On the Oct. 23 episode of The Caring Economy podcast, President Adam Weinberg sat down with host Toby Usnik to share his journey of leadership, mentorship, and innovation from his early days as a hockey player to leading one of the most forward-thinking liberal arts colleges in the country.
Some key takeaways from the podcast, edited for clarity:
Denison University President Adam Weinberg
What Weinberg found at Denison
“I walked on this campus for the first time in fall of 2012 and just fell deeply in love in ways that at the time, I couldn’t really explain,” Weinberg told Usnik. “I think what I found here was a place that really shared my values. And a place that shared my vision for where education needed to go if it was both going to stay healthy and relevant in a rapidly changing world.
“And now I’m starting my 12th year … I can say each year I just feel blessed and honored to be here, and I’m always really excited to be with 2,400 amazing students and extraordinary faculty and staff. I think we do education the right way.”
The biggest predictor of success in college
“From my perspective, one of the single biggest predictors of how much a student will get out of college is finding a mentor. They’re people who care about you, they connect with you, and they also catalyze you.”
Why Denison has done so well
“I think our success has been driven by a number of different things. One, I think we’ve been keenly aware of what families and prospective students want in a private, residential liberal arts college. So we’ve made some significant pivots.
“We’ve held onto the things that we do really well, which is the relationships and experiences. As I often say, you can develop those relationships and experiences at lots of different kinds of institutions — but you come to a place like Denison because you’re really seeking them. On our campus, 100% of our students are going to develop relationships with faculty and staff. 100% of our students are going to have good relationships with peers. Everybody at Denison is involved in different things.
“So we’ve doubled down on our core. But second is we’ve really leaned into the career piece. My view is very strongly that I want to deliver to students a life-shaping education and launch them like a rocket ship into their lives and careers. And I don’t want to load them up with debt during the process. So we’ve really focused on the three parts of that value proposition, and I think that’s what’s really driven our applications.
“I think the other piece is we just have happy students. We have a lot of students, a lot of parents, who are out there talking about the experience their students are having on our campus. We’ve been super successful over the last couple of years, but I think it’s because we’ve really leaned into and tried to listen to our students, to our families, and to pay attention to where the higher education market’s going.”
Three pieces of advice for college students
“I’ve been really fortunate to have good mentors at every step of my career, and I don’t think mentors just happen. You have to be open to it. What I always say to our students is to develop relationships and seek out people who will care enough about you and connect enough with you to catalyze you.
“The second is, you can’t be motivated by your fear of failure. You have to be motivated by the opportunity to perform at a higher level than you thought you could. I had lots of career stumbles along the way, but I saw them as opportunities to learn and grow.
“The third is, and I often say this to our students, careers are many things, but they’re not linear. Life is not linear. It only looks linear when you look backward. But I think good lives are built by people who have a keen understanding of the kinds of human beings they want to be. They seek out mentors, they seek out experiences, they have emotional agility and resiliency, and they see it kind of as a journey.”
The power of being in the moment
“The last piece of advice, the thing I wish I had known earlier in my life and career … I’ve learned just to be present in the moment and not worry about what happens in the past, not worry about the future. Just be present in the moment, pay attention to it every day, and give it my all to see where things go.”