the day has gone. So I teach some leadership modules and I teach students about the importance of journaling and how it's just a way of kind of processing your day. And that's something I've done sporadically, but I'm trying to make it more of an intentional practice in my life. 00:46:13:23 - 00:46:52:20 Unknown I'm also trying to ride my peloton four times a week. So yes, ma'am? Have you visited the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers? I have! Can I ask how as an African-American woman, how does that impact your your agency? Has it impacted your your teaching when it comes to being an African-American woman and teaching African-American students on a university that was built by slaves? 00:46:53:13 - 00:47:19:07 Unknown And I didn't know you lived in a Pavilion - that's amazing. So something you were talking about them coming in and seeing the architecture - do you have any is there any feeling of - "my ancestors built this"? Oh, so I will say yes. And let me expand on your question a bit. So when I first came to UVA July 1st I move I lived in the Mews, which is a two story building behind Pavilion I. 00:47:20:02 - 00:47:45:19 Unknown And that was the outdoor kitchen for Pavilion I. And so it's where enslaved people would have lived and worked. In our pavilion, and this is true of of all the pavilions, the basement is where enslaved people would have lived. And so like our family room in the pavilion is would have been the original kitchen my husband's office is that would have been the quarters where enslaved people would have lived. 00:47:47:07 - 00:48:12:14 Unknown And so that's part of the story as we walk people through the pavilion is if you've been in the pavilion, the basement stairs are built into the stairs to take you to the second floor and in those times they would have all the molding on the wall and the stair would have all been painted the trim color so that you wouldn't be able to see the door so you wouldn't know there was a door there. 00:48:13:11 - 00:48:36:15 Unknown And so I will say it's interesting when you have people in the pavilion that part of telling the story of Thomas Jefferson is also telling the story of time and place and one of the kind of very interesting things about the pavilion is that in the basement, the floor would have been all dirt. The floor is now been raised so the ceiling in the basement are really low. 00:48:38:10 - 00:49:09:14 Unknown And it's interesting you that's part of part of this story. So when I first moved to Charlottesville, I would walk in the morning and I would leave the mews. I would go for a walk by the stadium and come back through that down University Avenue. And I would always end at the Memorial to Enslaved Workers. And a lot of the thought I had around that is, you know, here you have enslaved people who made such contributions to the establishment in the building of the University of Virginia. 00:49:10:01 - 00:49:32:03 Unknown And to be an African-American woman, dean in the School of Commerce no less. Right. Is a bit of a I don't want to say a full circle, but it's a story and a narrative that I keep top of mind because I recognize it is that my presence is telling a story in and of itself, which is an important story to tell. 00:49:33:12 - 00:49:56:06 Unknown And I think being people of faith. Right. You see the through line, you know, in the story of African-Americans that have been enslaved in this country. So as a descendant of enslaved people. Right. The power of that is not lost on me. And so in coming to the end to UVA, you know, many people, I think friends broadly like, oh, my God, I can't believe you're going to UVA of all the places. 00:49:56:08 - 00:50:09:09 Unknown Right. But to some extent, that history is a thing that makes UVA a special place so it is. It is. That if I answered your question. Okay, that's great. 00:50:16:09 - 00:50:47:10 Unknown Yes. So with all their success, I know that setbacks and failure is inevitable. How do you have the strong mindset to keep reaching new levels in the past year? You know, I as I mentioned, earlier, I think failure is part of success. And at different points in my career, I've had I've experienced failure. One mantra that I keep in mind is that frequently the thing that you think is the worst thing that's ever happened to your in your life? 00:50:48:01 - 00:51:11:12 Unknown Frequently, but frequently. I will just say, Cam can turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you in your life. So I'll give you an example. I was a Ph.D. student I wrote my my dissertation. I was getting ready to go on the market to go and find a job. And that, you know, the way the market works is you go out in the job market in January. 00:51:11:22 - 00:51:34:21 Unknown In November, before I went on the market, a paper was was presented at a conference that was my dissertation I had to stay another year in my Ph.D. program and write a second dissertation. But at the end of the day, if I hadn't stayed another year, if I hadn't written another dissertation, the trajectory of my career would have been very different. 00:51:35:11 - 00:52:01:06 Unknown And so that was a terrible thing to have happen. But at the end of the day, things have worked out really well. Right. So again, it's these kind of things where you like this could be this could be like life altering. It's awful. But I stay another year. I wrote another dissertation. I actually started two working papers that ended up being my first two publications So those things wouldn't have happened if I hadn't stayed another year. 00:52:02:18 - 00:52:27:01 Unknown And so, you know, we all have setbacks. But I think, again, mindset and perspective is really important. It's also why I think it's important to be in a community of faith and in a community of people who are like, yeah, this this thing that happened is trash, but you can do it right. So it's the same thing where like in the story I told about the parable, Jesus is saying, Your son is healed. 00:52:27:01 - 00:53:00:07 Unknown Just go back home. And two things happen on that walk, but you just got to keep going, right? Because you know the way home, you just have to keep going So so much to both of you for sharing your thoughts, for sharing your life with us. It's such a gift for us to know you not only as a leader here at the university. 00:53:00:08 - 00:53:19:15 Unknown You make us so proud, but to know you as as a full person, a human, a woman of faith, a family, and a woman who's willing to share an hour of her time with us. And for everybody who's been streaming life, thank you for allowing us to do that. So a theological horizons, we always end with a blessing. 00:53:19:15 - 00:53:39:21 Unknown And I won't say it over us. Now, may the Lord Christ go with you wherever he may send you. He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. Now bring you home. Rejoicing at the wonders He shown you. Now he bring you home, rejoicing once again into our doors. 00:53:42:08 - 00:53:42:20 Unknown Thank you.