Andy Hibel (00:02)
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast. I'm Andy Hibel the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

Kelly Cherwin (00:08)
And I'm Kelly Cherwin the Director of Editorial Strategy. Today, we're joined by Dr. Austin Lane, Chancellor of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. We're looking forward to our conversation today, which will surround the human side of leadership, including family, relocation, legacy, and the steps he takes to remain student-centered while leading an institution. Dr. Lane brings decades of experience across nearly every facet of higher education. His career began in student-facing counseling roles, working directly with students early in their academic and career journeys.

From there, he moved into campus leadership as a dean and vice president before advancing into executive leadership and ultimately serving as a college president and now chancellor. Along the way, Dr. Lane has worked across community colleges, four-year universities, and an HBCU. His leadership experience includes serving as president of Texas Southern University, holding senior executive roles with the Texas-based Lone Star College System, and now leading SIU Carbondale. That breadth gives him a unique perspective on leadership across very different institutional contexts.

And I want to add one more role, which is dad to our amazing editorial associate, Lauren. Thank you, Austin, for joining us. And thank you, Lauren, for inviting your dad to be on our podcast.

Lauren Lane (01:20)
Yeah, welcome to the higher jobs podcast, Dad!

Austin Lane (01:23)
Thank you so much.

Kelly Cherwin (01:25)
Well, I'm looking forward to this conversation, so let's get into it. So Austin, when you look back at your journey in higher ed, what originally drew you into this work and what keeps you passionate about it over the years?

Austin Lane (01:37)
You know, I sort of fell into higher education when I was an undergrad at Langston University. I didn't realize while I was there that you could actually work or be one of the mentors that mentored me through Langston University years ago. And my biggest mentor was Dr. Ernest Holloway, who at that time was the president at Langston University.

I spent a lot of time in his office and a lot of time with his staff. Sometimes they tried to get rid of me and tell me to go to class and get out of there. But I remember before I graduated, he said, you know what, you ought to think about a career in student affairs. Although he was a president, he came up through the student affairs ranks. So, for me, I just thought, well, okay, I guess I can work in higher education and actually stay on a college campus, which is what I loved.

interacting with students and interacting with faculty and staff. And so from that point on, I thought this is going to be the career for me. So great mentors, folks who really were student centered, servant leaders, and just people that loved educating the masses. And I fell right into it.

Kelly Cherwin (02:52)
And I'm assuming that same feeling surrounds you today, the passion of being around all these amazing people?

Austin Lane (02:59)
You know, that, for me, that's why I do this work. I didn't have aspirations to be a president or a chancellor. I just wasn't focused on that. I was so focused on just trying to do a good job of helping students, particularly students like myself who were late bloomers. I did not have the privilege of entering a four-year institution directly. I went to Odessa Junior College. When I got to Odessa, I figured out that there are a lot of kids out there a lot better than me in basketball, so I better really hit the books. And from that point on, I just started to bloom. And the passion for, again, working with students and working with their parents and having that chip on my shoulder because I didn't go directly into a four-year institution, I think is what pushed me to do what I do today.

Kelly Cherwin (03:59)
That's fantastic. Thank you for that. And Lauren kind of gave us a little insight. And I think I actually connected with you on LinkedIn. And I saw at the beginning of the school year that you were driving around in a little golf cart. Like, I can just tell how engaged you are with the students.

Austin Lane (04:13)
You know, I've been doing that for 20 plus years now. And it's funny because when I'm on the golf cart, the students that I meet have absolutely no idea who I am. Sometimes they think I'm the football coach because I have a hat on and a Jersey and you know, I'm sweating. And usually they say, are you the football coach? And I go, "yes, I am. I am welcome!" I don't even correct them. It doesn't matter. Right. And I always tell them it doesn't matter who I am. Just thank you for being here.

We look forward to working with you and sure enough, about a week into classes, those same students go, "you lied to us. You're the chancellor!" So I love doing that. You know, it is about serving leadership and students and their parents. I get to meet all their families. We help them move in the dorms. So I feel like sometimes I'm not even working. wonder why they pay me because I would do this for free.

Andy Hibel (05:09)
You kind of talked about your inspiration for going into higher education, but now, flipping it in other interviews, you've shared that two of your three children have earned master's degrees and pursued higher education. How has your belief in higher education shaped both your personal leadership philosophy and the way you've approached raising your family?

Austin Lane (05:31)
You know, I watched my mother and my grandmother not able to attend college. And I just remember when I graduated from college, how happy they were. They had tears in their eyes, and you know, my father as well, they were just so excited about me completing what they did not get a chance to do. So I really felt like I had a tremendous, not a bad burden, but a real burden on my back.

to make sure that I continue or start a legacy and then continue that legacy through my children. So I'm so proud of Lauren and Chase. You know, they were great kids. They're still great kids. I call them kids, but they're always focused. They're always determined. And I like to think that some of what I was doing rubbed off on them. And them watching me be dedicated to higher education and advancing in my career.

It clearly rubbed off on them. I don't push them, and say they 'have to do this or have to do that'. They're their own person, but I'm so proud of them because they, too, are going to carry the family legacy of higher education. And for their children or loved ones, you know, they're going to carry that same role-model torch for their families. So just really excited. I've been able to model the way for them.

Kelly Cherwin (06:59)
You're definitely a great role model, and you're not just talking the talk, but you're walking the walk as well. So I want to flip back to your bio a little bit. kind of explained all the different roles that you've been on over your higher education journey. So we know that accepting some senior leadership position often comes with some difficult relocation decisions. How have you approached moving your family for these leadership roles, and what factors did you have to take into account when balancing both your personal life with what you want and professionally as well?

Austin Lane (07:29)
This is one of the sections I teach in my higher education administration course for these aspiring presidents or chancellors that want to work in higher education. And it's the most difficult one when we get to these conversations because it looks glamorous to be a chancellor or president, but it's actually quite depressing sometimes, right? Because you've got to make decisions that may seem to be very selfish with your own career.

And you've got to balance that with your family's life and what they're doing. So the way I tried to handle that, and there's no magic answer, but I typically went before them. So I would take the job and go there by myself for a couple of months. And then when the coast was clear, I would bring them along with me. And so we were fortunate to start in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

Great area, that's where Lauren was born. She was born in Arlington, and Chase was born in Fort Worth. And I had a great opportunity to go to Tyler Junior College out in East Texas, beautiful East Texas. Got a chance to move them about 90 miles east of Dallas. So luckily, we were still in the state of Texas. Then we moved down to the Woodlands, which is a beautiful area. And that's really where they spent most of their childhood growing up, in the Woodlands and Houston.

And so, after that, I moved out of the state of Texas after being there about 31 years in higher ed and went to Illinois, where I am now at Southern Illinois. And obviously, I didn't have to bring them along with me. They were a little too old for that. So, but it's, it's definitely a journey. It's something you have to balance. You do have to consider others, not just yourself. And I know sometimes that can be very difficult when you're trying to provide.

for your family and for your kids. And it can be disruptive, but luckily for us, it's worked out. And I hope that Lauren's not upset with me about moving too many times.

Lauren Lane 09:42)
I'll live.

- Laughter-

Andy Hibel (09:53)
Obviously we're moving from what is for all of us, the most important constituency, our family, but so many of the conversations you have in leadership roles have to work with boards, both governing and advising donors, alumni, other external stakeholders. If you're at a state institution, a lot of state folks that you might need to talk to, and community members. What are some of the realities, both ones that are really positive and ones that might give you some challenges of this role that people don't always see or fully understand.

Austin Lane (10:27)
It's a great question. Usually when I start or when I've started each of my presidencies, I do a pretty extensive cultural examination of the environment and the institution. And I do it in the form of listening and learning sessions. I try to find out the good, the bad, and the ugly. I try to talk to faculty, staff, students, alumni, community members, state representatives, boards of trustees, the members on the board.

You name it. So I get a real good sense of what is happening or what has occurred at the institution before I come right in trying to tell everyone where we need to go. I never do that. I've never made that mistake. I really look for that feedback from those internal and external stakeholders. And I think the leaders today, if you're not doing that, you're probably going to run into some situations that get you in trouble or may cause you to have to do a lot of that work.

after you've been there for a year or two, which could be too late. And I think to get to the second part of your question, I think that's the big challenge for leaders who may not always feel comfortable going out and interacting with those stakeholders that I just mentioned and thinking that if they just cite their vision and their mission and their strategic plan is rolled out without any feedback or support.

Sometimes they may wonder why it's not going as well as it should go. It's a different day today. Even when I was starting to do this close to 20 years ago as a leader, even though I've had a 30 plus year career, but only about 17 of those years have been in the presidential role. I've had to learn a lot of things along the way just about how to interact with those various groups that I just mentioned. And again, there's, there's never a magical answer or way of doing it. As I tell my students

in class, it's just that you have to know the temperature of your campus. You have to know the stakeholders and, you know, even knowing all of that sometimes, it's still not enough, right? Because the landscape of higher education has just changed so much from when I started to where it is today. And so I always say fear is functional. It's good to be a little paranoid. Keeps you on your toes. Keeps you connected.

I meet with so many different groups. have 22 constituency councils. I have 22 unions. All of our faculty and staff are represented. So I get the opportunity to work in with them day by day. Our shared governance is alive and well at Southern Illinois, but it takes a lot of work. And I had to transition to that. In Texas, it was an at-will state. In Illinois, it's a unionized state.

I even had to learn some things along the way to try and be successful with those populations and so far so good.

Kelly Cherwin (13:25)
Well Austin, I know you just touched on how important it to be engaged with your stakeholders and listen to them. I was just wondering, do you have anything more to add in how you stay connected kind of more on a daily basis to your faculty and staff and stay student centered as well? I know we talked a little bit about the golf cart at the beginning of the year, but what other things do you do to kind of stay connected to all these different parties on campus?

Austin Lane (13:49)
You know, Bowman and Diehl wrote this great book called Reframing Organizations, and it talks about leadership from about five different frames. There's a symbolic frame, there's ⁓ a human resource frame or sort of a feeling frame. There's a number of frames. And I've used that as kind of my model of operations, kind of my theoretical foundation. And you have to be visible. You have to be connected, right, to those stakeholders that I just mentioned. And you have to be genuine.

You know, people know when you're not really genuine. I took my class at all the time. They really know that. And so if you're unwilling to listen and to keep learning, people spot that out pretty quickly, particularly faculty. And so they don't think you're as connected as you should be. So I've made a practice in my career to do those things back to listening and learning and collaborating and really a

respecting shared governance and making sure that my administrative team, the folks on my cabinet that I hire come in with those same, at least those same beliefs, because if they don't come in that way, it really disrupts the team. So I look to hire servant leaders, folks who value shared governance, folks who want to get out and talk to our faculty, our staff. I mentioned I meet monthly.

with all my constituency council leaders. That's A &P, that's my civil leaders, that's my faculty association leaders. And I really get a chance to hear from them what's going great and what's not going so great and what we can do to strategically shift or fix what we need to repair. you know, I think that's what I've been able to live by. And over the last at least six years at Southern Illinois, we've got a great team and

great faculty, staff, and students and, you know, having a really good time.

Andy Hibel (15:48)
We have one last question. When you think about your career, what kind of legacy do you hope that you've left both institutionally and in terms of people, culture, and the environments you've shaped?

Austin Lane (16:00)
You know, it's kind of funny because the other day we had our university photographer wanting to come in and do a portrait, a chancellor portrait it's pretty routine at our university and put it up in the library. And I said, I don't want that, especially when I'm in the seat, if you're going to do something like that, do it after I'm gone. You can do whatever you want to say or whatever you want, but what one thing I want to leave as a legacy.

is that every student that I meet, and I always put students first, but every student I meet, I want them to feel like, that guy actually listened to me. That guy actually cared about me. You know, he actually listened, he cared, and he acted if I needed help. And I want them to walk away knowing, I always say at commencement to our students who are graduating, I say, you won't remember your chancellor's name in 20 years. I don't remember mine. I remember a few people along the way, obviously Dr. Holloway and a few faculty members. But I said, you know, you will remember how we treated you here. And that will carry the day when you're talking about when you're an alum and you're maybe thinking about giving a donation to your alma mater. You know, all of how you feel and how you leave here is going to determine how engaged you are. So that's the legacy I want to leave is that the guy actually cared and

he actually made a difference in the lives of students, not only students from underrepresented populations, but all students, in that when they came to us from rural or urban backgrounds, we did everything that we could to make them successful so they could go out and start their lives.

Andy Hibel (17:44)
To kind of maybe put a single word, to be a catalyst to a life like that has to be very fulfilling and hopefully on those more challenging days inspires you to keep pushing towards that legacy you desire. On a lighter note, I'm just gonna skip to something, know, the internet never lives. Is there truth to the internet rumors?

that Larry Johnson patterned his career after yours by going to a desk to play basketball.

Austin Lane (18:21)
Wow, there is absolutely no truth in that. Let me be clear. I love that you know LJ. That is fantastic. Larry was like Michael Jordan to us at Odessa. He pretty much owned the entire dormitory and he owned Odessa and everybody loved him and he's a great guy.

Austin Lane (18:48)
Right out of Dallas, Skyline High School and could have gone to some other places, but just really enjoyed watching his journey and seeing the things that he's been able to accomplish. You know, a lot of people don't know this, but Larry came in Odessa probably at a fourth grade reading level. And you think about it over the, over the years for him, he just developed. So that school had a lot to do with that. And I really hats off to Odessa. I had a lot of fun in West Texas playing basketball. He obviously did a lot better than I did on the basketball court.

Andy Hibel (19:22)
So actually to take a somewhat irreverent question and turn it around. That's exactly what you were talking about as far as that legacy and, hats off to Larry too. Like that's awesome that he took advantage of that opportunity and probably in life has served him so well compared to what he may have thought at the time about putting that, that effort into it. Maybe it's a goal for the podcast to, get him on the podcast and actually ask him that question.

Lauren, are you able to make that happen maybe and see if we can get Larry on the podcast to ask him about if his career was inspired by your dad's?

Lauren Lane (20:02)
Yeah, and how dad is still great at basketball?

Laughter

Kelly Cherwin (20:09)
I actually have one more question and Lauren asked me to ask you this. She wants to know if she's your favorite child.

Austin Lane (20:17)
of course she is. She's the first. She's the first. You know, she always challenges me on that, but I said, look, you're the first child. You've got to be the favorite. I mean, that's like your first love, you know? So I just got to get her to believe that.

Kelly Cherwin (20:36)
I hope her brothers dont listen to this

Austin Lane (20:43)
Yeah, let them listen to this.

Kelly Cherwin (20:47)
Lauren's going to be playing that on repeat at the next family gatherings, I'm sure.

Austin Lane (20:52)
That's right. That's right.

Kelly Cherwin (20:54)
Well, thank you Austin so much for joining us today. actually will. Lauren, is there anything that you want to add? Is there anything, any other questions that we need to ask your dad?

Lauren Lane (21:05)
I don't think so... I'm just really proud of you.

Austin Lane (21:09)
I love you too. Love you too. And I love the work of HigherEdJobs. You know how long I've been looking and working with you guys. You are amazing. You do amazing work. And I'm not just saying that. So you guys keep up the great work.

Andy Hibel (21:27)
According to Lauren, our number one stan. Is that correct, Lauren? Yes.

Lauren Lane (21:33)
I don't think he understands Stan yet, kind like Andy when you're like, what's a Stan? Stan was like a super fan.

Andy Hibel (21:38)
I had to go home and ask about that when she said. The Gen Z subtitles haven't been invented yet and I really need them.

Austin Lane (21:40)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have no idea what that means. Yeah, all I know is that I just, I always talk highly of HigherEdJobs. You guys are awesome. This is a great thing you're doing and we advertise with you a lot. You guys are just amazing. So thank you.

Kelly Cherwin (22:04)
Thank you.

Andy Hibel (22:05)
Thank you so much.

Austin Lane (22:07)
Alright!

Kelly Cherwin (22:08)
Well, thank you. Thank you, Austin, again for joining us today with such a lovely conversation. We really loved having you on.

Austin Lane (22:14)
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Andy Hibel (22:16)
Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed listening to this podcast as much as we've enjoyed recording it. And if you have any questions or thoughts or if you do have questions and you want Lauren to read them first before we pass them along to Austin, you can ask us to do that. She can help interpret if need be, but send us those at podcasts at higheredjobs.com or feel free to send us a direct message on X at higher ed careers.

Thank you for listening and we look forward to talking to you again real soon. ⁓