And now, from the Blue Ridge PBS Studios in Roanoke, Virginia, it's the Virginians of Interest Podcast with your hosts, Brian Campbell and Carthen Curren.

Hello, and welcome to the Virginians of Interest Podcast. My name is Brian Campbell. I'm here with my friend Carthen Curran today, and we've got a special guest today, the former Speaker of the House of Delegates and current president of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, Kirk Cox. Welcome, Kirk. Thanks, Brian. Great to be with you. Yeah.

Thank you, Brian. Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker. As a former has page, I have to I have to uh hear the protocol. But no. Kirk, it's great to have you with us. Kirk, since leaving the General Assembly, you you've taken on an important position. The Virginia Business Higher Education Council, you're the president of that. Can you give our listeners a little background on the history of that organization, when it was created, and the thrust of what it's there for or to do to do? And then we can get into the meat and potatoes of where we stand in higher ed nail and and how the council is trying to continue to elevate higher education in Virginia.

Sure, Carth. And first of all, thank you for having me back. Uh my second appearance. So you guys are great because I wasn't awful the first one. But the uh the Virginia Business Higher Education Council and I was very impressed that you both got that correct. So we say VBHEC. It was formed about 30 years ago by a group of business folks who really felt like that higher ed needed an advocate. And what I mean by that is that higher ed and business together really are where you're going to get your talent from. Uh, not only that, and and obviously, you know, Virginia wanted to be the top state for talent, but if you're gonna be the top state for business, and uh I guess as an old high school teacher for 30 years, even maybe more importantly, the opportunity to give students to get great jobs, obviously that leads to great families, keeping kids in the state. So they really wanted to see this marriage between higher ed and the business community. And they really felt like uh, and it's true that when budget times get tough, a lot of other groups have their advocates, K-12, obviously, and that's important, healthcare, but not so much higher ed, which seemed to get cut first in recessions. And so that was sort of the genesis of the group. They not only wanted to help with funding, though, we'll talk about this today, they wanted innovation, and they really wanted to see that in higher ed. And uh so that was they would get together and push different policy initiatives uh over the years, uh, grow by degrees, et cetera. So that was sort of how it was formed.

Aaron Powell And out to your point about innovation, I was just it it occurred to me our our brothers and sisters who are South or North Carolinian cousins, uh, they've had a very strong reputation in higher education for a long time of being innovative. Do they or are neighboring states have a similar organization?

That's a great question. Not that I know of. The new president of James Madison University, Jim Schmidt, who comes from Wisconsin, was saying, Boy, I wish we'd have had that when I was in Wisconsin. So they might, but not not that I know of. What I think is so unique about us, and I think this is very unique. I don't think any other state has this. Our board eventually morphed into having all 16 public university presidents, the chancellor of the community college systems, and you're very familiar with this. We've added the private colleges, CICB, which I think is very important over the last six months, and we have about 25 business CEOs. So I don't think anyone has a board like that. So it's both a truly partnership between business and higher ed.

Thank you.

So one of the things that we talked about before coming on the air today is you've got this thing called the impact agenda. And I I love branding things, right? It's easier for people to understand. Tell us a little bit about the um what led uh you've been at the council, what, two years, three years, something like that now?

Three and a half, but we're gonna do it.

Three and a half time, right? So tell me what when did this come out, this impact agenda, and what are the key parts of the impact agenda?

So every two years we have a branding effort we call growth for Virginia. And frankly, we deliberately pick election years because people are paying attention. We really do want to affect the people that are running. So one of the things that we did was we met with both Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat, and Winsom Search Republican. We met with almost all the statewide candidates. We meet with a lot of the legislators. Um and we do this very unique Virginia specific higher ed poll. And so what that allows us to do in that meeting is go, here's what's in the poll, here's some of the our ideas we'll hope you will adopt. And frankly, having been in the general assembly myself for 32 years, uh, if you can get someone in politics when they're running to say, hey, this is a great idea, and they say it publicly, first thing I used to always tell my members of my caucus is you better go back and read your campaign brochure, because if you promise something, you need to really fulfill it. So I'll hope, frankly, is that what they'll do is, you know, they'll make major speeches on higher ed. We actually even will help them craft some of those issues. Um long answer to your question here. And what is interesting is along with the Chamber of Commerce, there's a big workforce and higher ed conference every October uh in the election year. And one of the things we uniquely do, we co-sponsor that conference, is we get both gubernatorial candidates to come. And frankly, if you look this year, it's probably the only place they both showed up, except for the debate. Yep. And they both gave really pretty ringing endorsements, especially of uh things like talent pathways. We'll talk a lot about internships today, which is a big initiative of ours. They talked about that. So besides that, I try to go everywhere. So thank you all for letting me be on your podcast. I've probably been on seven or eight college campuses. We've done tons of editorials. And the impact agenda is sort of our I'll document it helps with our role life. But it basically has two or three quick themes. Uh, we want to be the top state for talent, and obviously we want to make that a priority. We are the first ones that understand it's going to be a pretty tough budget year. And so one of the things about the impact agenda is we say with legislators, Renault, you've got to do, you've got to have priorities. All business people have priorities, but funding higher ed is actually absolutely key because it's a driver of the economy. If you want to fund a lot of your other programs, you need to do that. So it has four themes. And I'll wrap up my three-hour answer uh talent pathways and internships, affordability and ROI, innovation and entrepreneurship, and solving problems and strengthening communities. So those are the four things we really push. And our ultimate goal, frankly, is in the budget this year that they will be some of the budget priorities.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

And so people can access this at uh our website, growth for Virginia.com.

GhostVirginia.com.

And it's the growth with the number four, VA. Yeah, really clever growth four VA.com or four. Let me let me ask you a question. And this is uh because I think this is great. Uh I've worked in higher ed for three decades now. But I've also in the three decades I've worked in higher ed, I've seen some of our public confidence decline. Um I've also seen legitimate conversations in our country now about who needs to go to college, does everybody really need to go to college? There's a the idea of what can we bring back to the United States in terms of manufacturing. I feel like the there's a it's a target-rich environment now for lots of things, that we are going through this period of change. So I think your your what you proposed here is the timing is perfect. How does that address this issue, this idea of in the old days you either went and did a blue-collar job or you went to college? Now it just seems like with the stacking of credentials and all these other sorts of things, it it's going to become a little bit more of a mixed playing field from where I see it. Is that the right way to look at it? And how do you think this document addresses the changing landscape? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

I do think that's the right way to look at it. However, having been in education my entire life, what I don't like is we have this the pendulums on the far left, and this is not politically, and then the far right just keeps swinging back and forth. So, in other words, we've gone from college is all that matters, four-year degree, and then you almost go to an era of it's all non-credit credentials, it's whatever. We actually did a poll question on this, and what people are telling us, it's all of the above. In other words, you're gonna need them all. You're gonna need four-year degrees, two-year degrees, you're gonna need uh you know, credentialing. I think what you what people are saying, what you need most of all, are clear pathways to give a lot of flexibility. So obviously that high school student might go in as a respiratory therapist, but might eventually even become a doctor. And so I think what we've really been pushing is uh that there's a real place and there was a real stigma, unfortunately, for you know, a lot of the career in tech stuff for years, which I always thought was a mistake. And Rico County, where I am, actually does a really cool graduation for tech kids, et cetera.

And so we're by the way, it looks like sports.

It looks it's cool.

Yeah. And so these kids get to get this the attention that the football and the basketball players are. They should. Yeah, I think it's a lovely thing, by the way.

But but I would say to to sort of wrap up the answer is I just really think we have to emphasize all of those. And it might be, you know, that and and really pay attention to what industry needs. Um and it's interesting to me, you were talking about uh sort of the Freyland Biomedical Research Center that throws Korean and tech, et cetera. Uh and you know, it's interesting when you talk to them or Sentera, they'll tell you there are about a hundred different job classifications they need in the healthcare field. Because you just think of doctors and nurses, but there's respiratory therapists, there's, you know, there's IT. Sentera told me they have a thousand IT positions. They're chefs. And so, and you're right, that those are all different types of things. So their frustration sometimes, frankly, with higher ed is providing actually potential workers in those categories. They they're just not being produced. And so they end up with big shortages in some critical, critical places. Correct.

You mentioned challenges and the some of the challenges higher eds are facing in Virginia. Of course, you mentioned the upcoming General Assembly, new governor, new administration, one party control. What's your crystal ball tell you about this session, how that will deal with the budgeting process as it relates to higher education? And then I wanted to of course we have another great challenge across the country is a demographic cliff, where there are going to be some institutions, private and public in Virginia, that are gonna perhaps have some struggles, uh hopefully not for a long period of time, but uh that that is the case that we're facing that demographic clip. But I was curious to get your the upcoming session. I know having been a part of that action for a long time, you have some inside sense of how that's gonna develop, a brand new governor um who's never served uh at the state level, at the federal level. So this is a whole new game for her as well.

Well, I think that's why it was so great. We got in front of her for almost an hour and a half, and we've requested a meeting with her, and I think we'll get a follow-up meeting where we can delve into even more detail and talk about some of the priorities. Um be a tough session. Um, you know, most of the economic forecast, I I I don't think we're headed for I'm not predicting right now. I don't think we're heading for a recession, but it is it's gonna be a fairly tough session. You've got, you know, some pretty substantial Medicaid cost. We re-benchmark K-12, you know, in in the in the long session, and that's basically catching K-12 up on inflation and student enrollment. So that there's a pretty big price tag. Won't be a lot of new money. One of the things we'll really prioritize is to keep some of the money we currently have in the budget. I'll give you a quick example. We've got about$26.5 million in for uh internships right now. And that goes, and I think we're doing some really innovative things, such as that money will go to a one-stop online portal where a business and a student can hook up to campus internship centers on campus where businesses know where to go. ODU has a great one called the Monarch Internship and Co-op Center. A lot of people do. I'll point this one out. When I was talking to their president, he says something very interesting. He said, I don't want one more business guy to tell me. I have no idea where to get an intern on your campus. So he actually ended up funding that. And they got a$5 million mailing grant. And so it's fantastic. Their goal is to every one of their kids have a paid internship by 2027. By the time, and that's that's what we're after. So we want to keep money for that. Um and so it's called the Innovative Internships Fund. So I think it'll be one of those years you're trying to sort of hold on. Um, but once again, I make this point at the beginning. Hopefully, if there are it during tough times, higher is just not the first thing people go, oh, we can cut that. So that'll be one maintaining will be you know part of that too. And y'all have talked a lot about this fast forward, which is a great program that community colleges is doing, you know, with non-creat credentials. It's oversubscribed. I mean, I actually they have more kids that want to be in it than than can be in it. So maybe tr trying to keep funding for those kind of priorities.

Aaron Ross Powell What do you know? Um I'm an I was a non-traditional student, so I started a community college, didn't go to college for 15 years, then went to I call it night school proudly because it was night school, and then went on to graduate school. So in other words, I had to cobble things together. Don't you think that's that the you we're seeing more students that are like that, meaning people don't necessarily know what they want to do or they'll go into something and change their mind. And this may be one of the legitimate criticisms of higher ed historically, although I think we're changing in a better way. And that is how do you we used to be in the old days, you know, you'd show up, you matriculate, and here's the course catalog, and you had to figure it all out, and maybe your advisory helped you a little bit. And that the the modern university, back to what you've said in your in your your impact agenda, it has to serve its community too. And I agree with you. I think ODU and Naufolk with that shipbuilding defense industrial complex does a really good job of, even though it's a major R0 research university, also serving the needs of that community. I think that's a really good example. What is it you're missing and what is it you need to make that even better? What is it that uh what is it that universities really need from you and the Virginia Higher Education Business Higher Education Council to make that a reality?

Yeah, your point is so interesting because I was reading on the Fast Forward program. The average student, it's been 16 years since they've had any kind of post-secondary education. So that's sort of right where you are on the average, and they're very proud of that. You know, I would say the model that we have to do today is, you know, and I want to be a little bit careful with this, but obviously I think you have to get into the middle schools and high schools a lot more with what are some of the career options, et cetera. You know, uh Batatak County does a really good job with that. They introduce things like mechatronics and all kinds of really interesting things that are going on in that region. Uh there's actually something, and it's perfectly in Roanoke called the Blue Ridge Partnership, which is something Caroline has sort of cobbled together under Nancy A. G. and Cynthia Lawrence, but very quickly, they had figured out exactly how many healthcare jobs they need. They've gotten uh the universities, the community colleges, the high schools, all the businesses in the healthcare arena to basically map out uh talent pathways in the area. Make a long story short. In high school, they have a curriculum, sort of a healthcare curriculum, a kid can take. Uh, so that will actually obviously speed up what he can do. But it has all these talent pathways that shows them exactly what it takes to be this, that, and the other. Uh, there's career coaching, which we really liked when me and you were coming through. You had the old guidance counseling, but you know, a lot a lot of that was they were doing other things. So really, you know, getting kids early and giving them career coaching, giving them micro internships. I think giving them internships early. And I'll give you an example. Once again, I was a school teacher by profession, and you wouldn't think about letting a school teacher teach without doing student teaching. Uh, and so you do it for a whole semester. As a matter of fact, they throw you right in after about two weeks. You're teaching all five classes. And frankly, you learn pretty quickly. It's like test driving a car. This might not be for me. Uh, and the discipline piece, uh, and I love teaching, is the hardest piece. You gotta be able to figure that out. You can have a passion for your subject, but if you uh if you can control a classroom, you never get that across. Um, and we did a practicum in our junior year where you did a little bit of that. But frankly, even in teaching, it's too late by your junior or senior year to figure out, hey, spent a lot of time towards this. So there are high school programs like Teacher for Tomorrow, uh, their other programs. So I think what you're seeing on the landscape now is a lot more intentionality with sitting down with students from middle to high school, giving them options, making sure that they're doing dual enrollment, they're doing very smart things like a curriculum that sort of matches what they want to do. And so they're sort of off and running way before they get to their second and third years of college. And also show them that if you want to go do this pathway right now, this is what you could do in the future, though. I mean, you might want to go out and get a job, so you don't, you know, you might not want to do four years right now. But there are things down the road you might want to do.

Yeah, and flexible. Yeah. Carthen? Thank you, Brian. Uh Kirk, as the council looks at the whole picture, the whole Commonwealth higher ed in total, do you do you dive a little deeper into certain regions of the Commonwealth? As you know, rural Virginia is dear to my heart, so rural parts of the Commonwealth that have lagged behind some of the growth that other parts have experienced. Does the council look at that area where there is higher ed in Southwest Virginia and South Side Virginia? Uh how you all know.

No question. And frankly, if you look over the last few years, Virginia really has sort of a regional strategy anyway. So if you go back to Go Virginia, obviously, which, you know, I helped with that legislation years ago. But the thought, you remember, the thought with that was the cities and counties were sort of competing against each other uh and basically getting them on the same side to sell themselves as a region, but also for regions to be realistic and sort of map out what do we do well? Uh, what are going to be our core industries that we're gonna try to attract? What are the supply chains and really for them to have a very, very good plan. And I think you're seeing higher ed do that a lot now. Um, even on the internship front, we were very much selling it as a region, et cetera. But it's interesting. Cardinal News and Dwayne Yancey, of course, who is really big on South Side and Southwest, has highlighted what we do probably more than anyone else. He's written four or five major articles. He's really, I think, intrigued by the whole talent pathway, work-based learning type of thing. But yeah, I think there's a lot, we try to put a lot of emphasis on that. Um, and if you look at some of the what's going on in higher ed, I think there's a lot of innovation there. It's interesting. The community colleges, if you graduate from a community college, you're 80% more likely, you're 80% going to stay in that region. And so just getting those kids in there, that that's very helpful. But that that is a big emphasis uh that we have, obviously. And there's some really interesting things going on now. You can do a lot you can do online and virtual internships um, you know, with kids in Southwestern and South South Virginia, with Northern Virginia companies or some of that going on. Uh and so I I do think there are going to be a lot of opportunities.

Well, you know, we're all about the same age. And one of my favorite things to do, because my family has deep ties there, is to ride by the Newpreneur shipyard and realize that from the outside it looks very much like it did 75 years ago. But once you step inside those gates, it's a 21st century enterprise that looks like a 19th century enterprise from the outside. So if you think about data centers, artificial intelligence, all the things that are going on, how do you do what you're doing knowing that there's still healthcare jobs, there's still the need for electricians and plumbers? And in other words, that you're in not only in the midst of a changing landscape in higher education, but you're essentially in the middle of the probably the largest transformation and job opportunities in our lifetime. How does one design a system not knowing what the future is going to look entirely like?

Yeah, that's a very, very challenging question. Um it's interesting. Almost everything you go to now has a panel on AI or what's the future of AI, et cetera. And of course, all the university presidents are giving that uh tremendous thought from just the the ethical standpoint of how you can use it practically, et cetera. Uh I had a really um interesting guy on a panel from one of the uh hospitals who said that one of the one of the doctors who was very, very skilled was actually dyslexic and really had trouble note-wise and forever actually would go home on the weekends and translate all their notes and try to have to input them into electronic health records, et cetera. And then he was saying AI has totally transformed that and just totally changed that person's life. So there's a lot of efficacy to it, but it's it's also, and I think from and I'm gonna approach it a little bit more maybe because internships are all big thing, but I th I think it also uh, you know, is it's gonna be interesting to know who's gonna have the jobs and who's not gonna have the jobs. So some of those entry-level jobs that you used to have, AI probably displaces some of those. But I do think today, with you know, a lot of your university students, et cetera, and even a lot of your kids in your community colleges, when they get those really good internships where they're really working hands-on in those companies, uh, they'll be ready to hire, you know, and they'll be job ready to me. And so I think that's gonna be one of the real key things. But uh I think it's it's my same answer I sort of gave on uh pitting two-year degrees against credentials and four-year degrees. It's gonna be a little bit of all the above. I think you're gonna have to be very flexible in sort of all of the above.

Well, I'll just let me I'll add a brief commentary. I've always viewed problems as opportunities, right? That the one of the things that does bother me a little bit is that Virginia is the home to so many of these data centers and and it they just sort of popped up over about the last decade. And and then you get to the idea of energy consumption, and and if we don't come up with an alternative for that, our bills are gonna go through the roof, and all this all this AI has to be powered somehow, and it's pretty scary. And then I thought there's probably a a business one, a business opportunity in there and two a solution in there. Uh but this is where I think universities at their best, research universities in particular, come in and can help you get to those solutions. And then that's where the jobs will be. So the jobs may you may be leaving one sector of the economy and transferring over to the next section of the economy.

Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's a great point, Brian. And you know, one of all big things in this agenda is innovation and entrepreneurship. And and you're in getting back to your regional question almost. I mean, your regional economy a lot of times is driven by those higher ed institutions, but they are going to be, I think, absolutely key partnering with business. I mean, uh I forgot what the figure is, but the amount of jobs, et cetera, that are generated and money that are generated by business startups that basically were incubated in higher ed are absolutely key. They're there are cool models like Wichita State has a has a model that I know Radford's very interested in, where the industry basically moves on campus, has satellites on campus, and actually operates, you know, part of their operation on campus where they can provide internships and it's just, but they can also do research together and they can do all kinds of very interesting things. So there's some creative models out there that we really should be copying across the nation that have been pretty effective.

Uh some nuts and bolts questions about the council. Uh how often does the council meet?

So the council meets quarterly. Uh and so what is really interesting though is one of our biggest meetings is coming up on January the 20th. We call it a day on the hill. And we actually meet at 10 o'clock. And remember, we have all the university presidents and the business folks. But generally the speaker of the house, uh, whoever the speaker of the house is, is allowed to use our conference room and we have the speaker come by, the majority leader, the minority leader, all the leadership. That gives us a chance for them to hear what we're doing. But we do something in the morning in the afternoon, and we start 8:30 in the morning, we finish up about five. All business folk folks go in like groups of three or four, and we visit probably around 25 legislators, and we take this with us, and we basically, you know, talk about what mean what we're talking about right now and these various key things. But that's probably our big meeting. We try not to meet too often. What we do, which is probably more important than a meeting, is every two years we sit down with our college presidents and our business leaders, and we say, so where do you where do you want to see this go in innovation? Um and so we come up with so what's going to be the next thing that's the driving force that you want to see in higher ed business partnerships? And AI certainly is going to be on that.

Uh does the council have committees, working committees?

Yeah, it has a presidential committee and a business committee. Uh, and and they have obviously meet, and then we sort of jointly meet, especially so in developing this, you know, uh, you know, we'll come up with a prototype and then we'll sit down and meet with them and you know, try to finalize that. But yeah, a lot of the ideas obviously come from the college presidents and come from business.

Business leaders. And then when you when you're in session, when the council is in session, do you have guest speakers, people that present, or or is that just your your thing? You have your Oh no, no, no.

We have we have guest speakers. Uh we love to have people come in. I mean, you all once again, I mean, we've had people come in from the Falan Institute in different places telling us what's going on. One of the things that I don't think we do particularly well in Virginia is if you look across the landscape, there are tremendous things going on on almost every campus. There are really innovative things going on in business. We don't talk to each other a lot. We don't copy each other a lot, we don't scale those things up. The beauty of our higher ed system is it is sort of independent. And so that gives you, in some ways, it makes you more entrepreneurial than you would be. But it also makes you, I'll be careful here since they're all on my board. Uh it also goes, well, they're doing it, so I won't do it. So for I could, so for example, no one's probably done a better job at the University of Mary, Washington than aligning their curriculum to what uh industry wants. No one's probably better done a better job than ODU has with the Monarch Internship Center. Probably no one's done a better job with student veterans and veterans and using their alumni for internships at Women Mary. No one's done a better job on training citizens at the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, which is a big priority, than along with their civite curriculum. One of my goals would be so we need to copy what each other is doing. And I could say the same thing for business. I can give you four or five businesses that are knocking out of the park on talent pathways or internships or apprenticeships, but others are knocking on the park on the other things, and they they operate in silos to some degree.

Aaron Powell Well, this is gonna, unfortunately, you you've got 16 children. You don't want to have a favorite, right? I mean, um, that's part of the problem. But let me give you two examples. We just uh talked to Sally um Elaine from Freyland, and I didn't realize, I knew that that Virginia Tech had the innovation campus with um Amazon. What I guess I didn't realize was how extensive their relationship is with Children's National and some of the other health assets. So if Virginia Tech is now a university without a border, essentially. So in other words, you know, Virginia Tech is operating diligently with a lot of uh gusto in Northern Virginia, and that we'll go back to ODU too, which is doing submarine training in Danville, Virginia. So it's another university without a border. Do you think that's another model that others might be able to look at to say we've got to think beyond just the where we sit and look for strategic opportunities that align with areas that we just happen to be good at?

No question. I think that's that's absolutely important. Now, I will say this. I do think you have to be careful if you're a university. Uh everyone's going to Northern Virginia, so let me just go to Northern Virginia. So you can say I mean to me by association. Yeah, by association, you really need to have, you know, so what am I really trying to accomplish there? But but having said that, no, I I think that's that's instrumental. I mean, you can go to VCU Health and what they're doing all over the state.

Uh and so yes, I think Can you take just a second to explain because not everybody may realize the Danville connection with submarines at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. So that's the other thing, too, is finding partnerships, right? And and I think they do a lot of internships there. That's literally the entire model is built around internships, correct?

No, it really is. You've got GoTech, you know, that also is doing some of the similar things. But uh you know, I I think a lot of people, you know, that model is absolutely and if I can, it's really interesting. It's quick statistics. So if you have a paid internship, you're 50% more likely not to be underemployed. The first decision that a company will make in a tough hiring decision is whether or not you had a paid internship. So that is the model a lot of them are obviously doing is that, you know, that hands-on, that hands-on learning.

I'll also say real quickly, and this is a point of personal privilege you asked earlier. I spent a decade working in North Carolina. I think most a lot of things in North Carolina, Virginia could learn by. I don't think something like you exist in North Carolina. And part of the reason is there's such a concentration of universities in the Research Triangle Park, and they sort of serve that community. They also serve Charlotte, where I think North Carolina falls far behind Virginia as anything outside of those two areas. North Carolina has some of the r most rural disadvantages for economic development of any state in America. So um and Virginia just doesn't have that. We tend to have a little bit more robust and diversified economy. So my guess is part of the reason that you exist here versus down there is that they serve a customer in their backyard and it doesn't have the they don't need to be as creative as you have to be in Virginia to ensure those assets get deployed correctly across the Commonwealth.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think that's true. And it's really interesting, and different universities have different needs too. I mean, for example's, the uh CNU's, Christopher Newport University, the University of Mary Washington's, uh, and this will be an issue we're gonna have to tackle in the future, very much with like probably some help with tuition breaks and incentives for kids coming out of state because they have more seats. Virginia Tech or UVA is obviously not going to have that program.

William and Mary.

Should William and Mary, should we be marketing? I mean, we have the the best-ranked client system according to CNBC. Those are great schools. And so marketing to out-of-state students and maybe giving them the flexibility to bring those kids in uh is something that I think they would very much like to see. You go to other institutions, I mean UVA Wise, for example, which does tremendous jobs, does a tremendous job, has other unique things they're working on too. So I think what we can do also is bring a lot of these issues to light and really helpfully advocate with the legislature for you know some of those unique needs.

Let's touch on uh affordability and ROI, if you wanted to touch on that as well or major objectives.

So we have the Weldon Cooper Center at UVA do a major economic impact analysis for us about every four to five years. The last time we did it is 2023. Because the first thing when you go to legislators and they say, so what's your ROI? I don't care what you, whether you're higher ed or whatever, they want to say what are you producing. And so uh and the results are usually very, very good. Uh we actually put you know some of that in the impact agenda, but and it's probably a 35-page report, uh, but about 188,000 jobs are generated by higher ed. And that's not your that's not your your hospitals, and that's also not some of the other things, but just sort of base things. Um generates about$52 billion in economic activity. Once again, that's not your health systems. Uh and so uh you know that's something we try to hit on very, very much. Virginia's been pretty good to higher ed the last few cycles, but having said that, Virginia ranks uh 28th out of the 50 states as far as higher ed funding goes, with 43 percent behind Tennessee, a Republican state, 17 percent behind Maryland, a Democratic state. And so even though it's ranked the number one system, probably in the United States, um, the funding doesn't always keep up. And so that makes tuition high. And that's that's somewhat problematic. There's also in State Code a law that two-thirds of tuition is supposed to be paid, and this is basic uh tuition and fees is not room and board, but on the general fund side, two-thirds is supposed to be paid by the state. And right now that's about 58 percent, up from 54 percent. So one of the things we try to say on the affordability piece is we're pricing all students and all parents out uh as far as tuition goes. So we've got to do a little bit better there.

Aaron Powell Of course, what you all do, how are you tying that into because you your career was in secretary education, how how that's gotta be intertwined K through twelve. And I mean that's where it begins to get to higher ed. No question. And I assume you have interactions or maybe some shared strategies with that's a great point. Uh I was a host page. So I'm attention.

Trevor Burrus, Jr. You know, it it's interesting. Uh what we probably could really use is a K-12 organization that's sort of along the line of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council. One of the things we have to be, and we work a lot with K-12, but you can try to boil the ocean if you try to emphasize both from our organization. It it's uh it's pretty difficult. So I think there's some uh might be some interesting things coming up along that line. But uh I do a lot of uh work in K-12, et cetera, just you know, because you're right. I mean, if you're if you're doing things like talent pathways, they've got to start earlier, et cetera. I mean, I I've mentioned, but I work a lot with the Blue Ridge Partnership. I've spoken to uh all their K-12 people as they're you know trying to counsel their kids, you know, if they want to go into healthcare, here are the pathways, et cetera. So we very much promote things like that. So it it is absolutely essential. And you're seeing K-12 really change, um, which they're gonna have to do. They're gonna have to be a lot more nimble. And you know, I used to have, and I love teaching, but you have kids sitting in your class in 10th or 11th grade on a sort of a basic academic track, and they had no interest in that whatsoever. And it just didn't work. I mean, they were bored. Uh I can remember four or five kids that got a that were like that, that got an uh internship with CCAM, which of course was the Advanced Manufacturing Center in Prince George. And I went out to observe them one day, and those kids were on fire. I mean, they were totally different kids than I ever saw before because they were doing something that just innately they loved. Uh and so yeah, K-12 is going to be key, but I think we're gonna need an organization that's probably pretty comparable to really, you know, maybe in a more organized way, get business involved. There are a lot of education foundations on the K-12 level, but nothing that's really systematic and nothing that's really looking at regions, et cetera. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Perhaps maybe a a step in that direction would be to have a committee within the council that's focused on that relationship and those keeping that dialogue going between K-12, K-12.

Yeah. And like I said, I mean, we certainly, you know, in our discussions, you know, talk about K-12, but uh we really try to prioritize higher ed just because we want to make sure we've got a lot of things on the plate we need to complete.

Is the Secretary of Education on the Council?

No. It's a uh no, it's a 501 nonprofit, nonpartisan group. Uh it's not part of state government, even though we are a formal VTOP partner. VTOP is the Virginia Talent Opportunity Partnership, and that's the big internship initiative along with Chev in the chamber. But we were invited in to do that. No, we don't have any No, we work a lot with Secretary Gadera, obviously, and she's come to all meetings, et cetera, and a lot of our issues are her issues. But no, that's and that's sort of good. I mean, in a lot of ways. It's uh you know, it's got a lot of flexibility if you're a more private organization sometimes.

So I think uh I used to work at an engineering school, and they said we need more engineers in the legislature. I think we need more school teachers in the legislature. I think the fact that you spent all those years in a classroom uh couldn't help but help you not just when you were in the legislature, but help you now in this job. Meaning when you're talking about K-12, you're probably the one in the room with the most experience, right?

What's a great point? I love all citizen legislature. Uh I think that's why it's so great. We had, and you remember very well, Carthen, John O'Bannon, who's a great, great physician in healthcare. Uh Bobby Warwick was a teacher. Uh we had a tree farmer, we had, we had everything known to man. And the beauty of that is when you get in committee, yeah, I could legitimately say someone could do a K-12 presentation because that sounds good. And nicely, I would try to say, well, if you tried that, you would have a revolt. Uh I mean the students would laugh you, ah, it doesn't work practically. And so same thing in healthcare. So yes, I I do think that uh that's the beauty of a legislature that has a lot of practicing, whether it be teachers or engineers or whatever, not just all did it at one time 30 years ago. Uh and so it's it's a beautiful system. I I do think we have to be careful with the money that's involved now and some of the polarization, trying to get those those kind of people still to run.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, uh my and my next question is going to focus on you too. Uh uh, you're you're you're a product of Richard Bland College at one point. I am. Yeah. Um did when you where did you transfer to after you left the city? JMU to JMU. James Madison. So we we interviewed uh President Saido recently, and I had lamented over the years that we needed junior colleges again, not realizing that Richard Bland is essentially Virginia's uh junior college, and now they now have independence from the College of Women and Mary. And I've grown I've developed a keen interest in working with Dr. Sido and trying to interest her and introduce her to people. Don't you think that's also the key to it, too, is to is to get each of your 16 children to understand one's good at basketball, one's good at poetry, and and then and then to try to make sure they stay and not not completely stay in that lane because everybody likes to color outside of the lines. But if we can get that, if you can become the chorus director or the symphony director, and you get everybody playing to their best with their particular instrument, that's where and that I think we're getting close to that, but that's the secret sauce, right?

I agree. And so what Richard Bland has done so well is yeah, she can do some things that are a little bit different. So she's done dramatic things with dual enrollment. She has done with with C CAM and C Cal. She did a lot of really innovative things with them, um with some of the drone companies, actually. There's a lot of land at Richard Bland. So they can beautiful.

It's just in the middle of nowhere.

They could actually implement the Wichita State model, you know, drone up. I at one point had an affiliation with them. So they can do they have a you know sort of an innovation center now where they they do a lot of really, you know, creative stuff. So sure, I mean she she's as good as that of of anybody I've seen. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And they have a residential component.

Yeah, and broad us too, that that's a the vast majority of their degrees are in a science, the AS degrees. That was the part that shocked me. And I guess that's still a lingering part of being part of Women's Mary. Yes. Right. But I just thought then, I thought there, there's a that is the there's a tool in the toolkit right there.

No, and I think she she can be innovative and very flexible because it's smaller, et cetera. That's correct. The the one thing I do think you have to be a little bit careful of, and and I really agree with your premise that you know the beauty is, you know, they they can be creative, et cetera. I think sometimes, however, you know, and and maybe when I dealt with legislators, you know, for years, uh and you don't want duplicational programs, and you don't want programs that are unnecessary. However, I think you have to be really careful when it comes to things like nurses, et cetera, or or health care, that sometimes you can be too limiting. There's some universities, I mean, for I'll give you an example, University of Mary Washington, um, traditional liberal arts school, it does a great job, but it but you know, I think they're perfect considering where they're now located geographically with Fredericksburg to do a lot also in the Allied health professions, et cetera. So I think we have to be careful not to pigeonhole people either, yeah. Where, hey, you've always done that, we're not gonna let you do that. And that's one of the things I like to be able to see. And and I think Chev is really trying to do this now, is be more flexible with creative programming or uh, you know, the tech talent pipeline was a very great initiative. But can we do that in other types of fields where if they will increase those degrees in those high demand fields where there are shortages, it didn't necessarily have to be just the traditional ones that you think should be doing that. Yeah, Carpenter.

Um a little um well, I was gonna bring up a subject that's a little um controversy controversial. Sure, I think so. Well the cat's out of the bag now. So I wanted to give Kirk's impressions on the what's what seems which I feel is unfortunate. The three of us are native Virginians. We've been part of the uh discourse for a long time, but the what seems to be a politization of boards of visitors um appointments and reappointments and the back and forth of that, which we've had a system that's been very I th I think could be said that's been very effective. People that serve on those boards uh uh to do their best to support those institutions that the boards oversee. But Kirk, any any thoughts about the which the University of Virginia seems to be right now a buzz uh along those lines with the board of visitors.

I taught I actually end up speaking a lot of the board of visitors. And yeah, there's certainly been some pretty tough issues lately. I will say this, that that's that is not the norm. Um, most of the boards I go to, I I just spoke at the community college board. I left there and came here. And very united board that works great with the chancellor. And I think you see that in most places. I would just think as a general rule, and I think most people feel this way, that uh I don't care who the governor is, uh Republican or Democrat, you know, and I'll I'll go back the 32 years that I was in. The one thing I would like to see, and you've had some very, very great people on boards, but uh yeah, there needs to be, to me, you know, and there's always to be, you know, you need to seek out the best people and the most qualified. I mean, Brian, you've been in this business forever, but people that really are immersed in it, they love it. Um, you know, not necessarily, you know, you're one political party, the other. Right. Um, and that they really see that stewardship, you know, role, et cetera, is the key. Uh and I mean you're gonna have turnover, I mean, obviously, with different governors coming in, but I think we've just got to get back to that concept of uh, you know, picking people that have a, you know, not always who have a great relationship with that university, have really I've always said if you're a candidate running, show me what you've done in your community. When I used to recruit people, I wanted the person who they named the football field after.

What?

Because, you know, and and what I was really looking for there is that person just had a heart of service, but it had also done a lot in their community. I think that's that's what governors should be looking for in board of visitors members. And then once you have those people, you gotta let them do their job. Well put.

Amen. Um let me rather, you know, I'm always curious. You're right, I've been in higher ed a long time. Um and I'm always it's it's curious with innovation, real innovation. And one place that I'm I'm seeing something interesting that I'm not seeing somewhere else is uh Arizona State. There's a guy out there named Michael Crowe, who's been the president for a while. And one of the things he's done in the engineering school out there is, you know, engineering schools are like medical schools, they're very sallowed. Dermatologists don't talk to surgeons, and electrical engineers don't talk to chemical engineers. So the National Science Foundation had this thing a few years ago called the Grand Challenges, energy, health care, security, right? So out there, they've gone to instead of traditional majors, they've gone to focus areas. So in other words, somebody is trained in energy, not trained in a particular type of uh engineering. What do you where do you do you think do you think that's the right way to be thinking? In other words, I I feel kind of like that that's part of the issue with higher education, is that we we're very traditional and conservative in the way we do business. We're not we're not known part of it's the faculty, right? Is you you've invested all this money and people and stuff, it's hard to say, well, let's start doing something else tomorrow. But but it did intrigue me this idea of focus areas versus traditional discipline areas. Do you have an opinion on that?

I think George Mason's done a little bit of that, especially Well, he's an engineer, the president was an engineer. Yeah. I think he's especially done that a little bit in some of his business schools a little bit. So they're they're definitely going in that direction. Uh yeah, I think I think it's something that really needs to be looked at. You know, maybe not exactly along that line, but it was interesting. I was at Longwood, uh, and one of our big emphases is, you know, problem solving and communities and citizenship, et cetera. So they have a civite curriculum where they have kids take courses from their freshman year. They do a symposium where they do problem solving, but it's interdisciplinary. It's so it's it's the same concept to some degree. The the panel of students that were up there, one was an English major, one was a math major. And so one group went to New Orleans, one group went to Farmville, and they would look at the problem and then try to help solve certain problems. So, for example, in Farmville was simply sitting down with the economic development folks, et cetera, and say, how can we be imaginative about economic development and keeping kids in Farmville? But that's the same concept of bringing different kids from a different thought process. So sure, I I think that's probably going to be a little bit, and once again, I think you I I guess I've been at this too long. I I think that certainly needs to be part of the equation. Now, whether you just want to totally sell out to it, you know, where nothing else is good. And I think that's so much in education. But no, I think that's a really creative, sort of smart way to do it and something we really need to look at.

Yeah, real good example. You know, I work in the pharmaceutical space at a research university, and um, my boss, the great Frank Upton, likes to talk about part of the problem in pharmaceuticals is that is the chemists do all the front-end work and they hand it over to the engineers and they don't talk ever again. Meaning it's why you lack innovation. Because sometimes I'll say, well, why are we able to do the work we do, which is creating uh efficiencies in drugs that already exist? Well, part of it is because the chemists weren't talking to the chemical engineers along the way. And that this, I think, what that's this gets back to your idea of internships is how do we rethink not just getting people in new jobs, but how do we get people to rethink what they do in those jobs? And if we've got an innovation problem between two disciplines, how do we break down barriers and get people communicating more? I guess there's not a but when you're dealing with chemists and chemical engineers, maybe the English major has a role in um breaking that barrier, perhaps.

Aaron Powell No question. That's why I think you're probably seeing a little bit of a comeback on liberal arts uh because of those critical thinking skills and some of the people skills and the ability maybe to tie some of that together. Uh but you know, I know one university which I think is very creative with their liberal arts majors, they also make them learn like 10 technical competencies, and some of those are IT platforms, et cetera. And they really encourage them to get an internship with a small business, not just traditionally, you know, a museum or whatever is in your field. So they'll blend it to be to blend the two and to be a problem solver. Right. Um I I think that is absolutely going to be, you know, one of the one of the ways of the future. I mean, you know, this in pol we did that in politics forever. You try to get, you know, I mean, that's how you really have a good campaign.

I just stumbled into it.

Yeah.

So can I can I tell a funny story about that real quick, uh real quickly. Um yeah, I worked for the great uh Senator Ed Robb from Charlottesville. And um we sent Ed to speech school. And we were uh former Governor Allen was standing behind me listening to Ed give a speech after going to speech school. And he said, What's wrong with Ed? And I said, We sent him to speech school, and Governor Allen said to me, Don't let him go back.

I I'm not sure. Well, that's hard to follow. Since Ed and George are so alive, you hadn't need to maybe share a lot of people. I will apologize to both of them. I was curious, Kirk, does the council uh meet and do you go through to other parts of the Commonwealth for meetings? Do you typically just meet at Richmond?

We typically meet in Richmond. We do a retreat about once every two years, but uh I'm on the road all the time. I think one of the things they really wanted me to do when they hired me uh to be the president uh was and we had Don Finley before me, Secretary of Education in Boston did a tremendous job. I mean, he was you know, he was executive director of appropriations. And uh but one of the things they really wanted me to be was uh