Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kids are headed back to school, in fact, many of
them already already there or on their way. And we
know college is, you know, gearing up for what really
has been a sort of a tough environment in a
lot of ways. So we talk to the folks who
are doing some of the most I think, taking some
of the most creative approaches to schools. Right now and
right fact in our own backyard at Cornerstone University, the
(00:22):
president there is joining us right now on the phone's
your son Marino Rihan.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You'll thank you President. We appreciate you being here with
us again today.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
And as I said, this is back to school, the
kids are moving and it's a lot of fun, but
there's a lot of things that go go into all
of this.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Justin thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
And it's a beautiful day here in Grand Rapid at
Cornerstone University. Our new students are coming today, new moving
day of their parents and families already on campus, moving
in their kids and young adults, I should say, And
it's an exciting day here at Cornerstone.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You know we've seen all the last year, particularly I
call it the find Out Era and that kind of
goes along with the fool around and find out mantra.
But there is this sort of a revelation all these
things are coming to light, and particularly some of the
biggest cracks in higher learning and those those institutions across
the country. You saw a lot of it last year.
He commented on it, and we've talked about it before,
(01:15):
but you know, as much of these major institutions like
Harvard and some of these other coming under fire for
what was allowed to happen on campuses and essentially really
what's been happening for decades, which I think is not
really education but an indoctrination of some of these students.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I know, it's a.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Refreshing that there are still places like Cornerstone where that
type of thing is is not happening, and you're doing
everything it can to guard against it, make sure that
our kids come out with a great education, ready for
the world, but full of faith.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And it's something that matters, no.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It really does.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
And it's such a travesty in so many ways because
the goal of education is to educate men and women,
young and young people to what is beautiful, true and good.
It's not indoctrination. Is not the creation of skeptics and cynicism.
And so oftentimes the universities have allowed, under the mantra
of academic freedom, lots of other things to command that
(02:14):
are not educational, are not good, are not beautiful, or
not true, actually destructive not just to society but to
the student. And we just had a wonderful retreat here
on our campus for our faculty and staff just several
days ago, and one of the things we discussed is
the fact that over you know, in the last three
decades and even in today, students are still asking some
(02:36):
fundamental questions about life. Who am I, What's my purpose?
How do I live a meaningful life? How do I
ensure that what I do matters to people and helps people?
The really profound questions of life. And yet today's universities
are more secular than they have ever been and thus
(02:57):
unable to answer those fundamental questions of life life that
our students to bring justin. And I'm grateful to be
a place at Cornerstone University where we take that seriously,
and we begin with our faith, our Christian faith and
commitment to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, but also our
commitment to truth beauty and goodness and providing a world
class education that answers those questions for our students and
(03:19):
also prepares them for the market and for the industry
the twenty first and twenty second century. We want our
students to take our Christian worldview and a strong moral foundation,
a true North moral compass, but be able to leverage
that and integrate that in a profound way to bless
the market and industry and their communities and be several
(03:42):
steps ahead other graduates and with the good they bring
and the solutions they bring and a great thinking they bring.
And that's what we're committed to, and we're grateful to
do it and for the opportunity to do it justin.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
You know, one of the other things that been dealing
with over the last year or so is and it's
been building for a long time now, but the affordability
were the unaffordability when it comes to higher education. I
know you all have been sort of behind this push
to really be an innovative here and make college affordable again.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yes, that's right.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
So two years ago we looked at the market and
all that we were doing, and we had a sort
of a charge to our team. Look we need to
really ensure that we're providing phenomenal value at a phenomenal
price point to our families in Michigan and beyond. We
have students that come from, you know, throughout the country,
and how do we do that? And so we launch
a tuition reset of twenty two percent and we have
(04:38):
not raised tuition since. So now we are the most
affordable private university in Michigan, offering probably the best value
out there educational value. Just to make a point this
year and we're so grateful for this, justin the Wall
Street Journal ranked Cornerstone is one of America's top colleges.
They ranked five hundred colleges and we were one of them.
(04:58):
We were the only faith based university in West Michigan
to receive that right recognition from the Wall Street Journal
and only one of sixteen at all ninety sixteen Michigan.
So we want to bring phenomenal value, not just price
point wise, but academics wise and student life wise. And
then this year we did something really incredible. We worked
on it for two years. I'm so grateful to our
(05:19):
faculty staff and so many who've supported this effort. We
launched the nation's first undergraduate accredited degree. It's a business
degree on a mobile app platform, so that if you
have a phone, you can accomplish and finish your entire
undergraduate strategic business management degree on your phone. Androder Apple.
(05:41):
And the price point is twenty four thousand dollars for
the entire degree if you bring credits in and we
take credits, and we assess that it's even less than that.
And I just want to stop and make a point
that there's no other university in the country that's doing that.
It's offering world class academics and a world class experience
on a mobile format or a stone at a price
(06:03):
point that I think will blow up this whole issue
of the unaffordability crisis of higher ed in America.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, I love. I love to see that.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
And I know that you've been pretty outspoken about DEI
what one last thing before I let you go, Di
is dead.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I've heard you.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Say, well, you know we when I came here four
years ago, four and a half years ago to Cornerstone.
I mean, those are conversations that were raging here in
West Michigan, even at Cornerstone, and we focused on our mission.
You know, we're committed to the scriptures and what we
are told, and we believe that every human being is
made in the image of God. We need to treat
(06:41):
everybody with love, with respect, and kindly and thoughtfully and
truthfully regardless, it doesn't matter. We're all made in His image,
we're all equal. So we need to do that. And
we focused. We created something called the Beautiful Christian Community,
a covenant, and so we we really did not we
did not want to all prey to the divisiveness right
(07:03):
that DEI brings, and the really the focus on color
and all these other categories are destructive to unity, to love,
to community. So really focus on let's treat each other with.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Love and respect and with kindness and with humility.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
And we've focused on that and it has transformed our
campus in some significant ways. And we're grateful to have
been leading the way in some ways in Michigan because
now other schools in Michigan are beginning to say, we
need to get away from this too. So we were
ahead of the curve, not a chip on our shoulder,
which just grateful that we did it because we knew
there was something bigger at stake, and that was modeling
for our students. Love and civility and the importance of
(07:42):
true community and true collaboration. So I'm grateful that we've
moved past that. I'm grateful to see that that other
schools are beginning to do that. And then throughout our
country we're having a very important conversation to really close
that thing down and focus on the beauty of being
a human being and being in a great country and
being in a community working together to make it better.
(08:04):
That to me is a tremendous when we're seeing happen
now throughout the country, justin.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It takes the leadership to make that count of especially
in the face of everything that we've seen over the
last few years. But that's why we appreciate, we appreciate
all that you're doing here in West Michigan. They have
a school like Cornerstone right in our backyard.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It is.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
It is pretty pretty incredible. President Doctor Gerson, Marino, Rihanna,
thank you so much, sir for being here with us again.
And I got to come back. I know it's moving day.
You've probably got some heavy lifting today. I've seeing some
of those kids and what they bring the school.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I mean it.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
I'm going around to say hello to parents and students.
I always do that as a joy to welcome them
to pray for with many of them. Then we have
a beautifle chapel service at four for all the families
and students in which we pray together and hug each
other at the moving time. For families because they know
it's a huge transition, so we want to encourage them
and support them. And Justin, we'd love to have you
in our campus and maybe do your show one time
(09:01):
from our campus.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think it'd be a phenomenal thing.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Hey, that'd be fantastic. I think we could probably figure
that out. Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Doctor. We'll talk. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Great you have a great day, Justin, thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You got it. God blessed there we have it, folks.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
You know, it's important to support those folks that are
doing such great work, particularly when they're right here in
our own backyard.
Kids are headed back to school, in fact, many of
them already already there or on their way. And we
know college is, you know, gearing up for what really
has been a sort of a tough environment in a
lot of ways. So we talk to the folks who
are doing some of the most I think, taking some
of the most creative approaches to schools. Right now and
right fact in our own backyard at Cornerstone University, the
(00:22):
president there is joining us right now on the phone's
your son Marino Rihan.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You'll thank you President. We appreciate you being here with
us again today.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
And as I said, this is back to school, the
kids are moving and it's a lot of fun, but
there's a lot of things that go go into all
of this.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Justin thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
And it's a beautiful day here in Grand Rapid at
Cornerstone University. Our new students are coming today, new moving
day of their parents and families already on campus, moving
in their kids and young adults, I should say, And
it's an exciting day here at Cornerstone.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You know we've seen all the last year, particularly I
call it the find Out Era and that kind of
goes along with the fool around and find out mantra.
But there is this sort of a revelation all these
things are coming to light, and particularly some of the
biggest cracks in higher learning and those those institutions across
the country. You saw a lot of it last year.
He commented on it, and we've talked about it before,
(01:15):
but you know, as much of these major institutions like
Harvard and some of these other coming under fire for
what was allowed to happen on campuses and essentially really
what's been happening for decades, which I think is not
really education but an indoctrination of some of these students.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I know, it's a.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Refreshing that there are still places like Cornerstone where that
type of thing is is not happening, and you're doing
everything it can to guard against it, make sure that
our kids come out with a great education, ready for
the world, but full of faith.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And it's something that matters, no.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It really does.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
And it's such a travesty in so many ways because
the goal of education is to educate men and women,
young and young people to what is beautiful, true and good.
It's not indoctrination. Is not the creation of skeptics and cynicism.
And so oftentimes the universities have allowed, under the mantra
of academic freedom, lots of other things to command that
(02:14):
are not educational, are not good, are not beautiful, or
not true, actually destructive not just to society but to
the student. And we just had a wonderful retreat here
on our campus for our faculty and staff just several
days ago, and one of the things we discussed is
the fact that over you know, in the last three
decades and even in today, students are still asking some
(02:36):
fundamental questions about life. Who am I, What's my purpose?
How do I live a meaningful life? How do I
ensure that what I do matters to people and helps people?
The really profound questions of life. And yet today's universities
are more secular than they have ever been and thus
(02:57):
unable to answer those fundamental questions of life life that
our students to bring justin. And I'm grateful to be
a place at Cornerstone University where we take that seriously,
and we begin with our faith, our Christian faith and
commitment to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, but also our
commitment to truth beauty and goodness and providing a world
class education that answers those questions for our students and
(03:19):
also prepares them for the market and for the industry
the twenty first and twenty second century. We want our
students to take our Christian worldview and a strong moral foundation,
a true North moral compass, but be able to leverage
that and integrate that in a profound way to bless
the market and industry and their communities and be several
(03:42):
steps ahead other graduates and with the good they bring
and the solutions they bring and a great thinking they bring.
And that's what we're committed to, and we're grateful to
do it and for the opportunity to do it justin.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
You know, one of the other things that been dealing
with over the last year or so is and it's
been building for a long time now, but the affordability
were the unaffordability when it comes to higher education. I
know you all have been sort of behind this push
to really be an innovative here and make college affordable again.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yes, that's right.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
So two years ago we looked at the market and
all that we were doing, and we had a sort
of a charge to our team. Look we need to
really ensure that we're providing phenomenal value at a phenomenal
price point to our families in Michigan and beyond. We
have students that come from, you know, throughout the country,
and how do we do that? And so we launch
a tuition reset of twenty two percent and we have
(04:38):
not raised tuition since. So now we are the most
affordable private university in Michigan, offering probably the best value
out there educational value. Just to make a point this
year and we're so grateful for this, justin the Wall
Street Journal ranked Cornerstone is one of America's top colleges.
They ranked five hundred colleges and we were one of them.
(04:58):
We were the only faith based university in West Michigan
to receive that right recognition from the Wall Street Journal
and only one of sixteen at all ninety sixteen Michigan.
So we want to bring phenomenal value, not just price
point wise, but academics wise and student life wise. And
then this year we did something really incredible. We worked
on it for two years. I'm so grateful to our
(05:19):
faculty staff and so many who've supported this effort. We
launched the nation's first undergraduate accredited degree. It's a business
degree on a mobile app platform, so that if you
have a phone, you can accomplish and finish your entire
undergraduate strategic business management degree on your phone. Androder Apple.
(05:41):
And the price point is twenty four thousand dollars for
the entire degree if you bring credits in and we
take credits, and we assess that it's even less than that.
And I just want to stop and make a point
that there's no other university in the country that's doing that.
It's offering world class academics and a world class experience
on a mobile format or a stone at a price
(06:03):
point that I think will blow up this whole issue
of the unaffordability crisis of higher ed in America.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, I love. I love to see that.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
And I know that you've been pretty outspoken about DEI
what one last thing before I let you go, Di
is dead.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I've heard you.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Say, well, you know we when I came here four
years ago, four and a half years ago to Cornerstone.
I mean, those are conversations that were raging here in
West Michigan, even at Cornerstone, and we focused on our mission.
You know, we're committed to the scriptures and what we
are told, and we believe that every human being is
made in the image of God. We need to treat
(06:41):
everybody with love, with respect, and kindly and thoughtfully and
truthfully regardless, it doesn't matter. We're all made in His image,
we're all equal. So we need to do that. And
we focused. We created something called the Beautiful Christian Community,
a covenant, and so we we really did not we
did not want to all prey to the divisiveness right
(07:03):
that DEI brings, and the really the focus on color
and all these other categories are destructive to unity, to love,
to community. So really focus on let's treat each other with.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Love and respect and with kindness and with humility.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
And we've focused on that and it has transformed our
campus in some significant ways. And we're grateful to have
been leading the way in some ways in Michigan because
now other schools in Michigan are beginning to say, we
need to get away from this too. So we were
ahead of the curve, not a chip on our shoulder,
which just grateful that we did it because we knew
there was something bigger at stake, and that was modeling
for our students. Love and civility and the importance of
(07:42):
true community and true collaboration. So I'm grateful that we've
moved past that. I'm grateful to see that that other
schools are beginning to do that. And then throughout our
country we're having a very important conversation to really close
that thing down and focus on the beauty of being
a human being and being in a great country and
being in a community working together to make it better.
(08:04):
That to me is a tremendous when we're seeing happen
now throughout the country, justin.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It takes the leadership to make that count of especially
in the face of everything that we've seen over the
last few years. But that's why we appreciate, we appreciate
all that you're doing here in West Michigan. They have
a school like Cornerstone right in our backyard.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It is.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
It is pretty pretty incredible. President Doctor Gerson, Marino, Rihanna,
thank you so much, sir for being here with us again.
And I got to come back. I know it's moving day.
You've probably got some heavy lifting today. I've seeing some
of those kids and what they bring the school.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I mean it.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
I'm going around to say hello to parents and students.
I always do that as a joy to welcome them
to pray for with many of them. Then we have
a beautifle chapel service at four for all the families
and students in which we pray together and hug each
other at the moving time. For families because they know
it's a huge transition, so we want to encourage them
and support them. And Justin, we'd love to have you
in our campus and maybe do your show one time
(09:01):
from our campus.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think it'd be a phenomenal thing.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Hey, that'd be fantastic. I think we could probably figure
that out. Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Doctor. We'll talk. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Great you have a great day, Justin, thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You got it. God blessed there we have it, folks.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
You know, it's important to support those folks that are
doing such great work, particularly when they're right here in
our own backyard.
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