Kevin Jackson

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections Conversation Series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in-depth with Baylor leaders, professors and more, discussing important topics in higher education, research and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and that last topic is exactly what we're discussing today, student life with Baylor's Vice President for Student Life, Dr. Kevin Jackson. Baylor student life enriches students' Baylor experience and promotes student flourishing through programs, organizations and resources that support the total development of students. The division that Jackson oversees features over 20 departments in offices like student activities, student leadership development, spiritual life, health and wellness resources, residential living and more.
And of course, this time of year is very exciting for all involved as we're welcoming students back to campus. And Dr. Jackson, in the midst of all that, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

Kevin Jackson:
Derek, it's my pleasure. I'm glad to be here.

Derek Smith:
Always great to have you here. And as you and I are talking, it's the end of the first official week of class, heading into the second when this program will air. So take us inside first week at Baylor 2024. Where are some of the places that you've enjoyed visiting around campus the last few days?

Kevin Jackson:
Well, Derek, it all starts the week before, right? With Move-In and Welcome Week. We had over 2,700 volunteers help us move our new students into the residence halls, and we did that on Wednesday and Thursday a week ago, and it was a tremendous experience to see the look on their faces and their families and how they feel so welcomed here to Baylor during that move-in process. And then it was quickly followed by Welcome Week. We had lots and lots activities for our new students and their families, and gave our new students a chance to really reconnect here on campus. Many of them had gone to Line Camp this summer, of course, through orientation in Line camp, so they'd made some friendships. They were able to then see each other again. So there was a lot of little mini reunions taking place on campus.
And then of course, we ended Welcome Week with our Candlelight Ceremony. That's one of the many things I love about Baylor, all the things we could do on the last evening before school starts, we do a worship service. And had several 100 students out on Fountain Mall, and it was just such a special time to be together. And then Monday morning rolled around, our students rolled out of bed and off to classes they went. And we spent this entire week going to different student events, Mosaic Mixer on Wednesday night, the Black Student Mixer last night. We've got Sign the Line tonight where our freshmen come out and write their names on the Baylor line right there in the stadium. Of course, tomorrow, first home football game. It has just been a series of activities after a series of activities.

Derek Smith:
And what word would you use to describe that feeling of seeing students come back the quiet of the summer on campus?

Kevin Jackson:
The energy and the enthusiasm, you just really can't describe it. You go from a summer, which you've worked really hard getting prepared for the start of the fall and hiring new staff, training, bringing student leaders back in training, doing camps and orientations. And then you see the start of school on the horizon. You go into Welcome Week and Move-In, and it's just the energy, Derek, that the students bring. Our new students are coming here for the first time. Our returning students who come back. It just transforms the entire campus.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Kevin Jackson on Baylor Connections. And we've been fortunate to have a lot of your great staff on this program over the recent years, recent months as well. And we'll talk a little bit about to break down. If we try to start breaking down every element of student life-

Kevin Jackson:
Oh, yes.

Derek Smith:
We'd run out of time quickly-

Kevin Jackson:
Right. Right.

Derek Smith:
But let's zoom out for a minute first. Working with college students, this unique time in their lives, what are the opportunities that motivate you and your staff in whatever office within student life you're in to make the most of that?

Kevin Jackson:
Sure. Well, all of us share this passion for helping young people learn, grow and develop. And of course, I've been in this profession over 40 years and it's just an incredible time in a young person's life. You described it beautifully, and a lot of the research tells us, when you're in this period of life, 18 to 22 years of age, you're trying to answer these really weightier questions of life. Questions like, "Who am I? What do I know and believe to be true? What will I do with the rest of my life? And then who might I spend the rest of my life with?" So it's such a formative period of time for our students, and it's just such an honor and a privilege to be able to walk alongside them during their time here at Baylor. Whether they start out as freshmen and we have them for four years, or they transfer in and we have them for two or three.
It is just an incredible opportunity to speak into their lives as good guides. And what I love about Baylor is it's not just about forming the mind or informing the mind, although we do that very well. Right?

Derek Smith:
Right.

Kevin Jackson:
It's also about forming the heart and the soul. And that to me is the DNA of Baylor, that holistic development of our young people.

Derek Smith:
What are some of the fun ways you and your staff get to live out, the nuts and bolts now of doing that?

Kevin Jackson:
Yeah. Well, sometimes with my staff, I talk about us being environmental engineers. We're always creating these environments for our young people. Sometimes they're programs like Sign the Line where they'll have this experience that's really a milestone experience. In their first year, their first home football game, they're putting their name right there on the stadium. That's showing they're a part of Baylor University. So we create experiences like that. In other cases, I love to walk around campus. As I do, of course, you bump into students all the time. So I'll start up a conversation and I'll just want to know who they are. "Where'd you come here from? What's your major?" We are just constantly looking for points of contact.
Another area that we really lean into is in our housing area. We ask that every new student to Baylor lives on campus. And there are some exceptions to that, but it's typically if you're a permanent resident of the local area. So when we have our students live on campus, it gives us a chance to speak into their lives 24-7, seven days a week, all the way through the fall and spring semester. So we do a lot of work in our residence halls about building community, helping to create a sense of belonging and helping our students really understand what does it mean to be a part of a caring Christian community?

Derek Smith:
As you described this, I was thinking through some of the guests we've had on this program from your division over the years, and it seems like there's continued growth. How much fun is it for you all to continue in that environmental engineering side of what you do to look for ways to speak into certainly the spiritual side, leadership side, academic? But then there's also just the just plain fun side with student activities.

Kevin Jackson:
Oh, yeah.

Derek Smith:
It might just be people who like video games or swing dance, but then it's also as serious as people who are thinking through, "Well, how do I live out my faith in this profession I want to go into?" It's all of the above.

Kevin Jackson:
Yes, yes. That's such a good point. When you think about it, we have 20,000 students, right? And on any given day, if each of those students had 10 interactions, which, trust me, they have many more than 10, but if they just had 10 interactions, that would be 200,000 interactions in any given day. And so what we really lean into is where are those points of interactions and how can we go about being as intentional as we can be and infusing the values of Baylor University in those areas of interaction? Everything from the dining halls and how our students are greeted in the dining halls and how the dining halls are set up so that they have an opportunity to sit near each other. A lot of times our staff walks through the dining hall and if they see someone sitting by themselves, they'll go over there and start talking to them. "How are you doing? How's your week?" Looking for ways, and then lead into conversations around, "Hey, have you been able to connect with some folks? You've joined any groups? Are you looking at any groups?"
So we're constantly looking for things like that. As you've heard through some of your earlier broadcasts, we've done a lot of work on chapel. And when I first came here, our chapel model was very similar to others. You would meet Monday and Wednesday in the auditorium with about 1,200, 1,400 people, three sections. We worked really hard to try and meet the needs of our students, their spiritual needs, but it was very difficult because it's a large space. A lot of people who are coming in with different experiences and ideas about their faith journey, which was wonderful again, but it was hard for us to really meet them where they were and then to walk alongside them in their faith journey in these larger chapel settings. So we went through a faith and character study, and over the course of five years, we learned a tremendous amount of what really helped our students in their faith formation.
And so now, fast-forward five years ahead, we now have over 50 chapel options so that our students can choose. And I love this because I was at our church fair asking all the different things you're doing. Well, one of them that we did during Welcome Week was a church fair, had over 75 churches represented on campus, set up booths over by the Student Center. Our students came through, they got to meet different church members and leaders, and it was just a great day. Well, one of the students I bumped into, and I was talking to her, I asked her, "Well, hey, what chapel did you sign up for?" And she goes, "Oh, my goodness. There were so many that I wanted to sign up for. The hardest part was choosing one out of so many."
And man, I just stood there, Derek, and I thought, "Six years ago, that's not what I would've heard." I signed up for Monday morning at nine o'clock and now these different options for our students really gives just one example of how we've created an environment where we can really, really identify where our students are and be able to meet them there and then again, walk alongside them in this journey.

Derek Smith:
This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Kevin Jackson, Vice President of Student Life at Baylor. And Kevin, you talk about the Baylor mission, and we're heading into a season when there's a new strategic plan that's come out-

Kevin Jackson:
Yes.

Derek Smith:
To help us live out that mission in the next few years.

Kevin Jackson:
Yes.

Derek Smith:
So Baylor has released its new strategic plan. As we're talking, it's going to be next week-

Kevin Jackson:
Right.

Derek Smith:
But it'll be out by the time we talk. And there are commitments that are a part of it, include equipping students to flourish and building a vibrant, caring global community that are a big part of it.

Kevin Jackson:
Yes.

Derek Smith:
And I think those speak directly to the work that you and your colleagues do. So how does a new strategic plan for the university, how does that filter through and then work through you and your staff?

Kevin Jackson:
You bet. And we're so excited about this new strategic plan. The leadership of our university has just been so intentional about helping us as a community, right? Really think through and look to the future and ask the question, "What are the preferred future outcomes we want to move towards?" Always within the mission of Baylor, right? To educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence with Christian commitment and a caring community. So this new strategic plan, 10 months in the making, lots and lots of conversations with people around campus and alums and taking that information and really distilling it down and asking that question, "What is the next big step for Baylor forward?" And so this plan helps us tell that story and identify those commitments that we need to make to move in this really enhanced direction. So we're really excited about.
So what does that do for you? Well, it really helps you get a unified approach to the direction you're going. And as a leader, that's key because leadership is all about helping people come together and move into the future in a way that advances the mission of the university. So this strategic plan is doing that for us. And then as a division of student life, we see ourselves all throughout the new strategic plan. Of course, that's always exciting, right? And I think all of our constituents will see themselves in this new strategic plan. And once again, it'll be a continuation of a unifying force on our campus that helps us really marshal our resources to continue to advance the mission of Baylor.

Derek Smith:
I know that you all are always adding in and fine-tuning, whether it's new student organizations, whether it's bringing in new staff. In recent years, we've had Dr. Kevin Villegas on the program.

Kevin Jackson:
Right.

Derek Smith:
As we look ahead to 2024, are there any new programs or resources or just new things in general that you're excited about?

Kevin Jackson:
Sure. Oh, you bet. Yeah. Much of what we do is continuous improvement, and that's where we're working in areas that have been meeting our students' needs. And we know that because we continually do assessment and we observe and we monitor. And so we're constantly asking the question, "How can we do that better?" And then sometimes we'll do something that our students are just looking at us going, "Appreciate you trying, but that's not as helpful as some of the other things." And we're like, "You know what? Thank you for the feedback. We're going to stop doing that and then start using those resources and experiment on some newer things that you seem to be identifying."
So I'll just give you some examples. One you're aware of, we've been on a multi-year process of renovating our residence halls, all the residence halls in our campus that were built and opened before 1960, and it's really 10 individual buildings that we've been working on. So this year we had our Honors Residential College offline the past year, and we brought that back online for the fall, and students moved in, we moved our students in during Move-In and still have a few things we're working on, but it's a transformational change. And our students' response to it and our Honors College faculty and staff response to it, it's just been amazing. And they see it as just another way to build that community around the Honors Residential College. So that's an example of an area that we've really been continuously improving.
Next up is Allen Dawson. We've taken it offline. We'll work on it for the next year. We'll bring it back online again. It'll just be another tremendous addition to our residential complex, just like we did with Collins and like we did with Penland and Martin and North South Russell. So I'm really excited to see us working through and getting our residence halls refurbished.
A second area we've really been working on is in the area of intercultural engagement. You mentioned Dr. Kevin Villegas. Wow, man, that guy's so good. He is just outstanding. And so he's really championed that area for us. And we've been working on some new leadership training programs, particularly around bridge building, where we are teaching ourselves and students the skills to be curious, to listen deeply, and then to be able to work across differences, to identify common ground for the common good. And I'm really excited about this training and the work that Kevin and his team's doing in that training. We're seeing some early really positive results from that. And as you and I both know, we're in a societal situation right now where we could take all the bridge building we can get. Right?

Derek Smith:
Sure.

Kevin Jackson:
Especially with an election coming up in November and such. So we're very excited about that. That's a new initiative for us. Another one that we've been working on in the area of student health and wellness is a resiliency initiative. Really helping our students develop the strategies in advance of being able to work through hard things. And I'm not saying they can't, but clearly, we've seen in recent years, especially coming out of COVID, and not just our young people, we're all experiencing this, where it seems to be that we become overwhelmed sometimes, we become distressed at higher levels more quickly than possibly at one time we did.
So Dr. Jim Marsh, again, one of the best in the business, Dean for Health and Wellness, he's worked with some colleagues out of Massachusetts to develop a resilience class, which we pilot tested it last year and got incredible feedback from students about how well it really prepared them to create these strategies to offset stress. And so we're increasing those classes and we're offering more of those classes for our students. So those are just a few of the ideas that we've taken and we've built into implementation, sometimes experimentation, all in an effort to do our best and be our best for our students.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Kevin Jackson here on Baylor Connections. And Kevin, I think we're always proud of the honors that Baylor receives. A couple of them that I think really tie into what you've been talking about, our very mission talks about, as you said, building leaders for worldwide service. So Time Magazine listed Baylor as a best college for leaders in the last year, top-50 in the nation. My question for you was going to be how does Baylor work to offer something a little bit different? How does student life amplify that? You've answered that. So I guess the question is, what does it mean to you and your colleagues to see that it's working? And then also to think these new resources that you're talking about, whether it's bridge building, whether it's building resiliency, can amplify that even further?

Kevin Jackson:
Sure. Sure. Yeah. I appreciate when we are celebrated in different ways, especially nationally. But for me as a leader, that's a byproduct. Right? You don't go into these kinds of initiatives thinking, "I'm going to do this because we're going to get national recognition." Again, all that having been said, it's great. The whole area of leadership, it's fundamental to who we are. And so we've been working at it for a while and we've got such, I think a rich environment for developing leaders and servants. When it's in your mission, that helps. When it's modeled at the top, as you know, we've got a president who is, if not the best president in the country, easily in the top 1%, right?

Derek Smith:
Sure.

Kevin Jackson:
And so our students see it modeled. Presidents Council, the vice presidents that work with our president. We work really hard to model the leadership that we would want our students to replicate or emulate. So when you have that at the top and you have that as your mission, it really sets you up to do some work that really goes above and beyond, that does get national recognition. And I'll give you an example. One of the areas that we've been working on is we want to create a leadership certificate that is open to any student, all majors, and it combines the best of in-class and out-of-class experiences. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means that a student that we categorized or cataloged every leadership course Baylor teaches, in every academic area. And so we have that, and then we take all the experiences that are going to be offered, all the speakers that are coming in, David Brooks, for example, and these leadership series that you see coming out of the School of Ed and Business, that sort of thing. We catalog all those.
And then we identify and train faculty and staff who can then be in a position of guidance and support for the students who enter into this program. And then our students, what we'll do or what we're doing, because it's a pilot test right now, is we'll say you will identify X number of classes and then you'll identify Y number of experiences, and then you'll write something to the can of a reflection paper. And then you'll pull all that together with this individual who's been assigned to you to be your mentor, your leadership mentor, and then you'll do these components. And then at the end of successfully doing these components and having this interaction with your mentor, you'll receive a certificate. And we just feel like that's another way to really harness all these incredible experiences.
Oh, and another part of the experience is involvement in a leadership organization or involvement in a student organization in a leadership role, because as you know, it's one thing to study leadership. It's another thing to do leadership. And so that's another component of this certificate program that we're building out. So I think it's just an example to use on how we continue to look for ways that we can become even better at helping our students become leaders and servants.

Derek Smith:
That's great. Yeah, just adding to the list of resources, very holistic as we visit with Kevin Jackson. And Kevin, heading into the final couple of minutes of the program here, a question I have for you that, again, another topic could probably talk the whole program on if we wanted to focus on that, but you're talking about these ways that engage students, almost like little breadcrumbs in some ways that engage them in the life of the university, towards retention, towards graduation, towards excellence.

Kevin Jackson:
Yes.

Derek Smith:
What does all this mean when you think about just student experience in terms of retention, finishing, finishing well?

Kevin Jackson:
Yes, great question. Our retention rate is the highest it's ever been, undergraduate retention rate. And that's been very intentional on our part. About two and a half years ago, we did a strategic enrollment management plan. And even before that, we were working very closely together across campus. So what we know is that when a student feels a strong sense of belonging and connection, then they are more likely to persist in their time in college. This is a national statistic, so we know that. So what we do here at Baylor is we work very hard at helping students feel a part of the Baylor community, which we call the Baylor family. Right? And it starts with admissions, and then it continues through orientation, and then it moves into Line Camp, extended orientation, and then there we are to welcome them and move them into the residence halls.
And then we have resident hall... What we call community leaders, job one is to know their name and to really get to know them and encourage them. And so from day one, we're working very hard to create this sense of belonging. And then we layer on top of this idea of connection, right? We get involved in student organizations, you get involved in undergraduate research, we have faculties, wonderful faculty who aren't just here to teach in a classroom. They're here to then mentor and coach students outside the classroom. And so you just see these layers upon layers of work that we're doing in a very intentional way to create belonging and connection. And when you do that, students respond to it. And then you start to see students who want to stay at Baylor, they want to go deeper at Baylor, they want to graduate from Baylor. And then here's the really neat part, and they want to stay connected to Baylor.
And that's not just giving money, although that's wonderful, but that's serving on boards, and that's encouraging people to come to Baylor, encouraging their friends to send their sons or daughters to Baylor. And it's just this incredible cycle that continues, that has just this tremendous impact on our university's. So it is about retention, it is about graduation rates, but it's about so much more than that.

Derek Smith:
Well, Kevin, as we close, you talk to other colleagues at other institutions, and I know you all are never satisfied, but as you think about serving students, how do you feel Baylor stacks up as you look around?

Kevin Jackson:
Sure.

Derek Smith:
And what are you excited about living that out even further?

Kevin Jackson:
Well, of course I'm biased.

Derek Smith:
Sure.

Kevin Jackson:
No, I'd put us up against anyone when it comes to supporting students, serving students, creating a caring environment for students. I think Baylor is easily in the top 10, and I think we're highly competitive in that group of the top 10.

Derek Smith:
Well, I know you've got a great team, a lot of great work to do, and excited to see that lived out in the weeks and months ahead. Kevin, thanks so much for taking time out to join us today and share.

Kevin Jackson:
Thank you, Derek. It was a pleasure to be here.

Derek Smith:
Great to have you here, Dr. Kevin Jackson, Vice President for Student Life, our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. Reminder, you can listen to other programs online at baylor.edu/connections, and you can subscribe to the program on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.