Maine’s University #267

Dr. Susan Hunter:

So it's that that combination of undergraduate and graduate really is what enriches the environment. And then in honors, students do the intensive reading and discuss discussion. They work through tutorials and more and more high level. And then by their senior year they're doing an honors thesis with a faculty committee that partly is focused on the work they did. So their scholarly work and part of the defense they go through is focused on their reading list. And they put together this series of readings that they thought were just central to their education. And they're basically examined on the readings as well as their thesis. It's a very sophisticated, sophisticated achievement. And the students that go all the way through the end and go to the brunch and get their medal and their stein, they have really accomplished something

Danielle Conway:

because I'm looking at this five year old and trying to talk to him like a 25 year old. So that's my fault. But it's been a journey and an extraordinary journey. He is fun, he is excited, he is a diva. He breaks down, he gets right back up. He's resilient. And it's teaching me a lot about who I need to be as a leader, a mother, a friend, a parent. And there's a lot of forgiveness that goes with being a parent because they teach you that you are completely fallible. But all you have to do is keep coming back to them with love and encouragement and they give you another chance every time. It's amazing to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 267, Maine's University. Airing for the first time on Sunday, October 30, 2016. The University of Maine system provides a high quality education to students from our state and all over the world. Today we speak with University of Maine President Susan Hunter and Danielle Conway, Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As many people know, we have many, many belials that have gone through the University of Maine system, including most recently my son Campbell who graduated here in 2016. And so that reason I am quite grateful to My next guest, Dr. Susan J. Hunter, who became President of the University of Maine on July 7, 2014. Prior to starting her appointment as u Maine's first woman President, President Hunter served as Vice Chancellor for Academic affairs for the University of Maine System. She began her full time career at the University of Maine in 1991 as a faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences at U Main. Her administrative positions included Chair of the Department of Biological Science, Associate Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education, and five years as the Executive Vice President for Academic affairs and Provost. Her research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science foundation. She received a PhD in physiology from Pennsylvania State University. Thanks so much for coming in.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Well, it's a pleasure to be here, it really is, and it was great to meet you on the day before commencement on campus.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. So this was a very interesting story that I love. I know that you also like it because we drove on to campus and Campbell was going to. I think it was an honors brunch.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

It was the honors brunch. So it's a brunch we have every year for the graduates of the Honors College and their families and their faculty mentors.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we did not know where we were going. So I was driving along and we rolled the window down and there you were on the sidewalk. We had no idea who you were and we said, can you help us find this place? And you said, well, why don't I just take you there? And you hopped in our car.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

And I introduced myself and it turns out of course I'm the president of

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the yes, and obviously we wouldn't have let you in the car if you hadn't told us who you were, if you were just some random person. Although they're very nice people at the University of Maine. So I can think probably we might have found somebody else who was equally accommodating. But it still says a lot.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Well, it seemed like the most logical way to get you from where you were outside Alumni hall to Wells Commons, given the traffic pattern on campus that day because of people moving out of dorms and whatnot. But I will say the people in my office sort of said, what? You jumped into a car with two strangers just outside the building? I said, well, they looked really reputable.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm glad to hear that. I would hate to think that I look something other than reputable.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

No, no. Perfectly above board.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

And I hope you had a good day on campus and then a good day at commencement.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we did. And I think that I told you on that day that my son, he graduated with a double majors in biology and Spanish and he received a really great education. I mean, he. I don't think he could have been more pleased. And as his parent, I also could not be more pleased with what he was able to accomplish at the University of Maine.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

I think that we hear that over and over again. First of all, I know he's going on to Tufts Medical School after a gap year or he's going down to South America.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Correct.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

But I think we hear that over and over from students and their parents. In some cases, it's students who say Maine wasn't my first choice or U Main wasn't my first choice. It's where I ended up. I wasn't sure. And then I fell in love with the place. And really I walked away with a tremendous education, tremendous connection to people on campus. And I think part of that is the we're big enough to be. We're big enough to be a true research university. And we are. And that provides enormous opportunities for students. It also provides enough scale and scope that there's, I think, a place for everybody. Everybody. And the number of activities. I mean, it's. The whole spectrum of everything is available, but it's small enough that it still feels like a neighborhood. I mean, I've been there for 30 years. I started as a part time, I started as an adjunct and eventually got hired as a full time person. But I think it allows people to feel comfortable and still feel like they're part of a community. And that's what works. It's academically, but it's also a real good feeling of home and friendliness. And people note that when they're on campus, people are really friendly, helpful, engaged, all of that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I like knowing the amount of effort that you put into all levels of education. I mean, my son did the honors college, which has really changed in the years since I knew it. Many years ago, I was at the University of Maine for a year and a half before I transferred and was in the honors College. And the fact that you now have a building that the honors College is affiliated with, you know, have this brunch. I mean, the students are doing these papers which are very high levels of research and intellectual thought. But it's. But you have a broad breadth of offerings for all different types of people.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

And I mean, the honors college is one of our defined signature areas of excellence. And I think what makes it special is it tends to attract students who are looking for that very intensive, I'd say the reading, intense discussion with faculty, small group leads them through very sophisticated readings. But all of the students in the honors college are of course, majoring in something. You don't major in honors. And so it really is that companion piece of what one might envision as the core or the ideal of a small liberal arts college married up with a university that has over 90 undergraduate majors and 75 masters and 30 doctoral programs. And I always mention that the graduate offerings, because the presence of graduate students really makes a campus very vibrant. It adds to the energy, but it also adds to enormous student opportunity because students work with faculty. But faculty who have graduate students actually have more opportunities to offer because the graduate students also play a role in mentoring. A faculty member can manage more projects with graduate students and therefore have more places for undergraduates to fit in. So it's that combination of undergraduate and graduate really is what enriches the environment. And then in honors, students do the intensive reading and discussion. They work through tutorials and more and more high level. And then by their senior year, they're doing an honors thesis with a faculty committee that partly is focused on the work they did. So their scholarly work and part of the defense they go through is focused on their reading list. And they put together this series of readings that they thought were just central to their education. And they're basically examined on the readings as well as their thesis. It's a very sophisticated achievement. And the students that go all the way through the end and go to the brunch and get their medal and their Stein, they have really accomplished something.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Campbell sent me his reading list. And it was striking to me that as a student that was doing biochemistry and Spanish and he was very focused in the sciences when he went through. He had a very liberal arts set of books that he had examined over the four years that he had been there.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

And that's really the goal. Those students who are willing to take on that challenge, it's ideal if they're being. They can be in any major at all. But I think in some ways, when you see somebody in the sciences or a technical field and then look at their reading list, the compare and contrast is even more apparent than a student who might have majored in one of the liberal arts fields. And that's not a negative, it's just you're more aware of, in a sense, the reading list. When you compare it with somebody or look at it with somebody who majored in one of the STEM fields.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It also, it strikes me that you are wanting to help stem the brain drain. The University of Maine, it offers so many things depending upon what your desires are. But one of the things that it has been doing, and it's got to be doing for at least a decade now, is scholarship money to the top students in high schools around the state. And my son took advantage of that. So he got this great high quality education and he got it really through having full scholarship, got a scholarship to the University of Maine. And that's so forward thinking to be able to say we really don't want you to have to leave the state to get a good education.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Well, that's something that we have been working on. And we are, I'd say, putting even more intense focus on it, in part because the state of Maine is really looking at both a, I would say a demographic and a geographic challenge. We are the state with the oldest median age population and. And we are seeing a decline in the number of high school graduates due to population decline, not because people are leaving high school, but when you look at that, you realize that the state is facing a shortage of people in the, you know, the teen to 20s to 30s age cohort and seeing a rise in those of us in my age cohort. Well, the whole state can't run. We cannot have an economy based on 1.3 million retired people. And we actually have to do everything we can to both hang on to the talent we have in this state and make it attractive to stay in the state and attract people from other states. And so we've got some programs that we've named the Maine Matters program, where we're really trying to make the University of Maine more affordable for middle income families. We have our Maine Match program and that program is really aimed at students who are looking at umaine, and they're also looking at flagship land grant campuses throughout New England. So UConn, UMass, Amherst, UVM, unh. And we're offering a plan that we want to look at the financial aid package they're getting there and do the best job we can. To make our financial aid very attractive so that they will choose to stay in Maine and come to their flagship land grant campus. And then for out of state students, we've identified six states. It's Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Rutgers, where the flagship campuses in state tuition is more than our in state tuition. And so in this case we offer a two tiered merit award. So this is an academic merit award. Tier one students from those states, if they apply and they are granted a tier one award, they pay to come to the University of Maine. They pay what they would pay to go to their flagship campus. So it's this flagship match and if they get a Tier 2 award, they would pay more than Tier 1, but still not the full cost of being an out of state student. And it has resulted in a 30, I think the number is now 38% increase in confirmed out of state students for this coming fall. So it looks like it's being successful. And I'll just say one more thing on this and that's we see when People graduate from UMaine from out of state, it's about 15 to 20% stay in Maine for their first job. So even if we don't change the percentage, if we just jack up the number of people and the percentage stays the same, we will be retaining more people, we will be attracting people, educating them, and more of them will stay in state. And that will really benefit the state of Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that you as a university system are benefiting from the recognition that Maine is a great place to live, a great place to visit? I know that what I do with Maine Magazine, my position is predicated on that and I've lived here all my life. And is this also something that you think that students are coming to recognize as they're applying to go to college and wanting to experience themselves?

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Well, yes. I mean, the short answer is yes. It seems to have taken off a bit more. And I think in part that's because we. Part of it is the financial aid packaging and that part of it is marketing and frankly being, I would say more aggressive and more perhaps professional, having people that really know how to do that. We've done a much more better campaign of pr. I mean, you know, billboards on the highways in New England, radio and TV spots. I mean, then you get you. And then we had a firm that we hired that did some marketing for us and they were able to get really good stories in newspapers. I mean, we had a front page story in the Boston Globe, the Hartford Courant covered us. There was mention there was something in the Washington Post. When you get that kind of coverage, then it piques people's interest. And then more people start to come and look at the campus and then they spend a day there and they come to an open house and all of that, it frankly gins up interest, which is great because then more people discover you and they realize that there really is something. When you make the trip to Orono, Maine, there's really something to find and that's why we encourage people to come visit, especially people that either haven't ever been there or haven't been there in a long time, because it is a different place and we need people to come and see it and the place sells itself.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have a really impressive background with your PhD in physiology from Penn State and also having research supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. So you've had two very interesting, at least two that I can think of, very interesting, academically oriented careers. That research piece I find so important because what's happening in the state of Maine, the work that we're doing to discover new things or to build on research that's been done previously, I think that's really going to help us as we move into the future.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Into the future? Yeah. I mean, frankly, I've had a fascinating career. I mean, I've been incredibly lucky. I've been the beneficiary of great opportunities. I had fabulous mentors all the way along. And the research side, when I was a faculty member, I collaborated with people at the Jackson Lab, which is a world renowned research institute. But I think having that background makes me in many ways it certainly helps my job, the jobs that came after it, because I think I resonate. The faculty wouldn't quite claim me anymore, but privately they do. And people on campus talk to me as you know, you were a faculty member and we know that. And so I taught, I did research, I had graduate students, I was involved in graduate committees, big grant operations. So that just helps. And I think it helps take the university forward. I think it's a perspective that is appropriate for a research university. So I think that's a. It's all positive and it's just I've been very lucky in all of the things I've gotten to do, to be honest.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You mentioned the centers of excellence. Tell me what that is, what that looks like.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

We. Several years ago, as part of the strategic plan that was developed when my predecessor was president, there was a designation called signature in emerging areas of Excellence. And so there was an. And it was. The process of identifying them actually occurred the year I was Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. So I was, I talk about my 10 month sabbatical off campus, but that was that period. And Provost Hecker, who is now, who is still the provost, really led that initiative. And it was really a campus wide, really a faculty driven initiative. There were all kinds of focus groups and conversation groups and faculty wrote proposals and the proposals were, were whittled down and teams of people said, but these four proposals are way too similar. All of you get together and write one. And from that emerged our signature areas of excellence, which were really umbrella areas. Two of them are units, the College of Engineering and the Honors College. The rest of them are umbrella areas that many units and many faculty can fit under. They're not. It's climate change. It's advanced structures for infrastructure and energy. It's forestry and the environment. And I always forget one or two marine sciences. I think I've gotten most of them. And all of them are areas that we have a national or an international reputation. And if you look at those signature areas and you think back to the legacy of a land grant university, they're logical in the sense they are our core areas of strength. The emerging areas, and I'd have to look at my list to get all of these right, are the areas that with attention and focus and planful, thoughtful building, we'll get to that next level of excellence. And we use those areas to define where we want to go. We, we think about it in terms of fundraising, we think about it in terms of hiring faculty. And that's not to say that we don't hire faculty in other areas, but we do. I think as many people would say, you have to build out from your areas of strength. So if we're growing in areas of engineering and the STEM fields, it's really, engineering is a STEM field, but the rest of the STEM fields are growing too. We have to think, what else do we have to grow? Well, clearly we're going to add people to the English Department. If we're growing the number of students, we have to add people all over campus. We just have to be thoughtful how we do it. But those areas really define in many ways our identity. And I think it makes it easy to talk about the university and make it in some ways more comprehensible. Universities are a little, organizationally, they're odd to figure out when you've spent your whole life in one. It makes sense. But for most people, they probably don't make sense how we're built.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As you're talking about your areas of excellence and the forward growth and the things that you've done to ensure enough students are on campus to create a high quality education for everyone. I'm wondering how the economic downturn that our state experienced and some of the University of Maine. Anytime there's problems with the economy, the university system has always impacted.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I'm wondering how this worked in your situation.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Well, it certainly did. The economic downturn caused declines in enrollment. If you look at the funding of the university, we're really funded from the state appropriation and tuition and fees, and we do get substantial funding from the state. So this in no way is a criticism. If I look around the country, you see a decline in the percentage of state funding across public higher education in general. And there are many states that have gotten to the point that their state universities are getting 5, 6, 7, 8% funding. We're up in the high 30% funding. The funding is always. But if funding remains relatively constant, and our board of trustees, in order to address the affordability issue, which for Maine families is very, very real, have held tuition, no change in, in state tuition for six years, which is remarkable. Nowhere else in the country has done that. But of course that means there's more of a, you know, if everything is squeezed a little bit, it is a challenge. And I think that in some ways it's a good challenge. It's forced us to look at what we do and how we do it. I'd say the University of Maine system is a very different enterprise than it was just a handful of years ago when I was associate provost and even my time as provost with two different presidents. We are a different breed of cat now. I'd say that's one of the pieces that I'd say was in some ways a legacy item that will. That would come back. When people look at the presidency now, and that's the degree of partnership and the degree of coordination, we're still working out the details. It's a work in progress. It won't be done in one year or two years. But our university system is a very different, I'd say, animal than it was. The chancellor and I work very well together. We laugh because we do. Occasionally, I'd say we laugh about it because we say we disagree on some of our tactics. We don't disagree in terms of our landscape and our long term perspective. But a piece of what I want to do before I stop being president is really talk to the Campus and bring the campus into discussions about what the job really is and how the next president, what they have to be looking for. Because the old model of the land grant president for the, for Maine is really not what the job is anymore. It's really to take the university and be the leader across the state and to take our mission as a border to border enterprise very seriously. And that means being the best partner we can with every other aspect of our University of Maine system. And that's a little different. And that is not a criticism of my predecessors at all. It's the evolution that has occurred. But we have to maintain it. And so we have to really be ready when we're looking for another president that we have some idea what this job really is and how it's different than it has been in the past.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you have two more years.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

I have two more years, yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And then after that, hopefully you'll have the right person in place.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

I hope so. Certainly. I'm sure we will. But in two more years I'll retire.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One thing I, I guess my last question slash comment is that I've been impressed to see the upgrade in facilities. You know, having spent my short amount of time there many years ago and coming back with my child and actually my other child is going to start at the University of Maine as a transfer student this fall.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Oh, wonderful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So obviously what field I think she's going to do? Gender studies, history, art. But okay, liberal.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Exactly.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Which is actually the largest college of liberal arts and sciences in the state if you really think about it. And we have wonderful small private institutions, elite small privates. But just the scale and scope of our College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is actually bigger, that's all.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I think so.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Just thought I'd throw that out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hey, well, I feel good. I'm gonna start writing the checks this summer, so that is good to know. But I also have noticed, you know, you are known for having high quality athletics but you also are doing a lot of good for the health and well being of non student athletes on campus. You have a beautiful new facility, rec center. It's amazing to me and as a parent, that feels really good.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

The rec center was built about 10 years ago, I think is about right. I've been a gym rat essentially all my life. I played sports in college so I went to the rec center. I when, when the rec center was about this big and it was in the basement of the field house. But the rec center was built really as a student Initiative. The students voted that they would pay an additional fee in order to. So we could fund it. And that facility is. That and the expansion of the union years ago are the two things that I think have really, in a sense, gelled the community. It is a fabulous space. It has a recreational park pool with a little bit of lap swimming, but basically a fun pool. It has multiple basketball and volleyball courts. It has multiple fitness areas. It has a heavyweight area that people who really lift a lot of weight go to and then a lighter weights area so that everybody can find their spot. I don't think people feel intimidated going to the rec center. It's used. I go there in the morning. I go. I'm an early morning person. And I actually have a personal trainer who's one of our students. It has nothing to do with being president. I pay. Pay the bill. If you just sign up, pay the bill, you can have a personal trainer and he's fabulous. And there are people from the community that use it. There are all kinds of workout groups that get together and it just has made such a difference. And even going early in the morning, there are a number of students there now. It's not their peak time. I think 4 o' clock in the afternoon. I don't even venture in because I think that's not my zone. But it has made a huge difference. And it's part of just. We're trying to get people to come to college, experience what is essentially a huge buffet table. And part of it is certainly academic, but the rest of it are the other things. It's becoming healthier. It's become conscious of choices that you make about your lifestyle. It's becoming engaged in community. Figure out what activities you like, that everybody can find something. You know, develop your artistic side, get involved in a musical organization, be involved in theater. Maybe you're the backstage person who likes to paint scenery, write for the newspaper, be in student government. There's just a vast array of opportunities. And it's that combination of that plus the academic. It is really what generates educated people. And that's, I think, a main product of a university, are educated people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dr. Hunter, how can people find out about the University of Maine?

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Well, we love to have people come tour, certainly. We certainly have a website and we'd love for people to look us out, look us over and then come visit. When you come up north or even drive up north, it's only in spite of the fact that it's two hours from Orono to Bangor, it is not four hours. I'm sorry. Orono to Portland. It is not four hours from Portland to Orono, you know, but we love to have people come visit. And you never know, I might just hop in your car and drive around with you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But we won't promise that just for people who are listening.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

No, but we really would love for people to connect with us. And there are ways to arrange to come. There are group tours, certainly open house and admissions runs, constant tours, in a sense. But people that are interested in a particular unit or department can make a connection and actually meet with faculty or a department chair, sometimes a dean. We really. People will go out of their way to make sure that a student who's interested gets to see what would be most interesting to them and make a connection. That might be the thing that they say, oh, yeah, this would be ideal for me. Because really what we want people to do is come look at us. We'd love for people to select coming to Maine, but what we really want to do is have more people get educated. And so we really want people to find their best, the best place for them. And that means that it may be that the best place for a student is to go to the University of Southern Maine or to go to the University of Maine at Farmington. We think we have a vast, a wide array of opportunities in public higher education in Maine. And basically we want people to check them out and figure out the best position for them, what suits, what fits.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your taking the time to drive down here the two hours from Orono. A little bit more than two hours.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Depends how heavy footed one is, I suppose.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I wasn't gonna say that, but

Dr. Susan Hunter:

you can say that I have never been pulled over. I'm okay.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your being with us today and also being part of my children's education and my brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and parents, both of them. We've been speaking with Dr. Sue Susan Hunter, who is the president of the University of Maine. I look forward to seeing what happens over the next two years, the remainder of your presidency. And I look forward to see what happens with the University of Maine system.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

Well, I think there's a lot of excitement to come. I think, you know, I think the one thing about the people on campus, they, they see themselves as, as here to work for the people of the state of Maine. And so as more and more people think about it as really we have a statewide job to do, it translates into work all across the state and helping people all across the state. And that's ideal.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Conway, who is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law. She joined the law school officially in July of 2015 and is nationally known as a leading expert in public procurement law, entrepreneurship and as an advocate for minorities and indigenous peoples. Thanks so much for coming in.

Danielle Conway:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I guess as is usually the case, I always have to ask the things that I don't know about first. I don't know what public procurement law is. What is that?

Danielle Conway:

It's okay. Public procurement happens all around you. It's what makes society work. So it is the means of by which the government regulates itself in the purchasing of good services and construction for all of the things that we need to do as an organized society.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how did you become interested in this?

Danielle Conway:

I became interested in public procurement because of my military obligation. I was an ROTC cadet. That's how I paid for my university schooling and I had to fulfill my obligation as an army officer. But the army said if you would like, you can go to law school. We'll give you an educational delay. So I delayed, went to Howard University School of Law, earned my law degree, passed the bar, and I was summarily called back to government service as a captain in the U.S. army. And they said you will be practicing public procurement law. That's how it happened.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I thank you for your service. It really it's amazing. You're in the Maine Army National Guard. You were sworn in in 2015 and you have more than 25 years of active and reserve service with the US Army.

Danielle Conway:

That's exactly correct. And I have to tell you, I got a wonderful letter in the mail last week, which alerted me to my eligibility for retirement. So I'm announcing with you today that I am going to be retiring with 28 years of service.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Wow. Well, that is amazing. And you're a Lieutenant colonel at this point?

Danielle Conway:

That's correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you'll retire, I'm assuming, with that same rank.

Danielle Conway:

Yes. It's been an honor to serve, and I have to thank all of my mentors, but more importantly, all of my fellow soldiers who made it possible for me to do 28 years and do the good work that I believe I've done for the government.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is an important thing. And I don't know that as many people know about the military and legal connection as they do say doctors in the military. Is this called the JAG program? Is this part of that?

Danielle Conway:

Yeah. Our corps is called the Judge Advocate General's Corps, and we are the largest law firm in the nation. So at last count, we had about 1600 lawyers represented in the JAG Corps. And we do everything from criminal law to defense work, from public procurement to environmental regulation. We write policy, we advise commanders, we make the military engine work, and we make it work according to the rule of law.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how did this prepare you to become a dean and professor of law at the University of Maine School of Law?

Danielle Conway:

I am very fortunate that as a military officer for 28 years, I have learned from some of the best leaders in the business. Many people think about the military as this authoritarian organization. In fact, it's an organization that promotes teamwork, collegiality, respect, and dignity. And it's those characteristics that I bring to the deanship. And having spent 28 years learning from the best leaders in the business, something had to wash off.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you also have done. You've authored numerous books, chapters, and articles. You've delivered numerous speeches, and you really have. You're sort of a multi communicational individual. How you do, does one get good at all of these different aspects?

Danielle Conway:

Great question. One gets good at these things by saying yes to everything. I made it a rule when I started practicing to always say yes. Not because I was trying to meet particular stepping stones or get to a particular place, but something about the law and something about leadership makes you always want to try something new. And so by saying yes to tasks or assignments, you learn something. And that's how I've progressed in my career, to actually learn a lot about a lot of things. And when you do that, you begin to see how everything's interconnected. So there is really nothing you're not exposed to if you say yes to it, learn from it. Transfer that knowledge to the next task.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This must serve you well in your, I'll say your job as a mother of a five year old son.

Danielle Conway:

Yes, he is a task.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what has happened like for you to be. To have such a strong intellectual and communication background and now you have a five year old?

Danielle Conway:

Well, see, it's a problem because I'm looking at this five year old and trying to talk to him like a 25 year old. So that's my fault. But it's been a journey and an extraordinary journey. He is fun, he is excited, he is a diva. He breaks down, he gets right back up, he's resilient. And it's teaching me a lot about who I need to be as a leader, a mother, a friend, a parent. And there's a lot of forgiveness that goes with being a parent because they teach you that you are completely fallible, but all you have to do is keep coming back to them with love and encouragement and they give you another chance every time. It's amazing to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I guess I'd have to say that that's true. There's so much about parenting that's just about showing up and being willing to engage.

Danielle Conway:

It is. Some days you show up with your A game, some days you show up with your C game. You just show up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's true. And my kids are now older, so some. And they're all great kids. And most of the time they will tell me all of the great things they learned from me and every so often they'll slip in something about my C game and I'm like, thank you for keeping me humble. That's really very sweet of you.

Danielle Conway:

They are very good scorekeepers.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, they absolutely are. You have an interest in minorities and indigenous peoples and specifically, I think you have an interest in people who are seeking asylum. Tell me about that.

Danielle Conway:

So as you can tell and your listeners will learn, I am an African American woman and it has been a very interesting road to ho being who I am and being in the places where I find myself. And I say interesting. Sometimes interesting means challenging. Other times it does mean disappointing. But most of the times it just means being resilient and successful and thoughtful about all the privileges I have and how those privileges should be communicated to others. So I've had great successes in my life and I believe that those successes are going to be best recognized when others can share in them. And so I'm very interested in the immigration asylum issues not just facing Maine, but Facing the nation, how we grow our nation to be inclusive, to respect diversity. And these things are critical. It's critical because it's how this country, how this nation was founded. And sometimes you hear things today that make you think people are forgetting that. And so with the privileges, the challenges, the success, successes I have, I want others to experience that and understand it comes from being part of this collective. And that is what we are. We are collective in the great nation that is this United States of America.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems like we are now at a place where people are. Where there's more friction, there's more conversation happening. And I think that makes many people uncomfortable. You know, there's. There's always. There seems to be more people who are willing to speak their piece about. About being a minority, or maybe not being a minority. Maybe people are speaking their piece about disliking immigrants. But I think this discomfort is probably good because I think there was a lot of stuff that went unsaid for a really, really long time.

Danielle Conway:

Exactly. I think people have to say, speak. And part of the thing that is most important to me as a teacher to communicate to my students is you can speak, but speak with respect, and speak with a belief and a veracity in what you're saying, but then also listen with the same intent. Listen with the same kind of strength and respect for which you propose your own statement or comment or view of the world. If you can listen as well as you speak, then the friction and the angst and the anxiety that we experience when we disagree will be a learning opportunity.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How do you feel about the current climate of, say, microaggression that have come up on university campuses and students saying, well, this university professor said something that maybe it seemed very small to somebody else, but to me, it felt very deep and hard. What kind of a climate is that to teach in and to be a dean in?

Danielle Conway:

So I'm a person who has approached the pedagogy with an interest in exploring some of those issues, not in wiping them out. So if you are feeling like there has been a microaggression lodged toward you, my response is to make that known and then to discuss that, make it available as information to the person who's teaching you. I think on college campus is it is important to have discourse, and so it should not be a place where political correctness rules the day. Rather, if we learn how to speak and listen to one another, we can actually work through these things that we call microaggressions. We can work through what we may identify as White privilege or economic privilege, and find out why those things do cause oppression into certain segments of our community and then start figuring out solutions. How do we address it? So I am all for the discussion and the discourse, and I would actually counsel people not to jump to a place where we cannot speak about all of these issues to find solutions.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I do think that that's an interesting conundrum that people now feel boxed in by all the things that they don't know how to say in a politically correct manner. And that creates its own set of problems.

Danielle Conway:

One thing I learned when I was studying the theory of teaching from a woman who has been a fabulous mentor to me, Jill Ramsfield. She first taught at elementary and then high schools, and then got a law degree and taught at law schools. So she always said, as a teacher, you have to be genuine in how you listen to people. You have to listen with integrity and you have to listen with honesty. That's what I'd like to proliferate on campuses. Many of us speak, but how many of us listen and then listen with good faith? So if someone is presenting a topic to you and it feels bad and it feels negative, keep listening, open your mind, open your soul to it, and try to understand the person's perspective and then try to intervene in that perspective with your own. But each requires a good faith listener at the table.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that we are educating attorneys these days or really any professionals, but because you happen to work with attorneys on how to listen?

Danielle Conway:

I think that we have impliedly taught this skill. I think that there are several courses that have entered into the curriculum that actively teach it. So we have negotiations courses, we have skills based courses where we interview clients now. So it's not the stodgy, stale classroom that some of us may have learned a lot of these techniques from books. Rather, we've actually elevated to a place where we practice these trainings and skills and we call them experiential learning. And so yes, law students are actually getting explicit practice with how to listen. But can we do better? Always listening is hard work.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You mentioned that you had an interest in law school, at least in part because of your ROTC background. But your interest in law school actually comes goes even further back than that. Tell me about that.

Danielle Conway:

So I had this wonderful toy and it was one of those, I think, Fisher Price toys where you would have a plastic record on a little turntable. I don't know where my mother got this toy, but on this toy was a speech from Martin Luther King Jr. I have a dream And I used to play that Fisher Price record all the time and listen to this man's melodic voice just resonating in my ears. And so I'd listen, I'd listen, listen to my mom. I'd listen to her friends that would come over and of course they'd be talking about politics and civil rights. And I kind of put those two things together and I was like, I think this, this gentleman, Martin Luther King Jr. Was all about civil rights. Let me find out a little bit more about him. And my mom had these wonderful Encyclopedia Britannicas, right? This was all before digital. And so I would go to these encyclopedia and I would find out everything that it had to say about Martin Luther King Jr. About civil rights. And hey, it was like self learning and then listening to all the people around the table. So that's where it started. And I was about eight years old when I had that toy and sort of started on this journey of reflection on what these words meant. And all of the work I came up with was that lawyers were really helped Martin Luther King Jr. In his march to freedom, in his march for civil rights, it was lawyers who did it. And so I fused those things together, civil rights and law. And look, I started practicing procurement. I love it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you say that you, your role models are include your mother?

Danielle Conway:

Yes. So my mother, she has a great story and I'm really happy you're asking about it. My mother was a person who consumed undergraduate degree on a part time basis. My father was not very supportive of her studies. She had four children. He should be home taking care of these children. So my mother would study anywhere she could. I would find my mom studying in the bathroom. So it took her 10 years to get an accounting degree. And then she said, you know what, I've been doing this for 20 years, I want to do more. She decided to go to law school. I was in high school at the time, so I watched my mom go to law school at night I watched her study, I watched her pull her hair out. I watched her go to the racetrack to get more money to pay for tuition. It was terrific. So my mother, at night she did this thing called law school. And she was amazing at it. And her, her perspective was amazing. She wasn't trying to get the best grade, she was trying to learn the information. She'll tell you she got an O lordy degree, not a cum laude degree. And she was an older woman, so she could not go to the law firms like so many of us had the opportunity to do. So she opened up a law firm in our basement. She represented community members. She represented our neighbors who were involved in the criminal justice system. She represented everyone. And it was such an impressive display of community organizing, her being available in our North Philadelphia community to people who had never laid eyes on a lawyer. She eventually began to work for a union, and then she got the gumption to actually run for Municipal court judge in Philadelphia, and she won. And so the latter part of her career was spent on the bench doing her work as a judge. And I think she is the most amazing, flawed human being that there is, and she is my role model.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We had Sue Roesch on the radio show from the Immigrant Legal Aid Project, and she also did Maine Live. And I'm always interested to think about lawyers, because you describe your mother, and obviously we had Sue Roesch on. And you were talking with me earlier about Deirdre Smith, who also does legal aid in the community. Lawyers, they give a lot. There's a lot. There are a lot of good lawyers out there who are doing a lot of good work, but you don't have always the best. For some reason, lawyers don't always get the best kind of reputation.

Danielle Conway:

Yeah, the narrative, especially these days, is not good around the law, the legal profession, or lawyers. And I think lawyers are part of responsible for it. Many lawyers have to work so hard and so long on complicated, sophisticated issues. They don't pay attention necessarily to the narrative and the rhetoric around them. I did a survey that I introduced to lawyers involved with the Juneau Inn of Court, and I asked them, what's your responsibility, policing the narrative around the legal profession? And a good percentage of them thought, well, that's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to serve my client, to act with integrity and let my actions define me as a lawyer. Well, unfortunately, because of the digital world we live in, because of the significance of media in our state society, we have allowed the narrative about lawyers to be spun by some people who are other than lawyers. And the narrative is not a good one. We need to begin to take that back. We need to explain the relevance and significance of lawyers to our community and that we are defenders of the Constitution, we promote the rule of law, and we represent people who are unable to represent themselves. And this is the view of the law that I will be promoting and am just committed to promoting as the dean of the University of Maine School of Law.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that leads me very nicely into a question for you, which is, what would you like to have happen at the University of Maine School of Law under your Tenure.

Danielle Conway:

Yes. Two programs in particular are quite important. Important to me. We have several priorities, but these two are really important. As I came to Maine, I am a newcomer to Maine myself. I recognize that the bench and bar really needs to diversify because the community is diverse. So we don't have lawyers in every segment of the community where we need them. There is a challenge in rural communities. There is a challenge in the newest Mainer, accessing affordable legal services. So a program that I started when I got here with the help of my faculty and staff is the Pre Law Undergraduate Scholars Program. It's an immersion law program where we bring undergraduate students into the law school for a four week program so that they can see themselves as law students, but also receive a program of study that primes them to be the next generation of leaders that this state needs. And the beneficiary group for this is quite broad. We have brought in people who are from rural communities, people who have grown up in poverty, people from the newest Mainer communities, as well as people who have been traditionally underrepresented at the bench and bar. And we brought them together for this four program, 25 deserving students to teach them about the legal profession, its importance to the community, and how they could use it to actually transform the state of Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what would you say to yourself as a person who's now along in her career and has achieved this great responsibility, what would you say to yourself as a child if you had the chance to go back?

Danielle Conway:

That's a great question. So what I would say to myself is, you don't always have to do everything right. You don't always have to be perfect. You do have to learn what your voice sounds like, what that voice tells you to do. And you have to be true to that voice. And so, as I told you before, I'm an actual American woman. I embrace that in all of its beauty, in all of its vision. And when I walk down the street, everybody knows it. So you have to embrace who you are. And that took a long time for me to get there. And I'm sure it takes a long time for other people to get there, regardless of their racial background, ethnicity, socioeconomic situation. So I would listen to my voice and I would tell myself, sit still. Learn that voice. Honor that voice. Respect that voice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your sharing your voice with us with me today. It's really been a pleasure to speak with you.

Danielle Conway:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been talking with Danielle Conway, who is the dean and professor of law at the University of Maine School of law and I'm sure that what you want to have happen with the law school will happen.

Danielle Conway:

Thank you. It will.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 267, Maine's University. Our guests have included Susan Hunter and Danielle Conway. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E newsletter and like our Love Mean Radio Facebook page, follow me on Twitter as rlisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We'd love to hear from you. So please let us know what you think of Love Mean Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring LoveMain Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Maine's University Show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Susan Hunter:

nice

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Danielle Conway:

in

[Unidentified voice]:

04096 than here in 103 and when you ask me I say la la la.