Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you will hear part one of my conversation with Sylvia
Spears, Provost and Vice President for Lifelong Learning at College Unbound.
More links and information about today's conversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication Scholars Conversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host Jeff Yan.
My guest today is Sylvia Spears, Provost and Vice President for
Lifelong Learning at College Unbound.
Hello, Sylvia.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good, good.
I love your, I love your energy.
You know, um, first of all, Sylvia, I've been such a big fan of College Unbound.
I think that you've, you've, I think you know at this point because I, I
keep showing up to, to your events and to, to, to, to your campus and
then to all, to your locations.
Um, I, I, um, I want to share really quickly.
To people, um, with, with listeners, uh, how I first met you in person, I don't,
you wouldn't, you may not remember this.
It was actually last fall at a, I think I met you before
online, but never in person.
Um, and last fall you were hosting a, um, um, a session at
an amazing, um, conference, um, called, um, Imagining America.
Um, And, uh, you hosted a session, um, and it was also early in the morning.
I think it was getting an 8 AM session.
And, um, and a lot of people were packing this room and, uh, it was at a local,
it was located at a local high school and, um, and it was, we were packed in
this room, sitting in this, you know, giant circle kind of, and, uh, you had.
Um, music playing.
It was John Batiste, Drink Water.
I, I, I remember every bit of this.
And I was sitting in one of the corners and you were just dancing
in the middle of this room.
And we were all sort of waiting for the session to start.
And, and it was just like, wow, she's, she's this super energetic lady.
And, and just, she, you know, It's just enjoying life and it was infectious.
And all of us were just starting to like, man, we want to get up and dance.
And then you're like, get up and dance.
You can't stop it.
You have to move.
Your body wants to move, move.
And we all started getting up and dancing and it was 8am.
There was no coffee needed.
It was amazing.
And that was my.
Very first impression of you, Sylvia.
Wow.
That's amazing.
Um, thank you for, for just reflecting on that moment because it was fun.
And, um, you know, conferences can be really meaningful and great.
And, you know, there's the transmission of lots of interesting insights and ideas.
And at eight o'clock in the morning.
It's kind of a little bit of judgery to get to a conference session, and we all
know that you can walk into a conference session and it can be the driest, most
boring, almost painful experience, and if you're stuck in a room that's
crowded, you know you can't escape.
And so for me, how people come into a space, is really important because it sets
the tone for the journey we're about to go on in any workshop or in a classroom.
Um, and so, I, I felt like dancing.
It seemed like it was a good day.
John Baptiste, that song, Drink Water, is one of my favorite songs.
And, uh, it seemed like a good time to dance.
And, uh, I think it, Help people to both be in their bodies and be ready
for whatever we were going to do, uh, together, uh, in a dynamic mode.
So, uh, thanks so much for, for just remembering that, uh, that moment.
Uh, well, I also want to thank you that you also did, you know, and lift
up to the, to the, to the opening, all the way through your session, because
you did not then spend, um, 20 minutes telling us about, you know, like a
really long bio of both you and your institution, but we went straight into it.
And by the way, the conversation was about how can we reimagine higher education?
And I think it was really, I mean, it was really apt way for
us to think about it because.
And just so people know, you are the provost at College Unbound.
Yes, indeed.
There are people who are listening to this right now who might be, um, high
school students, who might be people who, um, who are not familiar with,
you know, What the heck is a provost?
What's a provost at a college and tell us a little bit about what a
provost is and, and what is what is college unbound in your role there.
And then we'll, we'll start there.
And then we'd love to dig deeper into how you come to be Sylvia.
Okay.
Um, perhaps I'll start with.
College Unbound because being provost at College Unbound could
be a little different than being provost at a traditional college.
And you're right.
Um, so College Unbound, uh, is indeed an accredited colleges for people who,
uh, for whom that's really important.
Um, it's a college that is young.
It's about 14 years old.
Um, Co founded by Dennis Litke, who is a high school educator, principal, and
the founder of a whole group of schools.
I think there's more than 150 high schools in that network now.
And Adam Bush, who is an incredible educator, jazz historian, social justice
advocate, just a Wonderful human being.
So they founded a school, um, and over time it's involved into a school
specifically designed to, um, one, reinvent higher education so that it
actually meets the needs of all students.
Um, two, to ensure that there's access to education, um, For students who are
typically marginalized from education, who are on the edges of education, who have
had negative experiences in education.
And so, so much of our work is around helping people fulfill
their dreams of obtaining a degree.
And not just for the purpose of getting a degree, but a degree that allows
them to create change in their own lives, change for their families,
and change for their communities.
So, it's this.
that functions in a way that's very different from a traditional college.
We value student learning that happens outside of the classroom.
We value the lived experience of individuals and communities and credit
that experience, uh, without a lot of hoops, um, but with a sense of, um,
Reflection and quality around what was the nature of their experience
and the college is just grounded in an environment of deep relationship
with people and a community of care, a cohort based model, uh, projects.
That, um, students do over the course of their time at CU where they
develop projects, cultivate them, and many of them implement afterwards.
So if I were to, um, think about how to capture CU in a nutshell, I would say it's
a, a college committed to relationship.
Relevance of the curriculum to the students who go to school with us
and rigor that it's academically, um, challenging and meaningful to students.
At CU, the provost is, um, responsible for and facilitating and
supporting all of the life of the college that's related to learning.
So all of the things that are, what's the array of courses?
Who's teaching?
What does teaching look like?
Is it the kind of teaching where a faculty member walks into a room with old yellow
lined, um, pad of paper, you remember those professors who did that, and reads
the same notes semester after semester?
That's not CU.
At CU, education is dynamic, it's lots of discussion, uh, lots of, uh,
connecting theory to practice, to lived experience, and so I have the, the
joy, the honor of working with faculty and staff and students to create a
robust learning environment in which students can thrive rather than survive.
In my career, I've watched students at all kinds of institutions, public
institutions, private institutions, Ivy League institutions, come to
campus with all kinds of aspirations, and some can be highly successful.
And I've also watched some students come to those campuses, and actually
I watched the light go out of their eyes, and they either disappear, or
they graduate, but they graduate not because of what the college did for them.
They graduate in spite of the college.
And so I've spent my entire career working in traditional educational
spaces, trying to ensure that we can create an environment that creates less
harm and actually supports students.
And then I found CU.
For years, I was saying, I don't know if you can change institutions.
Can you change them from the inside out?
Or are you tinkering on the edges of a college?
And even at my last institution, I said to my team, my staff, my kindreds,
I have to say, you know, we would sit in deep discussion sometimes
and think, You can't change them.
You can reduce harm, but you can't change them.
And one of the folks on my team said, Sylvia, we have to build a college.
You have to start your own college.
And the good news is I didn't have to start my own college
because Adam and Dennis had already started College Unbound.
And it is unbound.
That's not just a throwaway part of our title.
It's embedded in everything we do to try to unbind it, to loosen it,
to make it an innovative space where students can come in and really
be them best, their best selves.
They're the magic.
They're already talented.
They already have expertise.
I, I love this, Sylvia.
And I, I think everyone can hear the passion that comes from just your voice.
You know, it's, it's, it's so awesome.
Um, there is something that you were, you know, you were talking about the
yellow line paper, you know, sort of, I think that there is a lot of people
who have, I would, I would say even the, you know, like many people considered,
you know, If you go to someone who's been out of school for 20 years, maybe a
parent, the idea of education is about.
Acquiring more content.
It's a content acquisition exercise and that the professor has a lot of content.
It's almost like they have a lot of products that you need and they're
just gonna sell it to you and they'll, they'll, they'll, you're supposed
to just transfer that content to your, from their head to your head
and then, and then you're educated.
And, and that seems to be in my mind, always have this almost like this, like
almost cartoonish, you know, like all that they want to do is to say, I have all this
content that someone transferred to me and now I'm going to transfer it to you.
And I, you just keep passing it on as education.
But when I hear about how you talk about education.
It's just not that at all.
It's actually about each person going out to live.
They go dance, they go enjoy themselves.
They go solve problems in the community.
They go and be friends with another person.
They go and help another person.
They go in and, um, be the, be the, be the daughter or the son that they
should be for their, for their parents.
And by doing so, by those lived experience.
Themselves, you learn and become, um, educated and that's a really different
model of thinking about education.
I'm by the way, clearly on your camp.
I think I too, I don't, I think I was like fairly good at being a student.
I never enjoyed it.
I would say that I probably, I grew up in Hong Kong, um, when I was a kid and,
um, I, I felt like there was like a huge amount of education trauma, you know,
just like, like you literally have to do this or you, you literally get physically
beatings for not doing something.
Could be from your teacher, by the way.
Um, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's, it's crazy in my mind.
Right.
But it's all about like, they gave you the content.
Why don't you know it already?
Right.
And if you don't know it, maybe beating you will somehow get you to know it.
Now you know, right?
So it's completely, so like from that, like, you know, for me,
then I, I sort of learned to be a good enough student, right?
But that kind of education never really, in my mind, never
really benefited me very much.
It always feels like it's the kind of thing where They're supposed to give you
all this content and somehow you know how to reflect on them and internalize
them and turn it into your own experience and that's when you learn, but you just
go, well, why don't we just bypass that?
Why don't we just go straight into the experience?
Right?
Yeah.
I think that sounds so lovely.
Yeah, and, and, you know, there's all, everything we know, everything
educators know about learning.
And so we've got the people who study the brain, we've got people
who study cognition, we've got study, people who study the acquisition of
information, all of that research.
Tells us that that kind of education, that traditional model of education,
where we're depositing content into people's brain does not work.
It means, yeah, you can recite that information back.
And then, maaan!, you know, a day or two after you took that
quiz or did that test, it's gone.
It's not yours.
It was a temporary visitor that came and went, and if it's not
relevant to you, you let it go.
Um, one of the most powerful readings for me when I was, um, uh, in my own
educational journey was reading Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
And, uh, I think it's in the first chapter, Frere talks about the, the
banking method of education and really just, um, dismantles the notion that
that kind of education actually is useful, meaningful, has long term, um,
you know, value and talked about how important it is to be with students
in community and unveil reality.
People's lived reality in the context of new material, new ideas, and that's
something people construct together.
Um, and, and so for me, it's just the space of College Unbound is
exactly the opposite of that.
Um, we don't even like to use words like teachers and instructors.
Um, you know, our accrediting agencies think that's important, but we're,
We think about facilitators, and conveners, and supporters, and guides,
and how we can create a learning environment that's co created together
in community with students and teachers.
And it's out of that kind of relationship, that space, that learning occurs.
Not just learning for students, It's reciprocal in that it's
learning for instructors, um, and folks who are teaching.
Um, and those moments that happen together in a class or in a cohort or in community
time breaking bread together, um, are distinct and magic all of their own.
And then you just, just watch them grow.
Uh, and so it's really quite, uh, quite beautiful.
It is how education should always be.
No matter the age of the student, from little people to folks who might be in
their 60s and 70s going back to college.
I love that Sylvia.
Sylvia, I, I think that we will definitely circle back to some of the magical parts
of College Unbound, but first I wanted to maybe go Deeper into your own history.
Sure.
Because I'm just fascinated how, how does Sylvia come to be?
Where, where did you grow up?
What is the journey that leads you to this point?
I mean, you, like you said, you were in many different kinds of institutions.
So for people that just think, well, you know, this, Very like, um, you know, this
really just this person just out there talking about reinventing education.
She, she may or may not know what education is supposed to be.
You know, I think that's not true.
You've been through a lot of different models as well.
I think it's.
Through that perspective that you can find these models that
you can really make comparison.
So why don't you tell us, give us a little insights to, to, you know,
your, your upbringing and what, what made you the way you are?
Yeah.
Wow.
I think my, uh, my kids probably would have an interesting insight
on that, uh, or, you know, uh, my parents rest in peace.
Um, but, uh, I grew up, um.
In Rhode Island, by the ocean, uh, I, uh, love the environment of being near water.
Um, for me, it's just, um, helps me to breathe.
As a matter of fact, already this morning, I did a 45 minute
walk, uh, By the, by the ocean.
And so there's something about the ocean that, um, even growing up reminds me of
the vastness of the world that I can't, you know, I just look to the horizon.
So there's something grounding about that, which always has me
as a, as kind of a disparate.
of my personality, looking out, looking far, looking past
what is, to what might be.
Um, and so I grew up in this area, went to, you know, your local public
school here in town, and early, like in second grade, had a really interesting
experience here that I, now reflect on as having shaped a lot of my experiences
in education and why I ended up in education, to be perfectly honest.
Um, I was painfully shy as a little kid, like really, really shy.
Um, you know, visitors would come to see my parents and I'd run upstairs and sit
at the top of the stairs and just listen.
You know, I wouldn't come downstairs.
I don't want to see them.
Um, so I was painfully shy.
And in school, I was really shy, and so I was quiet, um, and my mother was
called to a parent teacher meeting, and if you can imagine back in the day,
those meetings were really kind of an exercise of power, uh, for some teachers,
um, where they made parents feel small.
And my mother might have been five feet tall, but she was not small in, in,
uh, Kind of personality and stature.
Um, she was a mighty tiny woman.
Anyhow, this particular teacher said something like, um, Sylvia
is very smart, but she's lazy.
And I remember sitting out, I was sitting in a tiny chair outside of that
door to that classroom and I heard it.
And even though, you know, you're a little kid at, you know, in the second
grade, I remember the feeling of hurt.
I, I, I wasn't lazy.
I was Paralyzed with fear because the environment was so uncomfortable.
My mother, of course, also taught me about advocacy.
She left that meeting, took my hand, went straight down to the principal's
office, explained that interaction and talked about no to Teacher should
ever think any child is lazy and, um, I was immediately removed from
that class, put in a different class.
The environment was supportive and warm and friendly and, and I was
happy, did great and apparently I wasn't late, late, lazy.
Um, the interesting thing is.
Decades later, when I went back to get my doctorate, uh, in education, in
my, uh, dissertation, uh, introduction or, or acknowledgement page, there's
a long acknowledgement page where I acknowledge my parents for, you know,
teaching me the value of education.
I acknowledge my kids for demonstrating all of the excitement of learning.
I acknowledge that teacher.
Not in a warm and fuzzy way, but in a way where there was a line that
said, Do you think I'm lazy now?
And so as a learner, I, in most situations, whether it was the
Catholic high school that I went to, or the public institution that
I got my bachelor's at, um, I, I'm a kind of, um, Voracious learner.
I love to read.
I love to be in community with people and learn new things.
So the pivot for me to, to higher ed actually occurred
after I graduated from college.
I was out in the world working, um, believe it or not, working at,
uh, health and fitness centers.
Don't ask me, that's the job I got, you know.
So, working at health and fitness centers for a long time and managing them.
And, um, I came back to Rhode Island, um, when my daughter was about 3 years old.
And, because it's important to be near your family and your grandparents.
And started to work, um, for a tribal community here,
which is part of my heritage.
As, um, uh, I think I was Personnel Director and then went
on to be Tribal Administrator.
One day I was looking at some data about the educational levels
of, of people in the tribe.
And I discovered, um, that, The percentage of people who had
attended college, not just graduated, attended, was so incredibly low it
almost couldn't be represented by a, by a number, by a percentage.
It was, uh, on the chart I was looking at, it was less than one percent.
We're in a tiny little state with like 13 colleges and one that is actually sitting
in the midst of, you know, uh, native land that belongs to the folks here.
Or historically would have.
And then I started to dig more and I started to look at national data.
Less than four tenths of a percent of, um, native folks in the country
at that time had bachelor's degrees.
And I was like, this is outrageous.
What is happening?
And that day I decided to go to back to school, um, to get my master's degree
so that I could be kind of, uh, A runner, an intermediary between higher
ed spaces and, um, communities of color.
A translator, um, because so often folks would say, I'm not going to
college, why would I go to college?
There's nothing for me there.
Um, or even my, my, um, master's research, the findings of the study that I did
was that, um, Native American students felt like they were making a choice.
Between being a, uh, a good student or a good Indian.
That's literally what the students would say to me.
And so, for them, college was not feeling like a place that valued their culture,
the way of, um, gaining knowledge, uh, And so that set me on a whole career
of working in multicultural student services, working on pluralism efforts,
um, teaching, um, but teaching in human development with an emphasis on
equity and, uh, and justice, um, all of the roles I've ever had, whether
they Faculty roles or administrative roles have always been about how do
we create a more humane, inclusive space of education for all learners.
And so that's a, that's a, you know, about 30 years of, of, of work
for me has been focused on that.
I don't know how to do anything else except shape change in higher ed.
What was it like to be doing that?
In and I, I believe that you were at one point at Dartmouth, for example.
Am I right?
Yeah.
Um, when was that?
Yeah.
Let's see.
2007 to 2012.
So five years I was there.
And what was your role there?
I, I.
The role I went into when I started was, um, Associate Dean of Student
Life and Director of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership.
So, embedded in Student Affairs, doing a lot of, um, uh, work in their framework to
support BIPOC folks, um, but to create a robust campus environment around students.
Issues of equity, the Native American program reported to me, Center
for Women and Gender reported to me, some advisors for different
affinity groups, uh, reported to me.
So that's, that's how I started there.
And then very quickly was asked to be Senior Associate Dean of the
College, which had more responsibility for working with academic affairs.
And then I The last role was Interim Dean of the College, which was kind
of a major, um, a major role with a team of about 500 staff or so.
It was a fascinating environment, Jeff.
Yeah, how, how is, I mean, I, this is why I, I think it's so amazing.
You know, you had, you know, you had a huge staff, you had huge responsibility
at an Ivy League institution.
Um, It's a, it's a dream job for many educators, um, but
you're shaking your head.
Maybe, maybe it wasn't for you.
Why, why is that?
Uh, it's a really complex space.
It is a place that has incredible students from all over the world.
Deeply talented, some really cynical,
it's also a place where power and privilege is not just something you have
to contend with, but it's perpetuated.
and It can be an environment that for anyone who is not, uh, attuned
to kind of spaces where that kind of activity is cultivated, rewarded,
you're like a fish out of water.
And the interesting thing is when I took the first job there, The, the president
of another college, uh, was a colleague of mine and a friend of mine and he said,
Sylvia, are you sure you want to go there?
You're going into the belly of the beast and I said that's where people like me
need to go so we can create change and I do think I created a lot of change.
Um, I do think students and staff and faculty who felt like they were on
the margins were positively affected by some of the work we did together.
And it took a huge toll on me.
And so, it was so interesting that I was interim or acting dean
of the college for two years.
And that was by contract.
I said, you know, I can't get anything done if I'm there for a year, so
I need to get some stuff done.
And Um, was invited to apply for the position formally and decided not to,
and the students could not understand it, like, because it is the dream job.
If you have a certain inclination, students were just like, Crazy, they
started petitions and, you know, hundreds of students were, you know,
signing petitions in electronic, and I was like, what is happening?
And the school newspaper was calling me for an interview, Sylvia,
what do you mean you're, you're not going to apply for the job?
They were just Shocked, absolutely shocked because they couldn't understand
why somebody wouldn't want it.
And for me, the title wasn't what made the job, uh, interesting or important.
It was my ability to shape change.
And if I'm somewhere where I can't shape change, and change is needed,
I will give as much as I can.
And then, um, when I see, okay, I've pushed the institution
as far as it can possibly be.
Go it's time for somebody else to come and shape change.
And so, um, I still have so many relationships with students who
are now married with kids and, um, successful in their, in their fields
and so many faculty and staff.
Um, and so it was a.
Uh, probably the, a time of my greatest professional growth was in that role.
Really powerful.
Um, yeah.
Really powerful.
I think it's amazing to sort of contrast, like you were saying, the, the, the
types of students, the expectation, the privilege, the, the, the, um,
the, even the path that they, they must have taken in order to get into.
To get admitted into a school like Dartmouth.
It's not easy.
It's a path that takes many years to shape and you kind
of have to walk a certain way.
You have to, you know, especially these days, right?
I mean, like, I think you really have to, you have to have that, that
much prove in your co curricular work as well as your academic
work and, and all of these things.
And you have to, you have to play the game perfectly.
Right, in order to, to get in.
Yeah.
Um, and, and like you said, you know, some students, you know,
would find that they don't belong because they just, they just can't.
It's not a, you know, if the game isn't what it's about, then it doesn't belong.
That's right.
Then you don't belong.
And contrasting to your current student body at College Unbound, I
think that's what's so amazing to see.
I can see why you, you are, you are like, thriving at College Unbound
because these are your people.
Yeah, that's it.
That's exactly it.
That is exactly it.
Um, before I, um, took the job at College Unbound, I went
to visit, um, a cohort night.
So an evening when all of the students are gathering, they, the college provides
dinner because so many people are coming from work or they just picked
up their kids and dropped the kids off.
And, and so there's always a half an hour or so where we're in community.
Having a meal together, uh, so it can be, you know, groups of 70 students on
any given night, um, eating before they go into class, and I remember going
to visit and just looking around the room and was like, Oh, my goodness.
Look at the beauty in this room.
And these are the students who would have never had access to a Dartmouth.
And yet they are the people who will also make change in the world.
So smart, so talented, so committed to one another.
You know, when they make their way through College Unbound, I really
believe it is the power of relationships that they have with one another.
That, that supports them through the college, of course, does
what it's supposed to do.
But I think the glue is that relationship.
Um, and that's very different than the experience of someone
who is third generation.
Ivy League student versus, um, some of the students I saw at, um, Dartmouth who
were first generation college students, who, brilliant, but didn't have the
cultural capital to navigate that space.
Um, I'll share just one.
story about the kind of pressure and then why we do the opposite.
There was a, a student that I don't think I'll ever forget, um, who was a
first generation college student, young white guy, um, from kind of a rural
area, struggling parents, was there on scholarship, um, And he worked at,
um, like a, about five miles away at a local Burger King and would try to
schedule his hours so that the hours were not when Dartmouth students were
out cruising around going to Burger King.
He shopped at the local thrift store for his clothes because there he could
get the throwaway designer clothes.
Um, that students and faculty had, um, dropped in the thrift store so
that he could be wearing the designer labels that the other folks in his,
uh, fraternity were wearing so they wouldn't know that he was struggling.
Imagine the amount of work it was taking for that student to put on
the persona of somebody who fits in.
Whereas at College Unbound,
we don't even, we're not even thinking about that stuff.
It's a come as you are, be who you are, because who you are
is, is what is valued there.
And so students, you know, come from all kinds of backgrounds,
first generation college students.
There's the average age of students is 36, 37.
Some have college credits before, some have no credits.
And what they're doing there is.
Actually unlearning what education is, and learning what education can
be, and re Orient them, orienting themselves to themselves as a learner,
and that they've always been a learner, despite any negative messages
that they were giving earlier in their, in their time in education.
So it's a vibrant, lively, spacious place, and they are my people.
They really are.
It's fantastic.
Here's a preview of what's coming up next in part two of my conversation with
Sylvia Spears, Provost and Vice President for Lifelong Learning at College Unbound.
Look at the beauty in this room and these are the students who would
have never had access to a Dartmouth, and yet they are the people who
will also make change in the world.
So smart, so talented, so committed to one another.