Students began returning to Western Michigan University’s campus this week for the start of another fall semester. It’s also the start of the first academic year for WMU President Russ Kavalhuna, who started his new job July 1st.
In an interview, Kavalhuna said he is eager to connect with the campus community. Over the next few months he plans to hold listening sessions with faculty, students and staff.
"The real thing I'm listening for is candor," Kavalhuna said. "We're going to go around to various parts of our community and ask those questions. 'What are you proud of that we need to enhance and continue? What are you a little bit worried about and what is in need of some pretty quick action?' And my hope is that folks feel that during this process they'll have a person who's interested and willing to listen."
"That's one thing I feel very confident about having done this transition into a new role as president, having done this once before, I understand how important it is to listen well and I'm excited about that. Candor requires trust and trust is oftentimes not something that is given immediately."
Kavalhuna is a Western graduate and former director of flight operations for the College of Aviation. He was the president of Henry Ford College, a community college in Dearborn from 2018 until this year.
WMUK's interview with WMU President Russ Kavalhuna
Brian O’Keefe: How do you get that candor, as you are in the early days? Because now is when I would imagine that candor is most valuable.
Russ Kavalhuna: Yeah, you're right. And I would say I completely agree with the premise of your question which is trust is really not something that's that valuable unless it's built over some, some thing, whether it's experience or time or a relationship that pre-exists.
And I'll say, my hope is to build that trust with the folks I'm asking for candor through those ways. One is understanding. You know, I'm from this institution. I went here. My parents went here. My wife went here. My aunts and uncles went here. And I worked here as an administrator. I was born in Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo. So one thing I'm asking folks to give me some trust and maybe even just a little bit of the benefit on that question is that I understand this institution historically.
The other thing that I'll be doing over the next six months is building that trust by sitting and listening and hearing what folks have to say. Another way to do that is to, when folks make a cogent description of things that need to be improved or changed, be a responsive administrator to say, "I hear you, and here's how we're going to do that,” or “I hear you and I think you may be misinformed and that's really not the case here,” but being able to listen and then give thoughtful and timely responses are our ways to build that trust.
And that's my plan – to listen and then report out a summary of what I've heard and then the action that we'll plan to take as a response. But the truth is, if the leader doesn't do that consistently – and frankly you’ve got to build a deposit of goodwill on that front – if a leader doesn't do that month after month, year after year, then trust either won't be built in the instance or over time it'll suffer.
And you know this as well as anyone: A leader will make mistakes, a leader will make the wrong decision. And the way to survive those things as an institution or a leader is to have a well of trust and goodwill that's built over time. My job is to build a foundation of trust.
O’Keefe: I know from my experience at a community college, it's a different animal than a university. What are the differences that you have to navigate as you make that transition?
Kavalhuna: Well, there are differences I would say in my experience working as an administrator at both a university and a community college. But right now, the similarities are far more important my opinion. One of the similarities is that as an institution like WMU, we're trying really hard to figure out how to serve more and different populations.
Historically there was just a general understanding that higher education was a path to a better life and to a better job and to a better career. That's being questioned right now.
So, universities like ours and community colleges like those around this state are all trying to navigate that question and be able to say to the communities we want to serve. “Hey, community college, university, higher education in general. That is for you. Even if for generations, folks told you or acted like you weren't you weren't college material.”
And I just reject that and I've seen it through various walks of life both in and out of higher education. And frankly, that's an imperative for us right now. Anywhere in higher education. Both a moral imperative and a business imperative. We're here to change lives through public education. That was my experience here at WMU. And so that's job number one.
But job number two as an administrator, is to make sure that we bring in enough students and enough revenue so that we can continue to have this full-service university that spans the entire liberal arts arc, fine arts, tactical skills, and scientific discovery. All of those things require us to bring in enrollment. And so that's why I say to you, the challenges for today's higher education really cut across the panoply. And that panoply is community college, private college and university. We're all competing for those same students.
O’Keefe: You've talked a little bit about your history with Western Michigan, the university and the place. But as you embark upon this and you embark upon these this listening campaign that you're you've talked about, what do you want people to know about you?
Kavalhuna: Well, the thing that I want people to know the most about me is how deeply I care about this institution. This job is personal to me. It resonates in my life as I look back over who I am and how I became who I am. A meaningful and formative experience was growing up, learning about who I wanted to be as a late teen and early 20-year-old here at Western. And then I came back in the middle of my career trying to learn the footsteps of great leadership. So, when this institution succeeds or fails, it feels personal, like it's part of my family.
The second thing I want people to know is I actually do truly want to learn the pulse of this institution because I believe and I've seen great leaders do that well. And so it's not, I picked up a how-to book for how to be a president and they said go do a listening tour. The reality is, I know that great leaders, if given the time, build trust and understanding from the masses. And really, I mean we have 4,000 employees, 16-17,000 students.
That's a great number, a large number of people for whom I have to quickly understand what they see as in their institution's interests and their challenges. And then the last thing I'll say is I really like what we do here. I mean I come to you with experience in the cockpit and in the courtroom and in the corporate board room. And I can tell you, higher education is what gets me up in the morning and makes me excited because I've done things that aren't as mission-driven, aren't as exciting as what we do.
We actually take people who come into this institution, transform their lives and make their communities and their careers and their families stronger, better, and healthier. I know that ‘cause it's happened to my family. It happened to me, and it's been going on here for over 120 years. So, it's immensely important for me to play my role in something I'm really excited about and proud of personally.
O’Keefe: I'm just going to add one little addendum to what I said was my last question. If you had to describe your style, your leadership style, your management style, you can fill in the blank, whichever style you want to tell me about, but how would you describe your style?
Kavalhuna: Well, my style is building excellent teams and giving them autonomy and authority to achieve excellence. Now, that's not my style. The truth is I think the best leaders among us are people who get really good at watching leaders before them and then adapting what they've learned – and then a lot of times in my experience, copying great leaders.
So that's the path that brings me to say, I really enjoy working on teams of people trying to achieve something bigger than they could achieve on their own. And then if given the privilege to lead that team, finding the players on the team that can work together and giving them authority to achieve greatness that frankly I couldn't achieve if I were in their role.
That comes from, as I mentioned, a lot of time in the cockpit, a lot of time in the courtroom, but also a lot of time as an administrator of a university and a college and then – frankly my formative years were on athletic fields. So I would say we're going to build excellent teams that chase excellence every day.
