Dr. David Munson - Unveiling the Path to Presidency at RIT - I Took a Hike

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, dr David Munson, are you okay with being
recorded on a podcast?
Yes, I am.
There goes that liability.
This is I Took a Hike.
I'm your host, darren Mass,founder of Business Therapy
Group and Parktime WildernessPhilosopher.
Here we step out of theboardrooms and home offices and
into the great outdoors wherethe hustle of entrepreneurship

(00:22):
meets the rustle of nature.
In this episode, we journeyalong the palisades with Dr
David Munson, the president ofRochester Institute of
Technology.
Hike along with us as we find asource of inspiration in a
charismatic leader who believesin the potential of education
and collaborative thinking.
Join us as we discuss theimportance of embracing fun and

(00:46):
establishing a solidorganizational structure for the
success of any institute.
When I Took a Hike with DrDavid Munson this episode is
sponsored by Business TherapyGroup Book your session with me

(01:07):
at businesstherapygroupcom tobreak free from the entanglement
of employees, processes andgrowth.
Take action now and book yourfirst session.
So this is a full circleopportunity for me because you
are the newest and latestpresident of the college.
I went to Rochester Instituteof Technology.

(01:27):
Yes, sir.
So we're going to learn allabout that.
We are on the palisades, on thelong trail, and we are looking
at the bedrock granite that madeup Manhattan and you can see
why Manhattan is so sturdy andstable, even though it's sinking
all the way.
At the bottom and thesouthernmost point it's not
sinking anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Good, you are much taller than me.
How tall are you?
Six, five and a half, wow, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
That is much taller than me.
So what brought you toRochester Institute of
Technology?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
That's a great question, because I had a long
career as just a regular facultymember at the University of
Illinois and I was a student inelectrical engineering and often
got approached aboutadministrative positions,
especially at other universities, and kind of resisted that
because I was very, very happywhere I was.
But at some point each daystarted to look a little too

(02:23):
similar to the day before it.
So I moved to the University ofMichigan after 24 years as a
regular faculty member atIllinois and I moved just as a
department chair, chair ofelectrical engineering and
computer science, and I lovedthat job and thought I might
actually retire perhaps in thatposition.
But two years after I was hiredthe Dean of Engineering who had

(02:45):
hired me said, dave, it's alittle bit awkward, but I'm
leaving to join anotheruniversity as their provost.
And I said, well, steve, that'sokay, I'm really really happy
here.
So that was all great, yeah.
And they of course launched adean search immediately and I

(03:07):
was giving absolutely no thoughtof being a dean of engineering.
I was just a brand newdepartment chair but some of my
colleagues kind of pushed me offthe cliff.
Kind of cliffs like these it'sa pretty steep stretch, yeah,
and so I threw my hat in thering at the last minute, ended
up being dean of engineering atMichigan for 10 years, and that

(03:27):
changed everything, because onceyou're in the dean role, you no
longer had time to do researchor teach and the kind of things
I had done.
But I had a chance to make somebigger things happen, and I
will get around to answeringyour question.
By the way, the views here areamazing.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, the views are amazing.
That's the beauty of hiking youget a few moments to actually
breathe in nature.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
And it makes your head clear.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Do you want me to take a really cool picture?
Well, and it's neat to see thisso close to New York City.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Oh and, by the way, the best view of New York City
is outside of New York City.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
When I was a little kid Look at that my family
camped in Palisades Park, rightin this area, so that we could
attend the 1964 World's Fair,and I haven't been back here
since then the one with the SheaStadium right that big thing
that has been erected forever,that's never being torn down in

(04:24):
Queens.
That may be because actually Iwas a kid at the time, so I
don't even know exactly wherethe fair was.
So it was Queens, new York, butit was in Queens In.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Queens, they erected these big, tall towers for the
World's Fair.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I remember a number of the pavilions from the
different major corporations,which was awesome, but we were
staying out here.
I did not grow up in a wealthyfamily and we could afford to
camp, but we couldn't afford tostay in hotels, and it's been a
while since I've been back here,so it's actually interesting to
me to get to know somebody whohas actually been in the.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
World's Fair I passed those two towers hundreds, if
not thousands of times in mylife growing up in Long Island.
You have to pass those to getto New York City and I've always
wondered what they were, foundout what they were, but I've
never met anyone that actuallysaw them in real life, in
operation, that is.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
And, as I said, I still remember some of the
pavilions that were erected bysome of the major corporations
in the United States.
Well, back to my story anyway,so at the University of Michigan
.
So I was Dean of Engineeringfor 10 years.
They have a 10-year limit onDean terms there.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
And so I stepped down .

Speaker 2 (05:41):
I decided that would take one year and decide whether
I was going to go back to thefaculty and just finish out my
career at Michigan.
Or I decided, if there was apresidency at another school
that was different enough fromBig Ten University Because I
wanted to have a differentexperience that I might consider
that.
And lo and behold, rit camecalling and at first I thought

(06:05):
maybe it was a little bit toodifferent.
So it took some arm twisting.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Similar weather, very similar weather.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Very similar weather.
The winters are almostidentical, although Rochester
gets a little more snow from thelake effect.
But anyway, I was convinced bythe chair of the search
committee and the chair of theboard of trustees at RIT in a
phone call to at least throw myhat in the ring, which I did,
and the first interview wentincredibly well.

(06:31):
I just knew it was going tohappen Love from there.
So it's actually interesting.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
I didn't realize you were a dean in the engineering
and electrical engineering,which is something that I know
well.
You know a voltage divider by acircuit.
Yes, yes, I can nerd out onthat, because I did have to take
five electrical engineeringcourses.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
As well as all the calculus that goes with it, and
I learned to really appreciateit.
I love electrical engineering.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, yeah, and when I started college just for me,
it was at the University ofDelaware.
I knew I wanted to do somethingrelated to math or science, but
there were a lot ofpossibilities there.
Oh you don't.
I didn't declare, yeah, mymajor until the end of my
sophomore year and I settled onelectrical engineering, partly
because I thought I could studydouble E and still do almost

(07:18):
anything I wanted later in mathand science.
So I just felt like I wasn'teliminating options.
That's absolutely true.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
I mean especially with any engineering degree.
It is fairly universal to allothers.
Yeah, I had an opportunity totriple major at RIT because
computer, electrical and telecomwere only a few classes
separated, so I could have donethat.
I didn't do that because thatjust would have been a little
bit more work on my part thanprobably another year.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Well, and let me ask you, Darren, what attracted you
to come to RIT?

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Hi girl.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Okay, hey, listener.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Thanks for hiking along with us.
Discover more episodes athightokahikecom, or to recommend
an adventurous guest, apply tobe a sponsor, discover books
along the trail, or to simplydrop us a line.
I'm being totally serious andhonest.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
It was probably one of the few girls at the time
there were six girls that wentto RIT in my year.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
No, I'm kidding.
It was a seven to one ratio.
But no, that's the true story.
So way back when I was a badstudent not bad, but I was a
challenged student in highschool I thought hanging out
with friends was more importantthan actually paying attention.
My SATs were deplorable.
I got a nine 10.

(08:35):
So that's a badge of honor Outof 1600 back then.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
So yeah, that's bad.
Were they deplorable becauseyou weren't good at taking
standardized kinds of tests,multiple choice kind of tests,
or deplorable because you didn'treally care, didn't even try or
what Both?

Speaker 1 (08:55):
So it was a combination.
So my high school grades werechallenged.
It took until senior year forme to finally have the right
teacher shake me and say youshould be in advanced classes,
what's wrong with you?
And I was bored.
Adhd student disruptive inclass class clown paid to my
benefit as life went on.
But I knew I was going to NASACommunity College.

(09:16):
That was a must in order for meto stay in my parents house.
I had to attend NASA Communityor a school and I did that.
My brother was looking throughthe catalog of courses and he
saw telecom and he said to mymother I should go into telecom
because I love math.
Which was true, yes, I likescience, I like taking things
apart, putting them backtogether, and telecom is a

(09:38):
booming industry which I canmake a lot of money.
That's how it was presented tome, so I said okay.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Well, I think back in back, at that time, telecom was
absolutely booming, huge, huge.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
This is in 1998 when the industry had opened up to
expansion and competition fromthe telecom act of 1996.
So it started really boomingand careers were being formed
left and right in competition tothe Verizon's in 18th century.
So there was opportunity.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
It was the industry to be in For sure.
And I remember on theuniversity side back in the 90s
and up until the early 2000s,every university that had an
engineering program was lookingfor faculty members and
communication, and it was justreally really hot it was so, as
luck would have it, I started myfirst class ever sitting in an

(10:29):
electrical engineering class.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
The professor had put a breadboard in front of me,
which is basically this emptyboard with lots of pins and
electrical connections.
Underneath you put yourcircuitry on it and it had a few
connectors, resistors, atransistor in there, and the
first question asked at 8.05 amwhen it started, was follow the

(10:51):
path of electrons through thecircuit?
Okay, I knew exactly what thatmeant, and then, from there, I
was hooked went home, loved theindustry.
I did have a job at the CVS intown and there was this really
cute girl that was there who wasgoing to be starting RIT for
photography in a week or two.
I told her about my major andshe said, oh, you should look at

(11:14):
Rochester Institute ofTechnology.
They have a telecom program andthere you go.
So that's how it happens A girl.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
that's really cute, but just not as if you were
going out with her or anythingat the time.
Well, you know, I thought I hada chance.
Okay, now I do.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Now I look more attractive, but no, I ended up
studying really hard.
I was a student at 4.0's at NCC.
Told the professor thatinspired me with the breadboard
that I was going to try to getinto RIT.
He showed me his rings.
One of them was a graduate ofRIT, ring Okay, small world.
And that all worked in my favor.

(11:54):
He told me how great it was.
He didn't offer me the help,but he told me how great it was.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
And good choice.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
I got home, got ready for my application after that
first semester at NCC, eventhough my mom didn't think I was
going to get in, and I got inExcellent.
I remember the congratulationspacket and I was accepted into
RIT.
It turned out.
I thought it was a big feat,but it turned out at that time
they were accepting anyone thatwould apply, that had applied

(12:20):
themselves, into the program,because the program needed
students.
Oh, I see it also helped thatthe professor in charge of the
dean in charge of the departmentcame from NCC as well.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
But it worked in my favor because I paid attention
in every class.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Now back to this young lady who was studying
photography.
Did you end up meeting up withher on campus?

Speaker 1 (12:44):
No, she fell down and transferred out after the first
quarter of RIT, so I got thereasking for this person and this
person was no longer there, butperhaps that's a good thing,
because it wasn't a distraction.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Well, and those of us that know your present wife,
Christie, were rather fond ofher.
Yeah, I think I like her better.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
But no, unfortunately most things in life are.
You know you traverse the roadof meeting somebody.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Right wrong or indifferent.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
but this is one of those situations where I will
say it was the right place,right time, right person and it
was all meant to be yeah.
Right, it was Kismet in a wayfrom NCC having a program to
this girl going to the veryschool one of four in the
country that had this program.
Yeah, yeah.
So we are walking alongside thePalisades Highway.

(13:35):
So unfortunately, we're goingto pick up some of that noise,
but that's okay.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
So let's go back to you, yeah because I could also
talk a little bit more about RIT, because I kind of halfway
answered the question.
I wanted to go to a school thatwas different from a Big Ten
university.
But what is it that's differentabout RIT that would attract me
and others to want to be there,whether it's a student or a

(13:58):
faculty member or a staff member?
And I'll start with our studentbody.
And you were a student there soyou can give me your own slant.
But I sense that the studentbody was just unusually creative
, also unusually quirky.

(14:19):
Students that probably weren'tthe star of their high school
class in the social realm, butthey were just so full of ideas
and I really like that about ourstudent body.
And of course, we have a rangeof students.
You can't really pigeonholepeople too much.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
It's a very diversified range of students.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
But I just love working with our students.
They're also the most acceptingstudent body accepting of
differences in others that I'veever encountered and I give our
National Technical Institute forthe Deaf a lot of credit for
part of that community forming,if you will, because anytime

(15:05):
you're in a medium to large sizegathering at RIT you always see
individuals there signing andyou can imagine if you're a kid
from some little village orsomething and feeling out of
place at RIT.
You've got to make a decision.
We're at a fork in the road, sowe'll take it.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yes, we will take it, because I'm trying to get us
out of this street traffic.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, but anyway, if you're a newer student at RIT
and maybe wondering whether youfit or not, you just look around
and you see that everybody fitsProbably.
We estimate there's no way toknow for sure, but we estimate
that somewhere in theneighborhood of a quarter of our
students are from the LGBTQcommunity.
Okay, and that may seem unusualuntil you look at the research

(15:56):
that says, on average, peoplefrom that community are more
creative than the rest of thepopulation.
So, okay, we have thiscreativity imperative at RIT, so
we attract a lot of those kindsof students.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Why do you think there is more creativity in the
LGBTQ plus?

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Well, and that's not me saying it, I'm talking about
researchers and I happen to havequite a number of family
members and then friends ofthose family members who are
from that community and man, ohman, they're like.
They're sort of like astereotype of an RIT student.

(16:32):
They have all these ideas andthings they want to pursue and
dreams, and then they also havethe passion to do it, because
it's one thing to have ideas,but if you don't have the
passion to pursue it, it doesn'treally turn into anything.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Well, that's apropos for anything in life.
Yeah, you're starting andrunning a business or if you
want to ride a bike.
If you don't want to do it,you're not going to do it.
I always tell my kids thatcan't live on Womps Street and
they say they can't do something.
I try to correct them becausewhen you say you can't do
something, you will not.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, that's right, you won't even try.
Yeah, yeah, and you've gotthree girls right.
I have three daughters.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Okay, and what are their ages?
Twins are nine.
They happen to just be sisters,nothing alike at all, and the
baby is five.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
I'm trying to keep her five for a long time.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, watch where you step, there's lots of bees.
I already got stung by one inthe ankle, so every step is fun.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
See what happens here .

Speaker 1 (17:33):
It was my first time being stung in my life and I
think I am not allergic.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
And I've been stung before and I know I'm not
allergic and fortunately I'mwearing long pants today, yeah,
which gives me a little bit lessof a chance of being stung.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, unless it really wants to defend itself
Right, it will find a way in andit will come out and get us.
Yes, so three daughters, andthat's why I continue to have to
work.
One day they will continue togrow their expenses, so they
already have.
Now I want to step back tosomething you said.
You went to Udell the Udell.

(18:08):
From what I know of Udell, yes,it's a party school.
Um, was it a party school backthen?

Speaker 2 (18:14):
I would say it might have been, and I don't have a
way to make a precise judgment,but kind of average.
In that regard.
There were definitely plenty ofpartying.
The fraternity scene was prettyhot sorority scene I lived in a
dormitory for part of my timethat we were there and the fact

(18:36):
that it may not be well known atleast at that time, I think
it's still true today.
The majority of students at theUniversity of Delaware are from
out of state.
Are they really Well?

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Delaware is a small state.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
It's a very small state and so we had lots of
students.
It's a population of Joe Biden.
Yeah, we had lots of studentsfrom New Jersey, pennsylvania,
maryland, the surrounding statesand a number from New York City
.
In fact, my roommate was fromNew York City and it was a cast
of characters.
We all were pretty differentfrom one another in some cases,

(19:09):
but it was a great experience toget to know people who'd grown
up in other kind of situationsand I had a wonderful time there
.
I can imagine.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
I will say that RIT did not have a party scene.
I was in a fraternity.
I was in Greek life, but onlyfor a year.
That's kind of challenged in amostly male-dominated school.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
And you know.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Well, that's something we're working on.
We're working on increasing thepercentage of women on campus
and actually just in the lastyear, we've made some progress.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Can I be the head sheriff for that recruitment?

Speaker 2 (19:43):
That's right.
Bring your daughters too.
Yeah, wow, touche, touche, yeahyeah, it's interesting because
from the day I got there, Iannounced that we've got to get
to at least 40% women, becauseif we get to that point it'll
feel pretty even.
And then later on in mypresidency, I discovered that my

(20:05):
predecessor, bill Desler, hadalso said we must get to 40%
women, and then it was a year ortwo ago.
I found an old document fromBill's predecessor, al Simone.
So this is going way back.
It was my president.
Okay, yeah, and Al Simone alsosaid we must get to 40% women.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
So I take this as us trying to get to the moon,
perhaps for today.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
I'd say it's been that way, and there are some
folks who feel that, oh, all wehave to do is somehow do a
better job of recruiting womenin computer science or some of
the fields where they'reunderrepresented.
But that can't be the onlyanswer, and so now we're working
on a plan to grow the healthsciences at RIT, and so soon

(20:52):
we'll start programs in physicaltherapy and occupational
therapy, and if we can figureout the facility situation,
we'll also start a nursingschool.
And I think that's going tohelp us enormously with the
gender balance.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
So here's the business person and me starting
a nursing school.
Nursing is not traditional toRochester Institute of
Technology, that's true, right.
So obviously, to attract adifferent client base, you want
to pivot, you always want topivot.
But do you want to pivot sooff-brand that you have a
greater propensity for failurethan not, right?

Speaker 2 (21:29):
So we have some special circumstances.
I think that might help allowus to succeed, and also some
thoughts we have in terms of howwe might go about it.
And, by the way, I'll interruptand say we're walking through a
bit of a boulder field here.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
That is gorgeous.
We are deep in the woods downbelow the bluff now getting a
little bit closer to the river,so it did pour earlier.
So it is very damp, yes, butnot too muddy.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Well, so, going back to the nursing conversation,
there is just an enormousshortage of nurses in the nation
.
It's more than a million.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
This is absolutely true, especially after COVID.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yes, in an upstate, new York, the shortage is even
more acute than in themetropolitan areas like, say,
new York City or Boston.
So there's this huge demand formore nurses and, so far as we
can tell from the studies we'vedone, there are plenty of
students that want to studynursing, but not enough spots
available at universities.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
And then you want to be part of the solution, which
that one, I could absolutelystep behind the pit.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
But I also feel to go back to your point, there are
plenty of competing programs outthere.
We need to be or we wouldprefer to be, distinctive in
some way, and so we've got anumber of ideas there, whether
we are graduating nurses thatyou might refer to as kind of
high-tech nurses who know a lotabout nursing, informatics and
what have you.

(22:51):
Or another idea and I don'tknow which of these we'll end up
pursuing, but is to actuallyhave a co-op program in nursing.
So, of course, traditionalnursing bachelor's programs are
four years at colleges anduniversities, and one thing that
I know for sure is thatstudents who graduate from those

(23:11):
programs often feelunderprepared to immediately
take on tons of responsibilityin the clinical setting.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Well, this is unequivocal, without a doubt,
with every undergraduategraduate that if there is no
requirement for an internship orwork or co-op, you are not
fully prepared.
It is one thing to teachsomebody text, research, book,
information.
It is another to put them intothe workforce and give them the

(23:44):
path towards experience.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, and I agree with that.
Well, that's what makes.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
RIT so great.
I don't mean this episode to bean advertisement for RIT.
Go to the school or send yourchildren to the school that most
interests them.
But for me, the five quartersnow it's obviously a semester
program, but at the time thefive quarters of co-op, that
experience prepared me for theworld and I ended up working for

(24:10):
the employer that employed mefor all five quarters.
So I was confident from day one.
That to me, was my competitiveadvantage.
That set me on a speed courseto rising towards the top.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, yeah, well, and we hear similar stories from
many of our alums about howimportant that co-op experience
was to them and I always balancethat a little bit by saying
well, but don't forget to try toget an international experience
, try to be on a student projectteam and do some other things I
wish I had done it If I don'thave regrets, because we

(24:45):
shouldn't have regrets.
If you're happy with who youare, then everything you can
shape and maybe you dideverything you could at the time
At the time.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
But if I could do it again, I wish I did take that
year off to study abroad or goabroad and learn a little more
about the world.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, that's that.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
I've done that throughout life, but it's not
the same as when your brain ismost malleable in your early 20s
or even late teens.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, and it's the same for me when I was an
undergrad a long, long time ago.
But back then internationalstudy really wasn't even a thing
, or even spending time overseasit wasn't much of a thing,
except maybe a wealthy familycould vacation in Paris or Rome
or something.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Well, those were the times where you would wear your
best suit to be on the airplaneand wash chain smoking a whole
pack of cigarettes.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
You're right about that, and for me, like you, good
old days.
For me it was a little bitlater in life it was as a
faculty member I used to attendbecame accustomed to attending
lots of technical conferencesoverseas because as great as the
US is, they're really greatscientists and engineers
overseas as well.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
And to mix with them was terrific.
We could obviously draw nameson.
Some of the world's bestscientists Could come from the
European countries in the early19th and 20th century.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, quite a number actually.
We did import a few of them on.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Steins to be named as one of them.
So let's take a step back anddiscover more on who.
David Munson is not the doctor,but how did you get to where
you are?
You grew up you said youweren't the most affluent family
you can afford to camp in tent.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, I'm back to my childhood.
So I grew up until about Iguess it was, fifth grade in
Clinton, iowa, and probably justa normal kid childhood, except
my family did purchase a tenttrailer that we towed all around
the United States and Canadawhere my dad and mom did, and so

(26:52):
by the time I was an earlyteenager I'd been in all 48
continental states, all theprovinces of Canada and what
have you had seen?
Probably the majority ofnational parks in both countries
.
So we loved the outdoors.
So I grew up with a healthydose of the outdoors.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
So this is nothing new for you.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
No, no, no no.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
So I should have picked a harder one.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Well, except I'm getting older now.
So yeah, and so, on the EastCoast, I've climbed Mount
Washington multiple times, up inMaine, mount Cotodon multiple
times, and I love to do thatsort of thing, but I haven't
done much of that in the last Idon't know six or eight years.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
anyway, Fair enough, so this is a good moderate.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
This is about right.
This is about right.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Well we'll soon be walking along the shore of the
Hudson, which is very beautiful.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
It's a beautiful river.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
I don't know if I'd want to swim in it.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Well, you might not want to swim, but the geography
is beautiful, yeah, and I'mfamiliar with what it looks like
further north up atPoughkeepsie and what have you
and it's pretty dramatic withthe hills up there.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
So that's why this is an important hike and I thought
it was very cool for us.
We're at the fork, we'll gothis way.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
We are getting close to the water.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yes, so the reason why it's really cool is this
actually ties into Rochester.
Ah, okay, yes, we are on theHudson.
Rochester at one point was thelargest city in New York.
It is now the third largestcity.
It was at one point, one of thelargest cities, if not the
largest, in the world.
Yes, I went to the museum, andthe reason why is it was the

(28:30):
head for the fur trade.
That was the port for theHudson Bay companies.
Yep the fur is from Canada intothe Lake Erie and it was
essentially we had these canalsdug and built all the way to tie
up state and the upper statesof our country to Manhattan down

(28:53):
the Hudson River.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
And here we are at the Hudson River, at the very
end of where the fur trade wouldhave begun its journey to the
European colonies.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Now, this is neat and , as you mentioned, the Erie
Canal goes right throughRochester and a major access
point for that is to go up theHudson River and then further
north on the Hudson connect tothe Erie Canal.
There you go.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Got a little thorn.
All right, get that out.
Here you go.
Some more history for you, ifyou want, okay.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
So we've got a whole plaque here to talk about
colonial times.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Which this is very apropos, because we're tying it
all together.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, you know, another thing that made
Rochester prosper was the factthat it's on the Genesee River
and there is a real major changein elevation of that river as
it goes through Rochester,flowing north to Lake Ontario,
which is only like six or sevenmiles away.
So there are waterfalls thereand they were completely lined

(29:56):
with mills and so anything thata mill would do, whether it's
grinding flour or other things alot of that done in Rochester.
Here we are.
Well, here we are.
We're on the Hudson River Beach.
Yeah, let me see Plenty ofdriftwood.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
It's peaceful.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
It is.
It's as peaceful as you get.
Yeah, it's funny because youlook across the the river.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
there's a pretty busy city on the other side, the one
of the busiest in the worldoutside of Tokyo, I would say.
Well, I don't know how busy itis these days.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Lots of people have moved out and lack of Well, we
have a few more people workingfrom home.
We know that that is right.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
All right, so let's get back to your childhood.
Yeah, so farm life wasn't foryou.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
What did your parents do?
So?
My father, you know I mentioned.
He started out as a qualitycontrol person in a battery
factory, but when he moved backto Clinton Clinton has a number
of chemical plants there, one ofwhich is a DuPont plant In

(31:07):
those days it made cellophane.
Later on it was making mylarand probably other things, and
my father ended up being one ofthe first software engineers.
I guess you'd say, oh really Inwell, really, corporate America
.
I remember this would have beenaround the late 1950s.

(31:31):
He would disappear for weeks ata time, attending computer
school in Cincinnati, andCincinnati had a pretty sizable
effort in the early days ofcomputing.
Now he wasn't doing scientificcomputing, he was working on

(31:53):
developing software for businessprocesses.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
So it was a chemical plant.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah well, he'll be careful here.
And so he was more concernedabout payroll and inventory and
things like that.
So did he write code?
So I'm not clear on whether hewrote code himself or whether he
managed a team that wrote code,but back then I'm sure there

(32:18):
wasn't very much available interms of just purchasing
software off the shelf, Correct?
Yeah, you had to write your ownprograms using a template, so
I'm assuming if he wasn'twriting code, he must have been
close to some people who wereOkay, so did he enjoy this job.
I think he enjoyed itenormously, did you?

Speaker 1 (32:37):
get the experience to witness his enjoyment for the
job.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Well, I had one pretty crazy thing happen when I
was young.
We moved from Iowa to centralOhio just south of Columbus
another DuPont plant there andgosh, that was probably around
fifth grade or so and shortlyafter we moved they had a big IT

(33:04):
problem at that plant back inIowa and in those days IT wasn't
even a phrase, and so you knowwhat's IT.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Well, there's something that happened with
their systems where they neededto rebuild everything from
scratch.
So they decided they were goingto fly my dad in from Ohio.
And there was one this was alittle private plane and there
was one seat left in that plane.
My dad said why don't you comealong?
And I did, and that was amarvelous trip.

(33:35):
And then I kind of knew my dadwas sort of important, at least
to this company in that fieldwhere you know he was the guy
that could come in and getthings fixed.
How old were you?
I was probably around 12 at thetime.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
So is that the moment that you saw that your dad was
a hero?

Speaker 2 (33:53):
I wouldn't put it that way.
I guess I considered my dad tobe an adventurer.
Okay, he just always wanted totry new things.
He was very much into music itwas all the whole months inside
of my family was, and so youknow I and my brothers and
sister got pretty deeply intomusic and, in some cases,
theater.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
What kind of music?

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Well, it starts out with lots of church music, but
then all kinds of choral music,folk music.
I did not play in a rock band,okay.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
I have that's fun, but it's four, four beats, so
you're not challenging yourselftoo much.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah Well, and I often say that in my family and
not just brothers and sisters,but my more extended family
everybody did two things theydid music and they did math and
that's actually led to somethings that some innovations
we've created at RIT, tocapitalize that in terms of

(34:54):
getting really top notchstudents to matriculate into RIT
and say no to some of the verybest schools in the nation.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
Leveraging music and math.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
How so.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Well.
So what you'll find is that thevery top students in performing
arts in a lot of the highschools are often faced with a
decision Do they go to some kindof conservatory type school,
for music might be dancer,theater, but most often music,

(35:27):
or very often they're reallygood at math and so should they
instead major in engineering orcomputer science or one of the
STEM disciplines.
And what we're doing at RIT issaying for those of you who are
in the majority, who've decidedto STEM or out, partly because
job prospects are excellent,don't worry about the performing

(35:48):
arts side, we'll give you areally high level experience at
RIT, and we're the principalschool in the nation that's
doing that right now.
So we started a program calledthe Performing Arts Scholars
Program and, as of this fall,we'll have about 2,000 students
in that program.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
And it's just some really absolutely exceptional
students.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
That's a large volume of students.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah, and we're no longer just experimenting with
the idea.
We're starting to capitalize onthe idea.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
So that's interesting .
You're pairing the passion ofthe students with the reality of
the world right.
That's right, the reality isnot every musician makes it.
In fact, these days it's evenharder to make it.
You're no longer discovered.
You are made.
Right, it's who you know andwho your family knows and
whatnot.
So the chances, the likelihoodof being either that rock

(36:38):
musician or that concert pianistthat everyone shows up to see
is extremely daunting.
Yeah, it's like playing in theNBA.
Yeah, what is it?
1% get drafted to a college andof that, only 1% get drafted to
a profession.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
It would be something like that yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
So at least you're giving the outlet to pursue the
passion but the reality ofhumanity you need that education
.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
We've got quite a number of students at RIT that
absolutely could be in the bestmusic conservancies, the best
theater programs, the best danceprograms, but that's not what
they've chosen.
But they don't want to give upthis other half of their life
that they're so good at, and weactually want for them to be
able to get better not justmaintain their skills, but get
better.
So what?

Speaker 1 (37:22):
are the plans with that?
Does RIT put on shows orconcerts, or Well?

Speaker 2 (37:27):
so there are a bunch of components to this.
For students in the PerformingArts Scholars program we break
them up into affinity groupswhere where's the gang that
wants to do musical theater?
Where's the gang that wants todo rock music?
Where's the gang that wants todo this kind of dance or that
kind of dance, etc.
And then we have essentially anadvisor coach for each of those

(37:47):
affinity groups.
That helps arrange specialexperiences for those students
Might be attending a Broadwaytype musical and going behind
the scenes and that sort ofthing might involve interacting
with visiting artists to campusetc.
But then most of it reallyrevolves around performing
groups.
So at RIT now we have somethinglike and again this is pretty

(38:10):
new we have, I think, between 40and 50 rock bands on campus and
we have what I believe is thelargest jazz program in the
Northeast now already All right.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
that's pretty ridiculous to hear.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah.
I think it's not as much asthere is the Tudor technology
Kind of booming.
Yeah, I would say so.
But then let me say, this takesfaculty and it takes facilities
.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Oh, it takes investment.
Yeah, it takes investments,exactly, and investing in the.
Really, the faculty is probablyloving this too.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, music is a passion.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Not only is it a business it's an industry, but
it's a passion.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
We're growing the faculty and the thing that I
have a particular passion aboutmyself is the facilities.
So we have just we're just inthe finishing stages of
completing this massive newbuilding on our campus called
the Shed.
We can talk about thatseparately, but that does have
some performing arts facilitiesin it.
It's got an enormous black boxtheater, a big dance studio,

(39:08):
music, rehearsal spaces and whathave you, in addition to
enormous maker spaces and someclassrooms.
But in addition to that, wejust broke ground a few weeks
ago on a new performing artstheater and we're very excited
about that project.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
How big will this be?

Speaker 2 (39:25):
This will be just a medium-sized theater, 750 seats,
because we want for theaudience to be able to have a
pretty intimate experience.
It was designed specificallyfor musical theater productions
and we think it might end upbeing certainly the best theater
for musical theater in thestate of New York, at least

(39:46):
outside of New York City, andone of the very finest in all of
the Northeast.
It's designed by a very famousarchitect, michael Maltzen from
Los Angeles, and so we're goingto be very proud to have one of
his creations on our campus andour students they are just so
eager to be able to use thatfacility and perform in there

(40:07):
All the way.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
I'm jealous because what I went to RIT there really
wasn't that much to do.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
So it sounds like there could be lots of
performances.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
There is more to do now, that's for sure.
Now, is this going to be forstudents only, or will this draw
an outside crowd for ticketsales?

Speaker 2 (40:23):
We expect we'll draw people from the community and we
expect it's also a facilitythat on occasion, will run out
to the community and really bein a position to share it.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
So that's the important aspect of college that
I don't think many realizeCollege is a business, right.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
It is.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
And I think, as we do make it seem to be, college is
a business and it is bigbusiness, it is mega business.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
And it is successful business, and when you think
you're done, it is even moresuccessful.
There's always ways to draw inmore revenue, and that's what
fascinates me most about collegeis it does have that moniker of
higher learning and highereducation and it does deliver
upon that.
Watch your footing here.
Yeah, getting a little bituneven.
Yeah Well, it's just a smallpath.

(41:10):
We are on a rocky scramble.
So it does have that wrapper ofeducation and it delivers.
Right, you're buying a product.
Right, it's an expensiveproduct, but the return should
be forever giving.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yeah, that's right.
You know, in our facultythey're not probably too keen on
hearing higher ed referred toas a business.
But you're talking to abusiness.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, that's good.
I do respect the aspect of it,though.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Unless we've got the business fundamentals down, the
university won't stay inexistence.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
And another thing that can happen is if you don't
have the business fundamentalsdown, you're not able to make
improvements.
That's right.
If you don't make improvementsand if you stand still over time
, you will go down.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
That's right.
You will not attract the samequality or caliber students.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
You will not attract the same revenue stream or
tuition or endowments.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Yep 100%.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Business is a universal language.
Right, it's among the mostuniversal languages, like math
and humor, laughter, yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Well, and I'll say I'm one, when I was younger I
had no interest at all inbusiness.
I only cared about science andmath.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
But later on, you spoke like an engineer.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, as an adult, I certainly came to realize that
if you want to make big changesin the world, one of the very
most effective ways to do it isthrough business.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
So, with that being said, who do you report to?

Speaker 2 (42:37):
So I report to the Board of Trustees.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
And who are the Board of Trustees?

Speaker 2 (42:42):
And I'll talk about that.
But let me preface that bysaying in this position, it's
the first time I've ever feltlike I had a boss, because you
start out as a faculty memberand you almost don't have a boss
as an apartment share Is thattrue.
Yeah, I reported to the dean,but as long as I was doing good
things, there wasn't muchoversight.

(43:04):
And then so, just to interject.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
We just got to the 3,000 stairs.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Okay, well, this is going to be good.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
This looks like a whole lot of stairs.
It's a lot.
This is a natural formation, bythe way.
Okay, yeah, a glacier droppedthese off.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Well, we'll see if a 70-year-old can make his way up
thiswhat I don't really believeis a natural formation.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
I do believe that some of these stones could have
been in the vicinity, butthey've been nicely arranged
into an enormous staircase.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
My first indicator was the drill cup marks.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yes, as an engineer, I win this, that's probably not
natural.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
My second indicator was logic.
Yeah, nature doesn't makeperfect staircase.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
No, they don't.
That's what we do have a hike.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
It doesn't happen, though Are you good with taking
this?
It does go all the way up there.
Yeah, we'll just take our timeand keep talking a little bit
After you.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Okay, so every university has a Board of
Trustees and their job is toreally provide a high-level
oversight and certainlyespecially to pay attention to
finances and long-term viability.
They would probably tell youtheir most important duty is to
select the president.

(44:19):
That is just completely theirdecision.
Okay, who makes?

Speaker 1 (44:26):
up the Board of Trustees, they get picked.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
I'll talk about that.
For me, probably the mostimportant relationship is my
relationship with the chair ofthe Board of the Trustees,
because that person isessentially the chair of a board
in the corporate world.
Now the board chooses their ownnew members and they have a

(44:51):
pretty elaborate process forvetting potential new members
and they have a committee thatis tasked with doing that job,
called the Governance andNominations Committee.
Okay, a lot of privateuniversities have a fairly large
board, and we're in that camp.
We have about 42 trustees rightnow, and they're chosen using a

(45:17):
whole lot of different criteria.
We need to have expertise thatkind of covers the board,
certainly people who are good infinance, people who are good in
some other things.
We care about diversity.
We want the board, as much aspossible, to certainly reflect
our student body, and we'realways looking for board members

(45:40):
that are particularlypassionate about RIT.
We don't want to just sort ofbe on their list of donations.
We want people who arepassionate about what happens on
our campus, in love with ourstudents and really dedicated to
helping make the place better.
I say all that, though, whereI'm not responsible for

(46:04):
selecting these people.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
I sometimes can bring names to this committee, but
the committee actually makes theselections Okay so, from what
I'm hearing, you're looking fordie-hard fans of the school that
are willing to absolutely putto school before all else.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, I mean ideally that's the case and we
understand, especially on thephilanthropic side of the
equation.
People may have multiple thingsthey're passionate about, but
we just don't want to be one often or something.
That's right.
You want the dedication whichdoes make sense.
We want to be a high priority.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
So the board is responsible for obviously
delivering like any other boarddelivering objectives of the
school.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
They get very involved in helping construct
the strategic plan for theuniversity, and so I'd say yeah.
The answer to that question isyes.
This might make a good picturehere, because we are between
some enormous voters.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, this one is awesome.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
There's nothing that moved, that this is really
something.
Yeah, just for those who arelistening in on this, I would
say that we're standing next toa boulder here.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Rock in a hard place.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Yeah well, it is between a rock and a hard place,
but I'd say it's, oh, I don'tknow, 12 feet high and at least
15 feet wide or something.
This is enormous.
So if you're 6'5", I'm 6'5".

Speaker 1 (47:32):
I'm not good at it.
I may have underestimated it,but yeah, this is more like 20,
22 feet high.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
And yeah, this is I would say 100 tons, a big flat
face more or less facing theriver.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
So back to the board.
So I would look at the boardlike any other board right,
their responsibility is trulyfor the shareholder in business
or in the school's case, it'sreally for the benefit of the
school and its students.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yeah, and I would say one difference might be that
the board at a university andthis is certainly true at RIT
they get very involved on campus.
They spend time with students,they spend time with faculty,
they spend time with staff.
They don't just sort of drop inand offer advice and then
skedaddle yeah, and so they'rementoring, yeah, and so at RIT

(48:23):
we have a very strong internalgovernance system that has three
legs One is the faculty senate,the other is staff council and
the third is student governmentand they've all got strong
voices in major decisions thatwe make.
So the trustees actually spendtime with those groups and are
pretty much in tune withfeelings in those different

(48:46):
segments across campus.
So that's great.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
So you had mentioned before that this is the first
job where you felt like you hada boss, right right.
So what's that experience like?
Is it a good relationship withthe board?
Obviously it's a respectfulrelationship, sure, but do you
feel that pressure, having to gointo a board meeting like any
CEO would?

Speaker 2 (49:07):
It is a good relationship.
But a couple of things I'd sayis, if I or whoever the
president is has a newinitiative in mind, there is
some convincing to be done,because there are always going
to be people feeling like, well,that's not what we've done
before.
We've been successful before.
Why would we want to put effortor finance into this area?

(49:28):
I mean, health sciences couldbe an example, the performing
arts could be an example.
There are other examples.
So there's some convincing tobe done.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
So you have a share of dissenting opinions, as human
beings don't always agree.
So how do they go about solvingthat issue?

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Well, I would say that we have a board that likes
to achieve basically totalconsensus whenever possible,
even before a vote.
42 members.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yes, total consensus.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yes, and so we have a committee structure.
Depending upon the topics athand, those have already been
pre-discussed in the relevantcommittee.
So then you have a committeeand we need the support of the
committee.
And then the board also has anexecutive committee, which is a

(50:18):
little bit less than half of theboard.
It includes all the committeechairs and some others.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Okay, we've whittled it down to 21.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
So, then, we need support of the executive
committee, which probably hasabout 18 people.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Okay, so less than half.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yeah, a little less than half.
And I would say if the relevantcommittee and if the executive
committee are behind something,then it's generally happening
Okay and there's generally notdissent, even if there are some
naysayers, pardon, even if thereare some naysayers.
Yeah, but consensus is reallythe general.
I think what happens is itwould be the same probably in

(50:54):
any organization those who havequestions or reservations.
After enough discussion, theytrust their colleagues, true,
and so if it's clear that thevast majority is heading in a
particular direction or wants tohead in that direction, then
those who have reservations,they may still harbor those
reservations, but they're takingthe attitude Okay, let's try it
, we'll see what happens.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
So have there been any dissenting opinions that
have really stuck with you, or adecision that was made that you
were against, or at that pointyou don't have a say, and they
just basically say this is whatwe're doing.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
There hasn't been anything of a programmatic
nature.
You know the kind of thingswe've been talking about, where
the ultimate decision hasn'tturned out the way I had hoped.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Oh, okay.
It's just that sometimes ittakes a while to get there, Like
with any other major businessRight.
Businesses move slow,corporations move slow.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
They're not as malleable as yeah, and if I'm
the Dean of Engineering atMichigan and Michigan is a very
decentralized place where eachcollege there, say, college of
Engineering is one example issort of a tub on its own
financial bottom I'm the head ofthe college and because I'm a
Dean and not a president, Idon't answer to a board and I

(52:17):
can make all kinds of decisionson how my college spends money
without asking permission fromanybody.
Yeah, and Hence no boss.
That's right.
That's right.
Do you miss that?
It allows one to move faster.
That's what I'll say.
It's the read between the lines.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Easier.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
But I can also imagine that you know there's
some safety in having a board.
I'm going to pause and look atthis view here.
It's beautiful.
So we're looking out betweenboulders, right on the shoreline
of the Hudson Big ship on theother side of the river Maybe
it's in the middle of the river.
Actually Looks like it's got atug behind it.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, so these, I could say, were definitively
dropped here.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
These boulders.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
This was the making of the highway above us.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Yeah, they pushed them down the hill.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, some of them big, some of them small.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yeah, but back to the board.
What I would say is there's noquestion that A lot of boards
are going to want to be for goodreason risk averse, of course,
and I'm not I don't tend to be arisk averse person.
I tend to size up the odds andthen just want to go.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Wow, such an engine.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with probability,
for example.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Yes, A-N-Q.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
But you know, I can't always guarantee that what
we're talking about is going tobe a home run.
I can't guarantee that it'snecessarily going to make money
for the university in a P&L, butI have this pretty strong
feeling and some data.
But again, I would say, workingwith the trustees, we've always
been able to get to where Ithink we ought to go and I'm

(53:50):
thankful for that.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Yeah, so it's.
You know, from an outside lens,it appears as if everything has
been running smooth and thatthe votes, whatever the decision
is, it's in the best interestof the university and its
students.
So I would say that's effective.
Now let me ask you a littlepivot question here.
Did you ever want to be in realcorporate America?
Oh gosh, so.
Is that your thing?

Speaker 2 (54:17):
When I finished my PhD at Princeton I didn't know
if I even wanted to be aprofessor.
So I interviewed inuniversities and I interviewed
in corporations and I boiled itdown to sort of my favorite
offer, if you will, in academiaversus my favorite offer from
corporate America, and that wasUniversity of Illinois

(54:38):
electrical engineering versusIBM Thomas Watson Research Labs,
really close to where we arehiking today up in Yorktown
Heights.
And darn, if that wasn't a coinflip in terms of making the
decision.
And the deciding factor was, Ifelt if I was unhappy at the
university, I could mostprobably get that same offer

(55:01):
from IBM, you know, a year ortwo later.
But in universities, once thatfaculty slot is filled, you
don't know.
When is the next slot going tocome open, you don't know.
So I decided I would tryteaching first, and then I just
never left.
That's the honest story.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
So I would say a few things.
One, teachers are born, notmade, because you do need that
patience and that desire to bewilling to give your all to the
benefit of others, to inspire.
And two, that's probably thewisest choice for career moves I

(55:37):
have ever heard someone make,Because, as a pragmatic engineer
, someone who thinks about bothsides of an equation, always
before making a move, that onemakes the most sense.
Because, you're absolutelyright.
If you do not like teaching,you're right.
That job would have been filled, but you can go further with a

(55:59):
teaching career behind you afteryour doctorate, especially than
you could if you went fromcorporate America backwards to
teaching, it's a little harderto go in that direction, that's
true.
So I think your probability mapright there was pretty spot on.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
I would say in those days, and excuse me.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
I'm getting dry here.
No one's died, so that's allright.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Don't be the first In those days and I'm not up to
date now, but IBM Watson wasjust a phenomenal research place
.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Well, it still is.
Watson still exists.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yeah, and Bell Labs was in there heyday.
But at least in terms of theopportunities presented to me at
that time, I preferred IBM overBell Labs.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Thinking back, if you had made the opposite choice
and went into corporate America,do you think you would have
found success and if so would ithave been greater success, or
maybe not so much?

Speaker 2 (56:58):
I think I probably would have met with success, but
I honestly can't predictwhether I would have in some way
climbed the corporate ladder orjust what would have happened.
So I don't really know.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I always like to pose these scenarios and then paint
the reality.
You probably would have landedup on top because you would have
climbed the corporate ladder.
Look at where you are today.
Well, so it seems likely.
You had to have networkingskills to get where you were
today.
You had to push past fear,uncertainty and doubt to be
thrown into the ring of becominga dean, especially after just

(57:32):
being hired.
Essentially, rise above yourpeers.
You had to make that ultimatedecision to move your family
from Michigan to Rochester.
You have to deal with a board.
I would say you would have beenjust fine in corporate America.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Well, I'd like to think so and, equally important,
I'd like to think I would havebeen happy there would be a way
to carve out your place and feellike you could make a
contribution.
But I'll tell you I've gotanother connection to IBM.
The gentleman who is currentlythe CEO was a graduate student
in the lab I worked in as afaculty member at the University
of Illinois, and here's thekind of the cute fun fact there

(58:09):
was a faculty basketball leagueand he was the scorekeeper for
the faculty team that I playedon, and so it's kind of
interesting because he wouldhave been doing very theoretical
work as a graduate student.
I know his PhD advisor and thekind of things they would have
been doing, and yet he went thecorporate route and obviously

(58:30):
became extremely successful,extremely successful.
Is he happy?
I have not spoken to him aboutthat, but I believe he is.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Okay, so happiness is not defined by wealth as we and
every story has dictated theexperiment for us.
I'm sure on the corporate route, there would have been greater
wealth, monetary wealth for you.
But at the end of the day, areyou happy?
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Then there you go.
I think for at least a lot ofpeople, happiness is defined by
the opportunity to be able tomake some kind of contribution
to society or the bigger world.
It's not just about traditionalmeasures of success.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Well, everyone has a small altruism book.
Whether or not they've realizedtheir potential or not, that's
up to them.
There's something about helpingand supporting others and not
doing something just forpersonal gain, which is
rewarding.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Well, and that brings us back to the university.
One thing I'll mention aboutRIT is we have lots of students
from very poor families, andthat's the history of the place.
And if you judge that by anumber, you can talk about what
percentage of a student body isPell eligible for a Pell Grant

(59:46):
from the federal government, andat RIT it's about 30%.
If we look at a peer set ofschools, they average out at
about 15%.
Oh wow.
And so we love figuring out howto serve these students and
making it possible for them toattend what ordinarily is a

(01:00:07):
pretty expensive privateinstitution and giving them an
opportunity where, if theygraduate, get a great job, they
might even change the course oftheir entire family.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Oh for sure they will , because we do know I mean, you
don't need much evidence toknow that if you're starting
from the bottom to dig out tothe top, it's extremely tough.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
The stories you hear, those inspirational stories,
are essentially very far in view.
You only hear about thegrandiose ones, like Damon John
from FUBU.
You only hear about that.
You hear about that because ofthe media.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Because they're so unusual.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
But you didn't hear about the millions of others
that just don't make it, that'sright.
So to be able to give anopportunity and provide an
opportunity, you could helpchange that cycle, that curve.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
So what are you in town for?
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
so there is a new organization in New York City
called the Climate Exchange andthis is a consortium and it's an
initiative led by Stony BrookUniversity, and there's going to
be a lot of activity takingplace on Roosevelt Island.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
We're going to be constructing some facilities
there for climate-based researchand then a whole set of
universities working together totry to think about a future
that will let us do.
Let us deal best with climatewarming and also try to reduce
that, because any cities thatare basically on the ocean front

(01:01:40):
are really going to be facinghuge problems in the coming
decades.
So this is true Unlesssomething gets reversed, or we
build more resilientinfrastructure or something.
So I don't think reversal ispossible, right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
I just don't think that can happen.
I think we can kind of stay thecourse if we alter our
trajectory, right, if we payattention to carbon emissions
and not being such a wastefulsociety.
But unfortunately human beingsare doing what human beings do.
It's very mean-y.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Well, that's certainly what's happening right
now.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Yeah, so I really don't think we're going to alter
the course.
I think we have certainly spedup.
I don't know if I want to callit global warming, but glacial
melt.
Right, we live through ice ageperiods.
Right, these are normal everyfew hundred thousand years.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
They are.
What's different this timearound is that it's happened on
a very short time scale, and sothen you have to ask what could
make it happen on such a shorttime scale?
And the leading explanation,without any second place
contender, actually is it's us,the human parasite, it's all the
carbon dioxide we put into theatmosphere?

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Yes, but that's where I say we've sped it up.
We haven't created the ice cap.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Well, yeah, whatever we're doing is riding on a
bigger thing that occurs overthousands and thousands of years
.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Yeah, so we have to change our course and hopefully,
you know, slow this train downa little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Yes, so I mean, I don't.
I can't forecast the future,but it's easy to do some
calculations.
You know, some sizable chunk ofAntarctic falls into the ocean.
How much do the ocean rise?
And that sort of thing.
We're going to have newbeachfront property.
Unfortunately, yeah, it'sabsolutely possible that

(01:03:28):
something catastrophic couldhappen, where everybody sits
around and says, well, yeah, weknew it could happen, but we
didn't necessarily think itwould happen.
But there are things, in myview, that we just can't take a
chance with.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Yeah well, especially if you want your children and
your children's children to havea future and not have to walk
around in in masks their entirelives Right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
we've already had a few events.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
I don't know if it came to Rochester, but in the oh
, from Canada.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Yeah, oh, my golly.
Yeah, oh yeah, we had many dayswhich just, I'll say, beyond
horrible air quality inRochester.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
You almost couldn't see through the 500 AQI, which
is insane.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Yeah, that's worse in .

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Shanghai that's worse than in Mumbai.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Yeah and we know.
We know forest fires occur.
We know forest fires haveoccurred in Canada.
They occur every year, but thisyear was different.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
This year we had changing weather patterns which
kept a low pressure and keptthose plumes low and not blowing
over the seas.
But at least that you couldpinpoint.
You have a definitive reason,right, and that's somewhat
natural, but it gave everyone ataste of what misery smells and
feels like and looks like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
So anyway, I'm here for a meeting of the Board of
Directors of the ClimateExchange.
Okay, and part of that istaking place tomorrow at Pace
University, which is one of themembers of the consortium, and
the rest of the meeting will beon Friday, out on the island.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
That is very cool.
I've been to Roosevelt Islandreally nice, peaceful and
somewhat eerie place.
You will understand if you'venever been.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
I have not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
this is my first trip to see it, Okay, so you will
understand what I mean by eeriewhen you're walking around
Roosevelt Island.
It's the reason why there'sbeen several horror movies on it
.
No disrespect from RooseveltIsland.
Even its residents understandwhat I mean In fact, you know
what I'm saying Roosevelt Island.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I am misspeaking, it's Governor's Island.
Okay because Roosevelt Islandis the island where Cornell has
the tech hub there, right, yes,with the tech, lots of residents
there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
But the reason why that is creepy is because it's a
small island in betweenManhattan and Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
Queens really.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
And it's just eerily silent.
Yeah yeah, Governor's Island iseven worse, even smaller and
even creepier.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
Yeah it's more the southern tip of Manhattan.
Yeah, so let's look at ourstats here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
How are we doing?
We are an hour and 32 into ourhike, 2.89 miles, average pace
of 30 minutes, and we havetrekked two miles per hour.
But to be honest, I don't knowif I would do this better alone
or not.
So let's take another pivothere.
Do you think that academicshave more fun or corporate suits

(01:06:13):
?

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
I can't answer that for sure.
I know that academics have alot of fun.
That's a given.
But I've talked to friends incorporate America where, if they
were part of a team thatproduced a particular product
something they were very proudof that collaboration turned out

(01:06:37):
to be enormously satisfying andsomething that they would talk
about.
And in academia usually there'snot quite the same level of
collaboration.
I mean, we talk aboutcollaboration all the time and
we do collaborate, but it's notas if in academia somebody up
above dictates that a certainteam be formed in order to

(01:06:57):
attack a certain researchproblem or a certain development
problem.
It doesn't generally work thatway, and so I will say that I
have spoken with people in theindustry that have felt
satisfaction for differentreasons than I might feel in
academia.
So this is pretty neat here.
You just took a picture of thelower cluster, or new dock, a
British invasion force of 5,000troops commanded by Lauren

(01:07:21):
Cornwallis Well, there's afamous name Landed before dawn
on November 20, 1776.
Wow, oh my golly.
Jersey State troops saw them,alerted the garrison at Fort Lee
and 3,000 soldiers led byGenerals George Washington and

(01:07:44):
Nathaniel Green retreated overthe Hackensack River at the New
Bridge on their route to therelative safety of Pennsylvania.
This landing place was used inlater raids and finally blocked
with felled trees in 1780.
We are right here.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
That is crazy.
We are standing where, georgeWashington is.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
And long, long time ago.
Look at this spot.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Now the question is I might call Beason.
I think George Washingtonactually landed right over there
16 feet.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
That way we didn't have GPS, so somebody had to say
I had this spot to go.
I think they put this sign alittle bit of a clearing.
That's what I think.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Yeah, this was around this area here, so I think we
can go ascend our stairs.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Oh, okay, that's where we're headed.
We're going to the Heiler'sLanding.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
Trail, yes, and start heading back.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Okay, we'll do that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Up the cliff side.
But this is really cool.
If you really take a moment,this is as historic as you get
for this country.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Yeah, you know it's funny because when I talk to
some of our grad students itcould be from China or wherever.
Actually, at RIT the majorityof our grad students are the
largest population is from India, but their histories are so
long.
You know, for me to be sort ofmesmerized by something that
happened in our nation 200 yearsago is like I don't know.
That's kind of like what my momand dad saw, or something.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
So that's the interesting part about America,
right, and we all feel likewe've had this huge history, but
this is a new country.
Yeah, and I think we are justthe baby.
We might be one of the newest,other than those that have been
taken over and renamed in.
Vice versa.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
And, honestly, to get to more of that history, we
ought to be spending more timewith Native Americans Because
obviously they got completelydisplaced from all the land we
walk on and terrible thingshappened, but they still have a
lot of their traditions andunderstanding of the land very
much alive.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Well, in traditional American fashion, we kicked them
out of their home, but we namedthe streets, half of them.
Yeah, it wasn't that nice of us.
Yes, we're so kind, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
And up in the Rochester area.
We're not right next door toNative American reservations,
but we're not far away.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
And we have students.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
Well, there's a Seneca area, yeah, yeah, in fact
there was, at least I think, aSeneca trail that ran right
through our campus and we'retrying to get more information
on that and Genesee and thathave been Native American, there
would have been settlementsalong the river Sure, absolutely
.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Mohawk Valley.
That's a little bit furtherdown south.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Mohawk Valley from us is further east Further east
from you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Yeah, okay, so the ascent is obviously harder than
the descent.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
But it's good for us.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Yes, this is something you have to watch out
for.
These boulders do roll.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
And I would not want to be standing under this one
right here.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Right up there, although you would hear that and
see it.
So I'm beginning to think thatyou have had an infallible
career, and I don't know ifthat's possible.
There had to be something, somefoot and mouth syndrome
situation where you could walkit back.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
There isn't really nothing like that, unfortunately
, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
If that's the case, then I'm going to say that this
was probably because of theMidwest upbringing.
There's a politeness, it is akindness that you know growing
up in Long Island.
I'm not going to say we're allkind of pushy.
But if we believe something, webelieve something, we push it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Yeah, I do sort of have my own polite way of trying
to get people to see the lightthat I see.
I mean that's true, but yeah,there haven't been any big
mishaps or recoveries oranything like that.
But you know, maybe it'sbecause I'm in academia, where
we often joke that the stakesare so low.

(01:12:00):
The stakes are so low oractually they're probably just
harder to measure, you know,because we're educating the
future generation, which is hardto argue.
There's much of anything that'smore important than that, but
just how well you're doing it iscertainly hard to measure.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
Do you have a student that you really accelerated
your care for, that you justknew was going to be just a
superstar in their field andcareer?

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
Oh gosh, you know, there were probably, I think,
about a number of those kinds ofstudents where I, you know, saw
that they really could dosomething beyond what perhaps
they thought they could dothemselves.
But did you ever follow up?
There aren't?
No, and listeners might besurprised to hear this, but most

(01:12:48):
faculty lose touch with almostall of their students.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
I'm not surprised, because that's true, because
most students lose touch withall their faculty.
Students go on.
You know they go to the WestCoast.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
They're working for Google or Microsoft or whatever,
and they're, you know, a long,long way from Rochester.
In many cases, or in my casewhen I teach at University of
Illinois, there were almost notech jobs in Champaign, urbana.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
Yeah so you're out of here.
People weren't going to staythere.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
I will say that every once in a while, a former
student will contact me withsome very kind words, and the
most recent of those was he's amedical doctor and he's on the
faculty, I think, a Case WesternReserve, which is a good place,
and beyond that, he's a memberof the National Academy of

(01:13:36):
Medicine, which is a big, bigdeal.
It means he's thought to be,you know, one of the best
research or unit docs in theentire nation not the entire
world.
Anyway, he contacted me totallyout of the blue to thank me and
said you know what?
You probably don't remember myname.
I was one of the millions ofstudents you had in the junior

(01:14:00):
or senior level course ondigital signal processing.
But he said that the way youexplain complex numbers was
different than I'd ever seenbefore and my whole career is
based on that understanding andI owe my membership in the
National Academy to you forteaching that to me.
Wow, I thought, holy cow,that's not.

(01:14:20):
You know, I don't expect toreceive that kind of
communication or for somebody todraw such a direct link but,
every once in a while, somethinglike that will happen.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
So that's important is you're doing it a way.
You're doing your job.
Your job is to yeah right, allI was doing was my job and but
you were doing it in a way toinspire young minds and you know
it happens with parents.
You know you teach your kidsand you think nothing of the
moment, but they remember thatmoment forever.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
So I have a moment like that Well, what's your?

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
moment.
It's a professor, jim Herney,in electronics 2.
Okay, it's my second year inRIT or at RIT, and it was
midterm time and he passed outthe Scantron.
Uh-huh, pencils in hand, putour names on the Scantron that
should paint a vivid image forthose listening and he said you

(01:15:16):
know what?
I don't know, maybe he had anepiphany or a fight with his
wife, I don't know what it was.
But he said put down yourpencils Before I give you this
midterm.
You already know the answers,you've studied, you've got it.
But let me tell you the onlything you need to take out of
college.
It is not what you know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
It is your work, ethic and how you interact with
people.
Uh-huh, you want to besuccessful.
You can find any answer, justask.
Ask someone to help Search it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Yeah, well, good for him.
And you know one of our morewell-known alumni at RIT, austin
McCord, who's pretty famous inthe startup world and a huge
donor to RIT, he's also on ourboard.
But anyway, I've heard Austin.
He's got all kinds of littlesayings, but they're all true

(01:16:07):
and one of them is you can learnanything.
And what he means by that is,you don't need to study up at
any particular point and try tolearn everything, because as
you're working on a project oras you're proceeding in life,
you can just pick it up andlearn it in the moment and just
keep doing that over again andover again.
That's how he leads his life.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
So yesterday I had a very famous violinist Her name
is Daisy Joplin on a hike.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
And she is now going to take on singing, and she
referenced some theory and studybehind the fact that anybody
can be taught to sing.
Now I'm challenged with thatnotion because there are some
people that are built with abetter vocal range than others.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
For sure, and some people have more naturally
resonant voices.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
But what it comes down to, though, is if you
really truly want something andyou're willing to train and put
in your 10,000 hours.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
All of that work you can do it to some reasonable
level.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
Yes, Now I did draw a correlation that surgeons have
steady hands.
That is a genetic trait.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
We hope, we hope.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
They're not very good , but we hope you can't train
everybody to have steady hands.
It's more than just practice.
I have a friend that's asurgeon.
I held my hands and every oncein a while I quiver, he holds
his and they're no shaking.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Yeah Right, that's not something you train yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
That's something you just have, and that's why you
pick surgery is.
In whatever field of medicineyou study, it's because you do
have that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
Well, there's so much work that's been done on in
terms of how a particular humanbeing progresses in the world,
how much of it is genetic, isinnate, how much of it is
environmental, and I think thepeople who are on extreme on one
side of the other both wrong,yeah, and it's sometimes hard to
tell exactly what parts areinnate, but I do think there are

(01:18:02):
things that are innate.
In my case, I was just.
I just had the right genes tobe good at math.
I was sort of like a humancalculator as a kid and it was
kind of weird.
And I don't Are you saying kind?
of like a font I don't want toattach any particular label to
myself, but it wasn't just me.

(01:18:24):
My siblings were the same way.
So you saw, numbers in yourranges line up.
Oh yeah, and in fact, even tothis day, I know a lot of people
when they think aboutcomplicated topics, they think
in terms of words, and Igenerally don't.
I generally think in terms ofimages and numbers.

(01:18:47):
Really, sometimes the imagesare more abstract, not like a
photographic kind of image, andyou kind of feel the connections
being made in your brain, butyou don't really know what's
going on.
I think this happens toeverybody, maybe some people
just more conscious of it Ifyou're in tune to it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
So, for instance, there's an inner monologue in
your voice.
They're in your brain, right?
You think in words.
That's not how your brain works.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
You think shapes and numbers.
Yeah, I'm more likely to thinkthat way.
Interesting, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
I, in a way, I want to be in your brain.
Well, I am the opposite.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
I think, in words.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
I have that inner dialogue, I rehearse, I work, I
try my best to think four movesahead and I react.
And you know, occasionally Iwill picture a chessboard in my
head when I'm making a decision.
But that's as far as I go, asfar as energy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Well, and I mean, we could talk about, you know, when
you and I were in middle school, high school for me it was a
pretty agonizing project towrite a paper.
For me it was as well, because,again, I didn't wasn't really
necessarily thinking in terms ofwords, and then I had to find
the words that I didn't become.

(01:19:57):
I guess what I'll label as agood writer until I was in
graduate school was actuallywriting technical papers about
things that I understood andcared a lot about.
And then, you know, my PhDadvisor was very helpful in that
process too, by just iterating,iterating, you know, making
these papers better and better.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
Lots of practice.
You got push and practice.
That was your natural talent.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
So now I do think more in words than I used to
because I have to use so muchwords in my profession, or so
many words in my profession.
But man, that's not how Istarted.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
So I would agree.
So again, having ADHD, writinga paper was very daunting.
It was impossible.
It was let me get through thisas fast as possible without
plagiarizing, and then maybeI'll throw it up into it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):
You know a grammarly or something.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
I know the feeling yeah, so that was the worst?
I was not.
I didn't enjoy it and my wayout of it was being disruptive
in class and getting kicked out.
Coincidentally, it was thatEnglish teacher that changed my
life by realizing that I'm notan idiot.
I just wasn't pushed, so isthere anything else that?

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
we missed.
I guess the only thing wehadn't talked about was my
research, and I won't say a lotabout it, but I worked on my PhD
when the field of digitalsignal processing was just
developing.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
DSPs.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Yeah, dsp yeah, and this is before the DSP chips
even existed.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Wow, we were using transistors.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
But pretty early in my faculty career I got off of
kind of this sort of generic DSPand started working on imaging
systems and it was like I reallycredit a close colleague of
mine who was at the Universityof Illinois, Ken Jenkins.
He had some experience workingon synthetic aperture radar and
I certainly was not a radar guyat the time.
But a whole lot of my follow oncareer, starting kind of the

(01:21:51):
midpoint of being assistantprofessor onward, was in radar
imaging and the trick there ishow to use a small antenna,
something that can be carried onan airplane or satellite, and
get really high resolution andyou do that by essentially
looking at a target area fromdifferent angles and collecting

(01:22:12):
all that data and thenprocessing it as if you had a
big antenna and it turns out alot of the theory there is very
analogous to the theory that'sused in CT scans in medical
imaging, and so I and Ken andsome others we did a lot of work
in that space, drawing theconnections between that kind of

(01:22:34):
certain kinds of medicalimaging and radar imaging and
interlacing a series of imagesover each other.
Well, you don't actually dothat.
We only form I mean in the mostbasic version of this only one
image.
But you collect data fromdifferent spatial locations that

(01:22:55):
span the geometrical area whereyou wish you had the antenna.
Like, maybe you wish you had anantenna that was a mile in
diameter, which would allow youto have a super narrow beam and
you could steer that around andbounce signals off of just
little tiny patches on theground and collect returns.
You could do a raster scan, forexample.
But you can't carry a mileantenna that's a mile in
diameter on a satellite or on anairplane.

(01:23:18):
So instead you fly that smallantenna to a whole bunch of
different spatial locations andtransmit, receive from each of
those locations.
You store all that data andthen there's a way to process it
and form just that one imagethat's super high resolution
that would have been obtainedwith a raster scan using this
gigantic antenna.
So it's used a lot in thesurveillance community and the

(01:23:43):
reason to use radar imaging isthat it operates at microwave
frequencies that can penetraterain, fog, cloud cover and
because you're carrying anactive source of illumination,
you can image at night.
So, as I put it, the bad guysthink they can't be seen, but
they can be seen, but we can seethem.
But the bad guys also havesimilar technologies now they do

(01:24:05):
generally not as developed aswhat we have in the US.

Speaker 1 (01:24:09):
What we like to think .
So last question how old wereyou when you became a doctor?

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
So I received my PhD when I was 26.
Yeah, because I finishedundergrad when I was 22, which
was kind of standard and tookfour years to get a PhD.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
How many times did you look in the mirror to say,
Dr David Munson?

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
That's an interesting question.
I've never done that.
Yeah, I've never done that, andthat sums you up.
I've never done that.
I'll tell you a funny story.
My wife tells this story.
My in-laws, who are reallygreat people, are both deceased.
But when they heard that thefellow who was marrying their
daughter because we got marriedright after undergrad school

(01:24:56):
those years when they heard Iwanted to get a PhD, their
question was why does he want aPhD?
What's this all about?
Like, can't you just go earn aliving?
And as soon as I receive my PhD, all the notes and cards that
they would typically send us forbirthdays or holidays or
whatever were always doctor andmissus David Munson.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
They were proud of you.

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
So my wife got a kick out of that.
But yeah, no, I never looked inthe mirror and thought, wow,
I'm a doctor.
But there was something thathappened before that.
Grad school at Princeton wasreally, really challenging
Because, like every kid in myclass was, you know, at the top
of their class wherever theywere in undergrad and that sort
of thing, especially in thatschool.
Yeah, and the first year wasreally difficult because I had a

(01:25:47):
whole lot of things to learnthat some other students at
least seemed to me already knewthose things I was proud of
myself for just surviving a year.
After I survived the year, Ithought, well, I guess I could
do this, and it was a biggerdeal for me to survive that year
transition than it was toreceive my PhD actually, yeah,

(01:26:08):
that's how I felt with my firstyear of.
Oregon.

Speaker 1 (01:26:09):
Okay, Well, you know it's imposter syndrome for me
Just the belief that there'sstudents that wasn't a great
students is all of a sudden in aprestigious school, right,
right, and am I going to getdiscovered?

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
Well, and I felt that way, and anytime a faculty
member asked a question, thatfirst year man students knew the
answer.
It's like I didn't know theanswer and later on I came to
realize that it was generally adifferent student knew the
answer to each question.
It wasn't like one student knewall the answers, but that
wasn't apparent to me as kind ofa newbie.

(01:26:43):
And there were a lot ofinternational students whose
mathematical training wassuperior to the American
students in terms of they'd hadmore abstract mathematics than
I'd ever seen and I had catch upto do.
But after the first year Iwouldn't say it wasn't that I
felt necessarily proud of myself, I just felt like I was over

(01:27:07):
the hump, like it was going tobe okay, and so that was a big
deal to be over the hump.
So for sure I had that kind offeeling.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
Well, you have taught me a lot today.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Well, it's been fun to talk to you, der, and I think
you're doing a service to theworld through this activity.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
I have to listen to some of these other podcasts
you're making, and I will saythe biggest lesson I take from
this is humility goes a long way.
Okay, well, thank you for that.
Thank you for the hike, for youtoo.
Well, hikers.
Season two has come to a close,marking the end to this
season's trail.
We'll be taking a break andsharing bonus content until the
season three premiere.
Keep the comments,introductions and suggestions

(01:27:44):
for adventurous guests andsponsors coming in.
Your ongoing support means themost, and for that we thank you.
See you back on the trail forseason three.

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Dr. David Munson - Unveiling the Path to Presidency at RIT

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dr. David Munson - Unveiling the Path to Presidency at RIT