What does it take to maintain a strong LCMS identity in a diverse academic setting? Dr. Thomas offers an insightful look into Concordia Irvine's hiring practices, the emphasis on Lutheran intellectual tradition, and the holistic formation of students. From the operational dynamics of the Concordia University System to the strategic efforts to build unity while respecting individuality, this episode offers a deep dive into the leadership and culture that drive Concordia University, Irvine. Tune in to hear about the efforts to maintain transparency, inclusivity, and a team-oriented approach that fosters a vibrant and innovative academic environment.
Curious about how to lead a university through a global pandemic? Dr. Michael Thomas, President of Concordia University, Irvine, shares his incredible journey of steering the institution to new heights amidst unprecedented challenges. During his candid conversation, Dr. Thomas delves into the strategic rebranding of the university, clarifying its mission, vision, and values, and the exciting new construction projects on campus. These pivotal changes are all leading up to Concordia's 50th anniversary, marking a new era of growth and innovation for the university.
In a bold and ambitious move, Concordia University, Irvine expanded its facilities with the $45 million acquisition of a new campus. Dr. Thomas discusses this transformative decision, emphasizing the importance of adaptive leadership and the university's commitment to faith in a rapidly changing world. He also reflects on the emotional impact of the closure of Concordia University, Portland, and the resilience of the community in moving forward. This episode highlights the delicate balance of innovation and tradition in higher education, particularly within a post-Christian environment.
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Visit uniteleadership.org
What does it take to maintain a strong LCMS identity in a diverse academic setting? Dr. Thomas offers an insightful look into Concordia Irvine's hiring practices, the emphasis on Lutheran intellectual tradition, and the holistic formation of students. From the operational dynamics of the Concordia University System to the strategic efforts to build unity while respecting individuality, this episode offers a deep dive into the leadership and culture that drive Concordia University, Irvine. Tune in to hear about the efforts to maintain transparency, inclusivity, and a team-oriented approach that fosters a vibrant and innovative academic environment.
Curious about how to lead a university through a global pandemic? Dr. Michael Thomas, President of Concordia University, Irvine, shares his incredible journey of steering the institution to new heights amidst unprecedented challenges. During his candid conversation, Dr. Thomas delves into the strategic rebranding of the university, clarifying its mission, vision, and values, and the exciting new construction projects on campus. These pivotal changes are all leading up to Concordia's 50th anniversary, marking a new era of growth and innovation for the university.
In a bold and ambitious move, Concordia University, Irvine expanded its facilities with the $45 million acquisition of a new campus. Dr. Thomas discusses this transformative decision, emphasizing the importance of adaptive leadership and the university's commitment to faith in a rapidly changing world. He also reflects on the emotional impact of the closure of Concordia University, Portland, and the resilience of the community in moving forward. This episode highlights the delicate balance of innovation and tradition in higher education, particularly within a post-Christian environment.
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Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. Today we get the privilege of hanging out with the president at Concordia University at Irvine, cui. His name is Michael Thomas. Dr Thomas served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Director of the Honors Program at Concordia University, portland. As professor of religion, his academic interests include the history and literature of early Christianity so cool. Early Judaism so cool. And the classics, the classical world. His true academic passion, however, was teaching the introductory religion course to first-year students. How fun would this be At his alma mater there? And that's Concordia Portland, right? That's right. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. So Michael Thomas earned his BA at Concordia University, portland, 1993. His MA University of Washington in 96, and then his PhD in 2008 at the University of Virginia, and now has been serving as president at Concordia University, irvine. Has it been three years now, michael? Is that about right?
Speaker 3:Four.
Speaker 2:Four Gee whiz. Time flies, so let's start there. Just brag a bit in the Lord, obviously, about what the Lord is doing at CUI right now. Thanks for hanging with us, buddy.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity. This is really exciting for me. Love speaking about Concordia, Irvine. Yeah, things are going really well here. I mean every day. There are challenges, of course, and we'll talk about that later, but so many amazing things. So one of the great opportunities when I came here is that the former presidents and other leadership right had left such a great team intact. Former presidents and other leadership right had left such a great team intact. We know who we are, we know why we're here, we know what we're doing.
Speaker 3:But the interesting thing for me, right coming in at the start of COVID right, so just for everyone's their timeline I got called to this ministry and started on Epiphany Day of 2020. Okay, two months later, covid shut us down and then, just a few months later than that, this team opened this campus and we were the most open campus in Southern California per capita of any university, and that was intentional, right, we were going to open this place regardless of what it took. And so this team, the team that I was left with, the leadership team that had been assembled here it was fantastic. We had a lot of challenges. Team that had been assembled here was fantastic. We had a lot of challenges. As you guys remember, covid was tough. But this leadership team, knowing who we are, knowing why we're here, we opened this campus. We knew it was good for our students, faculty and staff.
Speaker 3:As we came out of COVID then we had to start taking some deep looks at different things Like how are we telling our message? So we know who we are, we definitely have this rooted identity. We know exactly why we're here, but we were telling that story to prospective students and their families, maybe with not the kind of clarity and conciseness, a lot of internal jargon this happens right. So immediately we engaged a brand discovery process, hired a team to come in and listen deeply. I knew we had the right team. When the second day they were on campus, they started to use the phrase vocations with an S and not vocation. They were listening deeply.
Speaker 3:That led then to a complete brand renew really clear, concise articulation of who we are, our mission, our vision, our values. That then led to a new strategic plan and we adopted that strategic plan last year Bold, very much front forward, leaning into hope, and so that has been well received by the community, by the regents, trustees, donors, and that has led to some really exciting things. If you don't know, we will be signing formal contracts with the general contractor in the next two weeks. The building cranes and construction materials will probably be here within two weeks. The CU Center for Worship in the Performing Arts we've outgrown it. Worship on Friday mornings at Concordia Irvine is over 500 students. We're actually at capacity. So we have raised 83% of the amount of money for a $45 million project. Come on.
Speaker 3:That is fantastic so we're going to rebuild that center 800 seats and we're building two brand new athletic buildings. All of that will be completed and this is really important for the viewers and listeners to hear All that will be completed for our 50th anniversary. We'll cut the ribbons on three new buildings for our 50th Anyway those are some of the things happening. There's a lot more, but let's get started with that. Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, we love. I mean so many things. Everything rises and falls on the story that we tell. Right, and leaders must, in this day and age, lean into telling a grand story of what God because we're a Christian institution, churches, etc of what God wants to do. He wants to transform lives by the power of His Word, power of His Spirit, and there are so many people who are walking in darkness in need of hope, the light of Christ. So get us behind the curtain a little bit. It's a bold move to come in as a president of you and say you know what early on we needed to invite one, some outsiders. That requires humility to come in. And then, two, we got a compelling vision, but we think it could be sharper. So get us behind the scenes of what exactly the mission, vision and values are and more how that process kind of was received by leadership and by the community at large.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely so. We brought in a company that it was actually a bold move, just choosing that particular company, kind of an upstart, a lot of really talented people in the company, but it was a brand new, not even year old company located in San Diego. They came on board and I was really clear with them, and our team was clear with them, that we wanted them to listen deeply and they had that ability to listen. We had a mission statement and a vision statement and we kind of would go between them when we kind of told our story. So we unified that. Our mission is really bold and clear Concordia University, irvine, a comprehensive Lutheran Christian university guided on the one hand by Christ's great commission, and then we develop wise, honorable, cultivated citizens to serve society in the church. That phrase wise, honorable, cultivated citizens we've used it here for over 20 years. It actually is an excerpt from Luther's letter to the princes in Germany advocating for a general, what we would call today a liberal arts education for all citizens, boys and girls.
Speaker 3:500 years ago advocating for the state coffers to pay for a general education for boys and girls. We've lifted that phrase out and we've now that's become our kind of catchphrase Wise, honorable, cultivated citizens and, as our provost is apt to say, citizens is just a variable Wise, honorable cultivated accountants. Wise, honorable, cultivated nurses. Wise, honorable cultivated whatever fill in the blank. That was really important for us to kind of consolidate that mission and vision into one statement Christ's great commission, but also educational, to serve society in the church. That allowed us to then think deeply about our values and we actually from the DNA of this place. It was really pretty quick. The values rose up and those are five Gospel-centered, faithfully relevant, sustainably excellent, courageously loving and relentlessly hopeful. Interestingly, most of those have tension built into them, lutheran tension.
Speaker 3:Right, faithfully relevant we want to offer relevant programs, but we're not going to offer programs that aren't connected to our faith commitment. We want to be excellent, but we know we can't be excellent in all things. We want to be sustainable in that excellence. We want to be hopeful, of course, but we want to be relentless in that hopefulness and lead into that idea of forgiveness. So we try things here and if we fail, we confess to each other that we failed, we pronounce forgiveness and we move on.
Speaker 3:And we want to be loving, but we want to do it in a courageous way, right? We don't want to just be loving. To be loving, sometimes that requires really difficult, courageous conversations. You can imagine residential living today with younger people. Having never maybe lived with a roommate, a brother or sister, they may be moving into a residential hall for the first time with another human being and that takes difficult loving conversations, and so that's really key to who we are. And then we leaned into something else and I'll stop after this and that is this distinctive role of a middle way. We are trying desperately to thread this needle between secularism on the one hand, and so many Christian schools started as Christian faith community and slide into secularism.
Speaker 3:I'll refrain from naming some of those. But the other side is just as dangerous to slide into sectarianism. A Christian school, only for Christians Sometimes I use language like this, and that is Luther, 500 years ago, turned the monasteries into schools. I will not preside over a school that turns the school back into a monastery. We are going to maintain commitment of hiring faculty and staff full time who are practicing, committed Christians, but then we will boldly open the doors to the world. Any student is welcome here who's qualified and willing to engage in our mission. We don't want them to come and try to change us. We're very clear who we are. We'll welcome everyone, but anyone is welcome to study here and that middle way is so powerful in this society, I believe. And that's who we are and that's the niche that we occupy.
Speaker 4:That is awesome, jack, do you?
Speaker 2:got a response Because I want to go off on it.
Speaker 4:I love your analogy of the middle way. We often see that in our own education ministry, our own school ministry, that a lot of the community around us. When a school builds itself as a Christian school, it often meets the characteristics of what we call a covenant school. You have to believe the same as us to come and hang out with us and be a part of this community. And we like to think of education as mission. What would it look like to be a mission school where, yeah, we are welcoming people that do not.
Speaker 4:Hey, a Muslim. Yeah, enroll your Muslim kid in here and learn about Jesus every day? That would be wonderful. Let's do it. You know what I mean. So, to think of school as a mission and of course, it's also a community. So you also want to build a faithful community of believers in there, because what are you inviting people into? You want to have a strong core of belief. That's the backbone of that. So, as you said, it's this middle way that you're trying to walk and I think that's fantastic. And then I love your description of the values. I was just kind of curious, because values are the filter by which we make decisions, and so how might there be. How might, like an outsider, look at CUI and see some of the decisions that you've made differently because of the values that you have?
Speaker 3:Well, so one clearly right. The leading value, of course we always lead with this one is gospel-centric right.
Speaker 3:We are gospel-centered and we offer, of course, worship invited, never compelled. That's another part of that middle way invited, never compelled. But we invite students to come and join with us. We provide lots of opportunities for them to enrich their faith, in chapel, in Bible studies, but also in the classroom and in the res halls and on our outbound trips, for example, right. So spring break trip to Yosemite. Right, it's also Bible studies embedded with hiking, right. So truly a holistic experience.
Speaker 3:But then you know, we have to make other decisions sometimes, right. So how do we make decisions on hiring? Right, well, we make decisions on hiring based on gospel-centered, right. Our faculty and staff full-time faculty and staff are Christians and we interview every one of them for that, and so that's key and we can get to reasons down the road why that's so important, right. But the boldness of being able to say this is who we are and then we can open the doors to the world and not be fearful of being swamped. So that's another one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, relentlessly hopeful is probably the one I want to lean to into the most. Right, we we are hopeful in the gospel, but we are relentless in that, meaning that we're going to try things we are going to lean into that hope, and so sometimes I think probably some people are a little um surprised how fast we're moving. Um, I don't know if you know just recently about. This is amazing. 18 months ago, we had the opportunity to walk a building that allowed us to add 40% square footage to our classrooms and office space. One purchase, a huge purchase, $45 million purchase. We bought another campus that's just seven minutes away from the Turtle Rock campus. We put our healthcare programs over there.
Speaker 3:That was a bold move, right, really bold move, a major, major purchase, but the Lord literally knocked down every obstacle. There were 30 obstacles that could have stopped that and the story of how those just fell in front of us not in days, sometimes in hours it was remarkable. I mean, we were going up against bidders who were going to bid that project to turn it into more commercial real estate, and it was a former university. So we bought it and that's the kind of boldness right. Wow, it's so good. Former university.
Speaker 2:So we bought it and that's the kind of boldness right. So, wow, it's so good, it's such a model to the church at large, specifically many Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod listeners here Not all of whom listen with a lot of joy around some of the folks that we have on here because we're walking. I wrote a recent blog here, michael, that kind of gets at the heart of adaptive leadership and walking, not crossing the line, but coming up to the line. And the line is we're not and I like the way you articulate it we're not going to go the way of the world, which is the secular pagan, like that's not a choice for us. But we're also not going to live in fear and pretend like man everything. Oh, god's not on the throne anymore and we got to.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. We're going boldly, and I want to throw an olive branch here. We're going boldly with the purity of our doctrine, like I think sometimes folks may hear us be a little flippant. That's not the right way. But be a little flippant with, say, the article of justification by grace through faith, like nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that the gospel is going forward with boldness.
Speaker 2:God is on a mission and he's invited his church into that mission and the mission is to get all of his kids back. Could we say, no matter on what, however you worship or whatever context you happen to be, could we say we agree on that and we want to do in our context? This is what I see you saying, socal. I mean you couldn't be more like post-Christian than California at this day and age. No, we're going with boldness, because people are walking in darkness in need of the light of Christ, and we're going to. Therefore, you've created this culture, the Holy Spirit and the leaders who have come before you, to be sure, but you're building on this culture of innovation for the sake of reaching the lost. Anything more to add to that, michael?
Speaker 3:No, we are super excited to be called into the mission here at Concordia, irvine. If you think about it, we are the only conservative Lutheran university west of the hundredth longitudinal line that runs through Nebraska, right? So we are serving the entire Western United States, not just the Lutheran communities. Of course, we want to serve the Lutheran communities, but we're serving Catholic communities, jewish communities, muslim communities, secular communities, because we provide this holistic education and we do so boldly, right. This is why the brand work and the strategic plan work was so important, so that when students and families come to visit, they know exactly who we are. We lead. Our new logo has a cross on it. Right, we lead with our identity and we're not we're not ashamed of the gospel.
Speaker 3:Right, we lead with the gospel, but because of that we're winsomely opening the doors to the world and so, yeah, we will not compromise on the core elements of who we are, but we are going to welcome everyone who walks through those doors.
Speaker 2:And I pray that's a posture that the local church, every local church, seeks to have as well. It's the exact same thing. We've been changed by the gospel. You're not going to come in here and I think a lot of times we worry that other people are going to you're not going to change the gospel Like we're rooted and grounded in in our Lutheran traditions, in the liturgy obviously, which tells us the grand love story. So I'm not. We should get over that fear, man. That's the. That's the furthest thing ever. Like you're going to come here and you're going to be changed because the Holy Spirit, the word, always the word, always works. So let's get into. Let's get into another topic here.
Speaker 2:You were at Concordia University, portland, for some time and closely connected to that, that closure, and I like to center these conversations. We want to put the best construction on everything. Sure, knowing that love, I know, I know you'll do this, but even as we talk, knowing that love covers a multitude of sins and it was a very complex, just like any closure of any institution is a very complex story. What details of that closure often get overlooked or misunderstood, michael?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, tim, thanks for the question. That's a tough question for me because I'm so close to Concordia, portland. I spent nearly 20 years of my life there, right so undergrad, right Through a really formative time in my life. Of course, there were so many of us in college, university. Those early Concordia experiences just transformed who I am. I am who I am today because of the men and women who trained me and formed me at that school and then launched me Right. I was so well prepared for graduate school. Coming out of there it was just phenomenal. Doors have opened, firmed my, rooted my faith deeper than it was ever before at that time in my life. So it really transformed me.
Speaker 3:I was then gone for several years and I came back on the faculty in 2003. I taught Greek and Latin for many years there, ran the honors program, became dean, et cetera, et cetera. Very much the heart of who I am is based on the connection with my alma mater. If you don't know this, my office was my old dorm room. So I mean that's how tight was my old dorm room. So I mean that's how tight, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe, maybe too tight in some ways, but nonetheless, um, no, actually, no, serendipitously it was assigned to me. Yeah, it was just crazy, just absolutely crazy. Um, but um, yeah, that was a very, very, very, very painful day when the school announced its closure. I had already become president here and maybe God had that in mind. I could do more good here serving as the president. We flew a team up to try to help students get a pathway and we just have graduated, in fact, this last graduation. We just graduated the last few doctoral students through the ed program. They just walked across the stage and I got to hug one of the gentlemen who I had never met before, but we kind of connected over the fact that he had been at Concordia Portland and the rug got ripped up, ripped out from under him. Very thankful that we here at Irvine were able to kind of build that back together for him. But yeah, I personally think and this is my own viewpoint I personally think most of the lessons people have taken from Concordia Portland are wrong.
Speaker 3:We haven't done the true autopsy that needs to happen to take the deep lessons. I'll share what I think happened. I do not think Portland collapsed because of financial issues. I do not think Portland collapsed because of hot shock and the contract. In the end that was what caused it. But those are symptoms of a much deeper disease.
Speaker 3:The disease was when the intentional move was made to hire non-Christian faculty and staff, faculty and staff. I think that's when the seeds the cancer started to take root, and I use that word somewhat cautiously. What happened was right. When you start to intentionally hire non-Christian faculty and staff, they and many of them are very, very talented. They rose up in the ranks and started hiring other people. So once you do that, you lose your ability to maintain the culture, because the culture is held fundamentally in the faculty and the staff. And once that happens it starts to unroll. And it was very fast, I would say.
Speaker 3:Within a decade we went from nearly every faculty and staff member full-time being Christian to maybe only 20%, 20%, 25% Pockets of Christendom among the campus, mostly in arts and sciences, but in some of the other schools as well. And then that leads to a real problem economically because when you go from a niche, a particular niche, being a conservative Christian university with liberal arts programs, when you move from that, now you don't have that niche anymore because you're no longer a Christian university. Now you're just another liberal arts university struggling among maybe another 4,000. So you go from competing with this kind of group, your peer set, to competing with the nation, and once you've done that, then you get in the cycle of having to make more, riskier and riskier financial decisions. That led to the hotshot contract in the end.
Speaker 3:The hotshot contract was really to me a symptom of a deeper disease. It did lead to the final death, right, so it was the sepsis that eventually kind of took over, but that that was not the cause. In my opinion, the cause was much deeper and that's why, for me, coming here is as humble as I want to say this. Right, I think the Lord put those lessons in front of me so that here at Concordia Irvine we are intentional about who we hire.
Speaker 3:So that here at Concordia Irvine we are intentional about who we hire, really proud of the fact that we have a chief mission officer in Reverend, dr Stephen Mueller, who oversees the mission he serves on the president's cabinet. Last year I don't think he was too excited because I put him in charge of human resources because it's hiring. Hiring is where our culture is, and so we hire. We try to hire LCMS as much as we can, we always hire Christian, and then we orient all faculty and staff through our vision, mission and vocation program. That's also really key. Whoever we hire, we have to orient to higher ed. So anyway, that's a little bit of my lessons from Portland.
Speaker 4:How has that been for you staffing that way? Have you been able to find a pipeline of talent that actually like Christian talent, that can actually lean into these areas of specialty?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean there are times we struggle right. I mean the lesson from Portland. It's always easier just to say, well, we just need to have this nurse or we just need to have this accountant or this other particular profession, and as you get into the more specialties it becomes harder to hire. But remember, orange County is this kind of unique county in California which is still really conservative, christian right, and so there's a lot of Christian talent here, lcms talent. The Pacific Southwest District has a ton of talent right and so, yeah, we need to lean into that, we need to be intentional about it, we are up front with our hiring practice and then we boldly do that.
Speaker 3:But we need to also we know that this is a challenge coming forward. We have a lot of retirements. We're coming up on our 50 coming forward. We have a lot of retirements. We're coming up on our 50th anniversary. We have a lot of retirements coming in the next five years and probably, if I think about the existential threats to the university, it's one is maintaining that culture. Second is cost of housing right in California. How do we hire in LCMS or other Christian faculty in California? How do we compensate them so that they can afford California without jacking our tuition rates up to pay for it. So that that's a real balance. And one of the keys there is our donor base. We need to build our endowment rapidly and massively to be able to offset those costs that maybe some of the other Concordia's don't have, because where we are in California. But, believe me, I'd rather be 10 minutes from the beach and 20 minutes from Disneyland any day of the week and I'd rather be in this mission field.
Speaker 4:frankly, how has your endowment process been going? Sorry, jack, sorry, how has your endowment process been going?
Speaker 3:Oh really good. We, we well, Goldman Sachs just took us on about two years ago. They're managing our money now, Really excited about, about their leadership. Our long term permanent quasi endowments are over 65 million. Now we're going to be pushing those up. The greatest transfer of wealth in human history will happen over the next 10 years and because we're so clear with our mission, donors are reacting to that. I mean, we've already raised 83% of the money needed to cover the $45 million in building projects and we don't build here with debt. We may use short-term debt to bridge right, but we don't build here with debt because we it's really important that we keep our keep our debt load very low.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is so exciting. What do you say to someone who says you know how can you claim to be an LCMS institution, but you don't have? You don't have all LCMS teachers. What's, what's your general response to that?
Speaker 3:We need more Well because ultimately, right, it's the confession that preserves, beyond the individuals right. We're rooted in this 500-year-old Lutheran intellectual tradition. We're rooted in the holistic formation of every student, In the principles of the freedom of the gospel, right Justification by grace, through faith Although I would often rework that when I taught freshmen Because they don't know that kind of churchy language, I would say look, you're made right by God as a free gift, grace, that's right, right Through trust. And so, by using language that's a little more accessible, it's rooted in the principles of 500 years of the tradition of the Lutheran Reformation. But that goes beyond the individuals. But nonetheless it is important that we have a critical mass of LCMS faculty and staff and we're continually hiring and we always will hire LCMS if they're qualified Right, we always look for the qualified individual.
Speaker 3:But if they're coming from another Christian denomination and if they're coming from LCMS either way, all go through all faculty, go through what's called VMV1, their first year, and they cannot move from associate to full professor unless they've completed another year training of VMV2, taught by our chief mission officer and our provost. And now we have now rolled out VMV for staff. We just did the pilot project this year and the reception was overwhelming. Now staff are coming up and saying we want to take VMV for staff. And so, because you know the staff and faculty, both, in different ways, form and shape individuals, so are they card carrying member, every faculty and staff member. Card carrying member of the LCMS? No, do we have a critical mass? Yes, are we orienting all of them to what it means to teach at LCMS higher educational institution through VMV? Yes, for faculty and staff.
Speaker 2:Wonderful VMV vision, mission, values. Vision mission, vocation, vocation Cool, love that, love that. Training you can't train enough.
Speaker 2:You can't talk vision, mission values, vocation. Enough today, to be sure. So I've never spoken with someone who didn't like working with you and the CUI team. The culture there is fantastic. You're a beloved leader. So what are you and your leadership team, board of Regents included? Shout out to Ryan Erbling, member of our congregation, here on your Board of Regents President right now, though, is he your president? Yeah, I'm sorry. Wow, is Ryan Rimling a president? Does he have a big role on the Board of Regents? He's the board chair.
Speaker 3:He's the board chair. Yeah, that's what I thought. Way to go.
Speaker 2:Ryan the big wig. The big wig, ryan, don't go to your head, bro. Anyway, I can still kick your butt in golf. All that to say. What are you and your leadership team and the Board of Reg intentionally doing to create a positive, hope-filled and innovative culture? Let's talk culture here as we come down the homestretch, michael.
Speaker 3:Well, it's a fun place to a really fun place to work. I come to work every day super joyful, winsome. I love this call. I've never had a clearer call in my life, and so maybe part of that is I feel like I'm supposed to be here. Look, I didn't want to be a university president, right, I had no intention to be a university. I was very happy teaching Greek and Latin right, which, by the way, is like the best training to be a president right, greek and Latin, I mean super helpful super helpful for reading financial spreadsheets, as Ryan will attest.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I love coming to work every day. This is such a wonderful place. I love eating lunch in the cafeteria, going to sporting events, my day-to-day occupation. I never have the same day twice. I never have a bad day. I'll sometimes have a bad hour, but never have a bad day.
Speaker 3:But because of for me at least, because of that clarity that I'm supposed to be here. I don't know why me necessarily, but the Lord opened the doors literally every obstacle. It's a really strange story how I ended up being here. Maybe we can talk about that some other time, but I'm supposed to be here and because of that I can lead with. I don't know if everyone here would agree with this, right, I try to lead with humility, knowing that I'm supposed to be here, but it's only God's will that I'm here.
Speaker 3:And so that then trickles down to the fact that I see leadership as an inverted pyramid, and I do believe the president's cabinet sees it that way as well. That is, we're at the very bottom of the pyramid, right, so we serve the leadership team, the deans, the program directors. They in turn serve the faculty and staff, who in turn serve the students and the families, and so there's no job beneath us, no job beneath us. So, and we're a team, fully a team. So I try to be really transparent. I try to be as much as I can by maintaining confidentiality in some cases, but I tried.
Speaker 3:I probably some of my cabinet would think I overshare, because I do believe it's a full team effort. So I share financials, I share challenges, I share opportunities pretty boldly to the faculty and staff, because, you know, there's a lot of people making a lot of sacrifices to serve here at this university. Right, they make sacrifices for salary, for living in California, which is expensive, some of them are, you know, they could go other places, but they choose to be here and therefore, right, we're a team, we're all in this together. So for me, I think that's probably why there's this kind of spirit of winsomeness on the campus. It's not just me by any means. I inherited an amazing, amazing team and amazing faculty.
Speaker 2:But being really clear who we are and leading into that hopefulness of the gospel, yeah, I love that you maybe step from time to time over the line in terms of sharing. No, I think it's absolutely necessary for the leader at the bottom using your analogy, the ultimate bottom saying, hey, here's where we're winning, here's where God is at work and here's our challenges. And then what are we I'm very intentional with pronouns what are we going to do about it? That's right and I'm going to. I think it's a who stole my cheese. I'm going to give you back the cheese, like we're owning it together. So I would much rather be there than hold up in my office Like, oh my goodness, what am I going to do about this? Nah, I can do Jack squat Like Jack you've brought, because Jack and I we have difficult hours. I love that. Not difficult days, but difficult hours.
Speaker 2:And so what do you think some good solutions are? Team. What do you think some good solutions are? You know, we walked through as a congregation a little bit of a dip in giving. A lot of congregations were there. Everybody owned the conversation around time, talent and treasure, engagement on our team we're all in it. I think too often pastors have this tendency like it's the weight of the world upon the pastor. So unless we actually learn to delegate, to release not just task but authority appropriately, we're going to be in a real, real tough spot when crisis inevitably hits. Anything more to add to that, michael.
Speaker 3:My mantra often is name the problem, work the problem right. Probably of maybe, maybe not, maybe it is God's perfect timing, right I still don't know why me but God's perfect timing that I came into this office during COVID, because probably of all the things I do really well is I can manage a crisis. It's the one time where I really I have named the problem, worked the problem right. So it's this collaborative nature. I try to get the team to share an ownership and let's say, okay, here's the problem, what are the solutions? Let's whiteboard it. We do a lot of whiteboarding, right. So let's try to figure out the challenges ahead of us and let's figure out solutions.
Speaker 3:And I always assume, whatever idea I throw out, part of this comes from grad school, right, any idea I throw out is 70% baked, maybe 60% baked and it will get better with people tearing it apart, right. And so the kind of collaborative nature, kind of team of rivals, right, getting people and I don't mean that we're at each other's right throats or anything that that we will definitely challenge each other and say that idea is not going to work because X, y and Z, but if we do this, a, b and C will work, and so that I think that collaborative, transparent, open communication process Right and it can be tense. I mean, we just got through a little bit of a tight budget cycle this last time because we're still with compensation and trying to make things right and trying to answer people's requests for more operational dollars and there's give and take, and so we got in the room and had some heated conversations but what came out the other side was, I think, a really, really good collaborative product. So that's good.
Speaker 4:If you don't distribute the problem solving process, then you create an unsustainable leadership structure, right Centralled on, you know, wherever the chief leader might be right. Oftentimes people find themselves in leadership roles because they're really great problem solvers and that'll get you into that role but that will not sustain you in that role. You have to be able to distribute that process to people, share that process with people, make that collaborative organization so that everybody cares about that, everybody's sharing to own that. And it's not, you know right now, it's not just all of the weight on your shoulder as a leader. And you know, honestly, I think people are happier and healthier in that type of organization where their input is valued and really respected and, like you said, the ideas get tested and refined a lot better. Some of the ideas even though you might be a great problem solver, you still have half-baked ideas and inviting other people in to improve.
Speaker 4:That is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:The problem right now is we only have five minutes and I got one last question for Michael. What are your hopes for the Concordia University system, existing Concordias working together into the future, and are you and other presidents having any conversations around collaboration, mutual support?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's really interesting you ask that question. Every month the CUS presidents get together on our on our monthly call and it's a great period where we can share information with each other. We get, we collaborate in terms of ideas, we see each other in person annually, but in terms of like nuts and bolts collaboration and or kind of working together on partnerships, it becomes difficult for Concordia Irvine at least because of geography. I mean, it's a full day travel for me to get to Minneapolis or to get to Chicago, let alone to Seward etc. And I would say geographically some of the Concordias could work on programs together but we're in a completely different accreditation system. A lot of things can be shared on the back end perhaps, right, Like perhaps business services and stuff. That becomes really complicated when we're so far apart. So I don't think we have a really good model yet for how the Concordias work together outside of kind of mutual consolation and uplifting, Right. So yeah, I think, going forward, there's still this kind of question about how does the CUS operate.
Speaker 3:Question about how does the CUS operate, Are we the way I put it sometimes is we share the same DNA but it's expressed differently?
Speaker 3:So whenever I'm explaining kind of the Concordia's to non-Elsomist people I would say, well, we're a little bit like the Jesuits, the Jesuit universities.
Speaker 3:They're all Jesuit in name and maybe in DNA, but each location is different and so I think the Concordia somewhat are there.
Speaker 3:I mean, clearly, Seward is a very different institution from, say, Concordia Irvine, and St Paul's a very different institution from Concordia Irvine versus Chicago. So I don't think the five presidents have figured out a way and maybe I'm the outlier here, but I don't think the five presidents have figured out a way, and maybe maybe I'm the outlier here, but I don't think. So I don't think we figured out a way to to go beyond that kind of shared DNA, Although we do constantly share information, like the V and V program, very proud of the fact that the chief mission officer idea is now pretty much adopted at all the different Concordias, and that has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the, the, those schools kind of wanting that kind of direction, but the VMV program really willing to share that outbound and so a lot of those kinds of lessons back and forth. I think that's kind of what the CUS is probably best equipped to do.
Speaker 2:Is probably best equipped to do. Yeah, some folks may have questions because of, you know, closure of Portland and everything that happened in CTX like is CUI on good terms with CUS and Synod in general? I know the council presidents visited, president Harrison visited and it was a great visit. So just kind of dismiss any of those kind of rumors that may be circulating, michael.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm really happy to comment on that. So going into the convention last year I had the chance. It dawned on me maybe I should have been a little smarter about this. It dawned on me that some of the district presidents had never been on the Concordia campuses. In fact, some of the district presidents maybe had never been on any Concordia campus. So maybe in my naivete, I like to break bread with people and I like to drink a pint or two. You can't get this physique without liking a pint or two. And so I think we always do better when we're over a meal. And so I worked with President Gibson, Pacific Southwest District President, and Lee Hagan, the chair of the Council of Presidents, and talked to them about would you ever consider quarterly, like once a year, going and having your meeting instead of St Louis having it at a Concordia? And then I boldly said why don't you consider coming here? So we invited them here and the Council of Presidents came out boldly said why don't you consider coming here? So we invited them here and the council presidents came out.
Speaker 3:Many of them I don't know the percentage, but I'm guessing 40 plus percent had never been on this campus before we got to showcase our beautiful 72 acre campus in Southern California. I think so many of them were surprised that of Irvine. They think we're in LA, but we're, you know, an hour south of LA. We're in this safest midsize city in the United States, according to the FBI for 17 years running. We're right next to the ocean, near Disneyland. It's a beautiful, beautiful campus, secluded campus, on a plateau that showcase that campus. The faculty and staff got to showcase our strategic plan, our brand, talk about our new building projects, all the exciting stuff happening, and got to double down on our chief mission officer, vmv, our identity, our hiring of faculty and staff. And so I think the council presidents I can't speak for all of them, but the reports and comments we heard throughout that three days they were here, even some people who maybe were negative coming in even said wow, I really didn't know what was going on here. So we're really excited that we piloted that and I do know the council presence is interested in continuing that. So hopefully we'll have them back here in six years after they visit every other Concordia.
Speaker 3:So to your final question. I think we have really great relations with LCMS leadership currently. I think they're really respectful of what we're trying to do in terms of. They may not agree with every detail, but this idea of this middle way, definitely not sliding into secularism anytime in the future. But I'm also very concerned about not sliding into sectarianism. We want to continue to open the doors to the world. That's what we lead, our mission statement, guided by Christ's great commission. Right, we can't do Christ's great commission if we don't have the doors open to the world. And so I know there's debates about whether that should be the posture of others, of other universities, other Concordias, maybe the classical school in Wyoming, right, whatever the posture is, but the posture at this campus. We were founded to look to the Pacific Rim. We were founded to serve the West. We were founded to share Christ, the Pacific Rim. We were founded to serve the West. We were founded to share Christ's love with the world, and that's what we're going to continue to do boldly here at Concordia, irvine.
Speaker 2:Praise be to God. Mic drop. Dr Michael Thomas, so much fun to hang out with you today. If people want to connect with you and CUI, how can they do so?
Speaker 3:Website, social media and email me directly. It may take me a day or two to get back to you, but I'll try, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good. This is Lead Time. Sharon is caring Like subscribe comment wherever it is. You take this in, whether it's YouTube, if you're watching on YouTube, jack and I are firmly in VBS week Vacation Bible School at Christ Greenfield. Matching shirts. Matching Scuba Steve shirts. Jesus is alive and well. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thanks so much, michael Jack. Excellent work. Thanks, guys. God bless.
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