S3E7: ‘No Day’s The Same” (Anand Marri, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Ball State University)

Anand Marri serves as Ball State’s Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, a position for which he is responsible for the University’s academic mission, including supporting leadership for all academic units. 

When he accepted the role in October 2023, Dr. Marri was no stranger to Ball State. He previously served three years as dean of the Teachers College, during which time enrollment in the college increased and faculty and staff generated a significant increase in external funding to support their research.

In this episode, Dr. Marri talks about the rewards and challenges of his new role and why he chose to leave behind a tenured professorship at Columbia University to advance his career as an administrator at Ball State. He also shares stories about his childhood spent growing up in the New York City borough of Queens. And he reveals details of how his pursuit of a career in education has taken him from the East Coast to the West Coast with stops in the Midwest along the way. 

If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show. 

Transcript

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Hello, I'm Geoff Mearns, and I have the good fortune to serve as the president of Ball State University.

On today's episode of my podcast, I'll be interviewing Dr. Anand Marri, whom I recently selected to serve as our university's provost and executive Vice president for Academic Affairs. Dr. Marri may be new to this important position, but he is no stranger to Ball State. He joined our university in July of 2020, when he began his service as dean of our Teachers College.

During his time in that role, enrollment in the college increased and faculty and staff from Teachers College generated a significant increase in external funding to support their research. Dr. Marri also personally secured the largest philanthropic gift in the history of Teachers College. So today I'm going to ask Dr. Marri about what attracted him to Ball State. We'll also talk about his upbringing and we'll discuss his career journey, which has taken him from the East Coast to the West Coast with a stop for a doctoral degree in the Midwest all along the way.

Before I do that, I want to express my appreciation to Dr. Marri for his leadership on behalf of our university and for his willingness to be a guest on the podcast. Welcome and thank you for joining me today. So I'm going to begin by I, uh, I want to ask you a question, a question that I ask all of my guests.

I want to hear a little bit about your upbringing. You're not a Hoosier by birth. Like me, you're a Hoosier by choice. Can you share with us where you were born and tell us a little bit about your family?

[ANAND MARRI]

First, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm excited to be here. So I was born in Hyderabad, India, which is which I say is a smaller city in India, but that has a population of about 10 million people.

And my native language is Telugu, which I say is a small language for India, but about a hundred million people speak it. So, in relative. And I moved to the States with my family at the age of nine to Jamaica, Queens, and it was my parents, my brother and myself. I grew up there, a very happy childhood in the sense that I got to live in one of the most diverse places, which we'll talk about later, in Queens, and then all the way through grad school and, you know, lived there all the way through until I finished graduate school, back and forth.

And I was fortunate enough to go back to New York after grad school. And now my current family, I have my wife and three wonderful daughters, 15, 14, and 11 year old here in Muncie, Indiana. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you moved from India to Queens, which, as you said a moment ago, is a diverse community and it's part of what we consider a very large city, New York City. What was it like growing up in Queens and growing up in New York City? 

[ANAND MARRI]

Two words come to mind. One is dynamic. It was always an adventure. You never knew what the day was going to bring you, and you were able to explore the joys of living in a city. And as a kid, you had the silver limousine at your disposal, which is the New York City subway, as well as the New York City MTA buses, which we took everywhere. And we got to see all these adventures, whether we go to a Mets game, impromptu Mets game at Shea Stadium, or go to check out a different restaurant on the corner. And the second word that comes to mind based on this restaurant experience in New York City growing up was tasty. So it was very dynamic and tasty because you got the world's culinary delights and all very cheaply. And that was very important as a kid that, you know, didn't have a lot of resources but was adventuresome about trying out different foods. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So what's your favorite pizza place in Queens? 

[ANAND MARRI]

There's a pizza place called Alba’s Pizza on the corner of Union Turnpike and Van Wyck Boulevard, which is still there, where we used to go to as kids, which started at $0.85 a slice. Now it's probably closer to $2.50 a slice? And we always went there and the guys knew us and gave us always gave us free cups of ice, which as you know, in New York, sometimes they charge you premium for ice. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

But so your parents, as I understand it, your parents made many sacrifices to send you and your brother to a private school instead of one of the public schools. Tell us more about their decision and why education was so important to your family. 

[ANAND MARRI]

Sure. The school that I was zoned for, I won't name it, but the school I was zoned for, my cousin went to the school and the first day he came home with no shoes on because he had wore his brand new black and red Air Jordans and they robbed him in the bathroom.

So he came with no shoes back home. So my parents said, “You're not going to that school.” So they worked really hard. My mom worked at the bingo parlor to raise money for tuition. My dad worked, you know, multiple jobs to try to go there. But they saw that education was the opportunity for advancement in this country. They both did not attend college in this country. They attended college in India, but they saw this as the way for a path forward for our for our family, for my brother and myself. And both of us went to that school. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So what school did they send you to? 

[ANAND MARRI]

St. Nicholas of Tolentine on the corner of Union Turnpike and Parsons Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, a Catholic school. And it was unusual in the sense that I was probably only one of two kids that was not Catholic at that school. So I got to learn a lot about Catholicism, as well as understanding my own Hindu perspective. Raised Hindu and thinking about what it means to be in an environment that's different than what I was raised. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you attended this Catholic school all the way through high school?  

[ANAND MARRI]

No, all the way through eighth grade. I started in fifth grade, finished eighth grade. And then went to Archbishop Molloy in Broderick, Queens, all boys Catholic school, for four years. I was the only kid from my—there seems to be a theme, I was the only kid from my school that went to that high school and I went there because it was the most academically rigorous school that I could that I wanted to go to. And, you know, I had gotten into the specialized public high schools in the city, Bronx, Stuyvesant in Brooklyn Tech. But my parents, the immigrants that they were, were worried about us traveling or commuting, basically an hour and a half from Queens, from Jamaica, to go to those schools. And they said, no, you're going to school. That's the best school you can get nearby. So I ended up going there. Was an all boys Catholic school, 600 kids, 400 kids a grade. And the first day I remember Brother Roy says to us, Look around to the right and to the left. There are four other kids that want to be in this spot, so you boys better behave. So that was the type of mentality that was espoused by the faculty at Archbishop Molloy High School. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So after you graduated from this challenging Catholic high school, you had the opportunities to attend lots of different colleges and universities, including New York University, just down there in Manhattan, and you turned down a scholarship to go to NYU. Where did you go to college and why did you go someplace else out of New York to get a college degree?

[ANAND MARRI]

Thank you. I wanted to go somewhere outside of New York because I knew that I would always come back to New York. I could always come back home. And to this day, my father is not happy with the decision of I forgot to submit my financial aid application to NYU even though I had a scholarship there. Something else I completely forgot to submit it.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And so was it convenient or intentional on your part? 

[ANAND MARRI]

It was intentional, but I told them, you know, I'm sorry, I forgot anyway, and I chose it—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

By the way, if he's listening, he now knows the truth of that story,

[ANAND MARRI]

Right, 30 years later. And I chose to go to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and it was quite a culture shift. But I chose to go there because being at Malloy, one of the things I learned is having a small environment where the teachers got to know you all. And we had a very strong, very high faculty student ratio at Malloy, and I wanted to continue that theme when I went to Bowdoin. And so, and I also wanted to go to a liberal arts education where I was thinking about going to law school. And that's, I thought— there was a great Columbia, I'm sorry, Bowdoin had a great three two program—three years about in two years in law school at Columbia. That was one of the things I looked at. And then I also got to play sports, which I knew I wasn't going to be able to play at NYU or Duke, which was the other school that I was thinking about. I was not good enough for Duke Division one football or basketball. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you were a football player in high school and college? 

[ANAND MARRI]

Yeah, I played in college very much more. And then I played rugby in college as well, which I got to do, or I knew I wouldn't be able to do that at a larger school.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And what position did you playing football? 

[ANAND MARRI]

So I was an offensive tackle. When I was in football, I was about 240 pounds, which is about 50 pounds more than I am now. But I was there so we were four and four all four years at Bowdoin, so we were mediocre at best. But, you know, we gave it our all, but we did win New England Championship in rugby my senior year. Those are still some of my best friends from those days.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you've got best friends from Bowdoin. Were there any professors at Bowdoin who had a particular meaningful impact on you, on your career or on your life? 

[ANAND MARRI]

Yes, without a doubt. Professor Penny Martin. I ran into her my sophomore year where Bowdoin has a distribution requirement, so I wanted to take a course in education. So I took a course, first day, 75 students in class, and she asked, the first question she asked, I don't know why she did, but she said, Who's Lamar Alexander? And I was the only person who knew. And I raised my hand and said, He's the Secretary of Education. And everyone's like, How do you know that? That's like, I have no idea how I knew that. He later became the senator from Tennessee. And so we connected from day one, and I took some education courses. I didn't minor in education, but I had enough for a minor. I could I got a certificate, but I chose not to. I was a government and legal studies major with some courses, and with minors in Econ and Asian studies. And then senior year I said, Professor Martin, I want to go into teaching and going to education. So senior year, first week in class, I talked to her and she gave me a brochure for Brown University and Stanford University. I said, Professor Martin, thank you for your belief in me, but have you seen my grades? 

I started my first semester at Bowdoin with three Cs and a D. Uh, was into the athletic and fraternity life, which made my grades suffer. And she said, Well, I guarantee you'll get in because you’ve shown a trajectory of getting straight A's after that. and I'll make sure you'll get it. And she did. She took me under her wing and she made sure I got into those schools and she was a great mentor all the way through. When I was first teaching, and when I decided to go to my Ph.D. in education at Wisconsin, she was the first person I wrote to and said, Thank you very much for setting me on this path.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you chose to go to Stanford after Bowdoin, and you were studying for your master's degree, but you were also a student teacher at public high schools in Santa Clara and San Jose. How did that experience outside of you being a student, but actually being a teacher or a student teacher in those particular districts, how did that shape your career and your perspectives?

[ANAND MARRI]

So I, when I was at Stanford, I had the opportunity to student teach—to teach and be a substitute teacher at several high schools, including Palo Alto High School or Gunn High School in Palo Alto. And if you know those schools, they have students that have a lot of resources. I purposely asked to be placed or given an assignment in low income schools. And so they chose, and they set me up with Oak Grove High School in South San Jose.

And one thing I learned was, since since I had a background, I learned how to be an ESL teacher, English as a second language teacher, as well as an AP teacher. I was teaching advanced placement courses in econ and government, but as well as kids that were English is their first—this is their new language to them. 

And I learned about how lucky—it reinforced how lucky I was that I hit the educational lottery in terms of the access to education that I had. And so I knew, when watching those kids and I was also coaching football and interacting with these kids, these kids that were from the low and moderate income families and non-native speakers of English, they did their work, but they were not involved in the life of the school beyond that. And I got several them to come out and play sports. But after that, they didn't really connect to the community of what was happening at the school. And so I wanted to work on ways to engage all kids, to be active and engaged democratic citizens. And as you probably know, when public schools were founded in 1837 with Horace Mann in the state of Massachusetts, it was—he conceived them as the only common place to educate people.

And so I thought this was an opportunity to educate those folks. And that's where I started doing my research and thinking about what I wanted to do next. And that's where that's where I found my calling to think about engaging all types of students in in promoting an active, engaged democratic citizenry. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So as you mentioned a moment ago, after Stanford, you went to Madison, Wisconsin, which is where you earned your Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Tell us a little bit about what your research was for your dissertation?

[ANAND MARRI]

Sure. Continuing on my theme of thinking about citizenship, education and civic education, as a former social studies teacher, I looked at theories about democracy and engagements, so we looked at John Rawls and all these political philosophers thinking about how do you promote citizenship? And then at the same time, I looked at a lot of work on including diversity, whether it be economic diversity, cultural diversity, intellectual diversity.

So I looked at other scholars like, well, Kim Leka and so forth. So what I looked at was I combined basically democratic theory with diversity and its cultural and intellectual diversity and created a framework, and it's called classroom based multicultural democratic education. So that was the research I did. And I was fortunate enough that I was able to take that dissertation and get into the top journal in my field as my first submission upon graduation from there.

And so and so I was I'm very, I think, very drawn to theory, but at the same time, taking that theory and making it to applicability to the classroom for teachers and educators.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So after Wisconsin, you got a teaching position at Columbia University. And you know, it's an institution that many people know of. Is it is Columbia still in the Ivy League?

[ANAND MARRI]

I think they are. I think they I think bulldogs are afraid of lines, from the last time I checked...

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Not on the football field, I'll tell you that much. So tell us about your teaching position at Columbia. How did that influence your trajectory, your professional career? 

[ANAND MARRI]

So I'll do a little background is that when I was finishing Madison, I had three job offers. Two were tenure track, one was I was offered a job at Boulder. UC Boulder, I was very happy about that. Then I got an offer at University of Buffalo for tenure track job. And then the third offer was this position at Teachers College Columbia, and it was not tenure track. And I purposely chose to take the non-tenure track position because of where New York, where Columbia was.

It was in no matter what the real estate agents tell you, it's in Harlem and it is very much tied to the local community and which is where you're going to be tied to 1.2 children in the New York City public school system. And there's a very close relationship—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

1.2 million children.

[ANAND MARRI]

Sorry, not 1.2 but 1.2 million—the largest school system in the country and Columbia had very much strong partnerships. And I was able to go in as an assistant professor, start working in New York City public schools in trying to promote citizenship, education, and economic literacy. And so that's why I chose to go there. And it was interesting, it was a graduate school, so you had some of the smartest students in the country coming there, and they have all this theory and they get there and then they have to go out to New York City public schools and then they realize how what the challenges are in trying to take this theory and working with kids.

I'll give you an example of when our teachers would talk about social—our student teachers would talk about social justice and equity, and they would go out to the classrooms and ask students what does social justice mean or equity mean to you? And I remember this kid from Bushwick on a paper, on a recording said, you know, what equity means to me is having toilet paper in the bathrooms.

So you're taking all this theory and understanding the practicality of what their lives these kids are facing. And so I was there. It was a wonderful experience to be able to use the New York City public school system as a lab for improving education. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you spent about ten years at Columbia and then you were given an opportunity, probably a pretty distinctive, unusual opportunity, to leave that institution to go work at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Tell us how that opportunity came about, what you did and why you did it. 

[ANAND MARRI]

Sure. So Adrian Franco, who was my former students in economics of education at Teachers College Columbia, got a job at the New York Fed. And then two years later, I remember sitting in the office, Maria, my wife, Maria Cormier, who still works at Columbia as a researcher. She was sitting in my office with our middle child and we were talking. It was a lunch break. I got a call from Adrian Franco, and Adrian says, Hey, Anand, the head of economic education at the New York Fed quit. And we're going to have a search and we would like you to be on the search committee. I said, “Sure.” And Maria says to me, “They're going to give you that job.” I said, “Maria, I'm a tenured professor. Got a pretty cushy job here at Columbia. I'm going up for full soon.” She said, “They're going to give you the job.” I said, “Okay, sure.” So I go down under the New York Fed. And have you ever been to the New York Fed, they have about $500 million worth of gold downstairs. So that security's pretty tight, right? 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right, especially in New York. 

[ANAND MARRI]

[laughs] In New York. So I'm checking in and the police officer says, good luck with your job interview. I said, Job interview? I'm here for a search. He said, It says job applicant. I was like, okay, sure. So I spent the whole day talking with the EVP, the second in charge of the bank and had a conversation with all of them. At the end of the day, the executive vice President in charge of economic development and communications, Krishna Guha, says, Why don't you just take the job? I said, I'm sorry, what? He said, You would be great for this job. So I had to negotiate with my provost at Columbia, Teachers College and say, So what do I do? And he said, Take the job. And part of the reason I took the job was if 50 people read my article in my publications, that's .... you know, I think that's pretty good impact. But we were working with the second District in the Federal Reserve System that affects the life of 30 million people. And the work that we did in economic and community development looked at how do you have the lowest income citizens be participants in the economic system that we have in this country. And so we did a lot of work on small businesses looking at minority owned businesses. We looked at how to promote the Community Reinvestment Act in trying to promote investment in low income communities. So that was a very... for me, I thought it was a much more impactful work and wanted to make a difference in terms of the common good that we do.

And so I was fortunate enough to take a leave and they extended my leave. I was able to apply for full professor while I was on leave at Columbia, because it was a win-win for both institutions. And I stayed there. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you eventually left the Federal Reserve, I think it was in 2019 to become the dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. And then not long after you took that job, while we were doing a search for the next dean of the Teachers College, the search firm gave me your contact information and I reached out and gave you a call and encouraged you to apply. Why did you decide to leave the University of Rochester, come to Muncie, Indiana, to be the dean of Teachers College?

[ANAND MARRI]

The short answer is the sterling reputation of Teachers College. I knew about Teachers College. Given that it's the fifth largest school of education in the country, in terms of enrollment, its reputation for outstanding faculty, and the impact that it has on the communities that it serves. So I knew about Teachers College within the schools of education community. And then the second thing was the unique partnership that Teachers College had with Muncie Community Schools.

I chose to go to Rochester because University of Rochester at that point had worked with the Rochester Community Public Schools to take over East High School and run that. So now I got to see an opportunity where you're working on a whole school system and not just in improving the lives of that high school in the East, but now you're talking about the whole community and the ripple effect of all of Delaware County. 

This was such a unique opportunity, and I knew that Ball State was, the university itself and the community was all in, along with our elected officials, to try to improve the lives of the community, not just in schools, but also the economic well-being. And so that was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. And I was fortunate enough that I was able to get an offer to come here.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

We still haven't found pizza yet here in in Muncie, in Delaware County. But so you served as dean of Teachers College for a relatively short period of time for three years. And during that time, you actually accomplished a lot. Describe share with us some of the things that you're most proud of during that tenure as the dean of Teachers College. 

[ANAND MARRI]

Sure. Two things stand out to me. One is the increase in the amount of resources we got for our students in terms of both financial aid, in terms of the Ryan Family Navigators program and the gift that we got from Michelle and Jim Ryan, as well as the increase in resources we found for their academic success.

So ways of student success and trying to promote interdisciplinary work and their connections to schools and with a partnership with schools. That was the one thing that I'm very proud of. 

The second also is an increase in resources for our faculty, in terms of increasing their travel allotment, that they're able to go into professional conferences, as well as other professional development resources that they have. Those are the two things that stand out for me. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So then a position opened up on campus and I asked you to serve as our interim provost and then you applied—we conducted a national search with a search firm and during that process, we evaluated, I think there were more than 60 applicants for the position. But as somebody who was on the other side of that process, it was clear to all of us that your passion for education and your diverse experiences helped you rise above that stiff competition.

So rather than talking about the process, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you make of serving as the provost here at Ball State?

[ANAND MARRI]

I'm fortunate for that position. What I'm learning is that I'm learning how to think more strategically, and that is one of the things that, as you know, as an academic, where you're going to be a teacher, you worry about your classroom, as a researcher, you worry about your research and, you know, working with other colleagues. But as a provost, you're thinking about all of the university as well as academic affairs, right? So you have 900 plus colleagues that you have to think about and how to make the best decisions to support them. And at the same time, think about the nonacademic side at the university in terms of how do we work together as one team and how do we grow together in one team. So there's that strategic viewpoint, but then also the macro perspective. So you go from micro to macro. And so those are two things that I've found to be, you know, helping me grow. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah, it's a big job. It's an important job. I've also said, you know, many people say that being the president of a large university is a really tough job. I think being the provost might be the toughest job in higher education. What do you think? 

[ANAND MARRI]

Oh, without a doubt. I think because, I’m with 100%, and I know you've said that to me doing our job interview process, and it's because you are a faculty colleague. But at the same time, you have to lead the faculty to make academic affairs better. And better serve the needs of our students. And so you are working together as, you know, as colleagues, but then you have to start bringing in your leadership skills to push us to do better. And that means making changes. And for all of us, I believe change is hard, but it's necessary given the population that we serve. And so it is it's a just let me say there is no day that’s the same. So it's been a fun, enjoyable experience and really rewarding when I see what we're doing to the lives of our students. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yes. So, you know, at this point in your career, you've been on a number of college campuses as a student, a grad student, a professor, dean, now provost. I have often said that I think the culture on our campus is distinctive, that the character of our faculty and staff is different from the places I've been. Same is true of our students. What your reaction to that observation? 

[ANAND MARRI]

I fully agree. And there's the ways it stands out in two ways. One is, it is very clear that we are an economic escalator school—economic escalator school. We are very good at promoting our students’ economic well-being in terms of their academic well-being, to move to the path to the middle class and beyond. And that is something that we're all in agreement on. That is a common culture. The second is we very much believe in the common good, which is we put aside our own self-interest to think about what's best for our students and our colleagues. And that is highly unique. And so I'm very proud to be part of that team in doing that.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And you've heard me say that that the culture of the institution is based upon the special character of our people. And I think that the character of our people is grounded in, or it can be traced to our collective commitment to the university's enduring values. And I know you've you've spoken about them. You've heard me speak about them. So I want to end the conversation with a question that I ask all of my guests. As you know very well, you know, it's these enduring values that are represented by the iconic Statue of Beneficence. And beneficence means the quality of doing good for other people, doing good for other people through service and philanthropy. So what does beneficence–what does that mean to you?

[ANAND MARRI]

So the way I explain it to my kids and the way I think about my work is two ways. One is we put kindness first. And kindness to our colleagues, kindness to our students, kindness to our community. And that's the first thing. The second thing is gratitude. We are very fortunate to work in the environment that we do to serve the students that we do and to be able to work with the colleagues that we have. These are two things. And if you ask our children, they'll say the same thing: kindness and gratitude. We talk about it every week. I think they're a little tired of me, but they are essential to what we're doing. And that's why I'm happy to be here. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

I'm grateful that you're willing to be my teammate and my partner, and thank you for joining me for this conversation.

[ANAND MARRI]

Thank you, President Mearns.