Engaging with Scholarship: Featuring Dr. Bernie Savarese
My name is Dr. Bernie Savarese, and I have the privilege of serving as the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Research and Student Success for the University of Tennessee (UT) System – a land-grant university system that enrolls over 60,000 students across five campuses. Prior to joining the UT System in 2021, I served as New York University’s (NYU) inaugural Assistant Vice President for Student Success and the Student Experience. My first two decades in the field were at The Ohio State University where I served most recently as the Director of University Orientation and First Year Experience. As a true lover of learning, I completed four degrees along the way, in disciplines that included political science, business, philosophy, and education. Each academic adventure was driven by a deep sense of curiosity and a desire to make critical connections between research and practice, even if I didn’t have that language at the time.
I am honored to kick off this new column, geared towards practitioner-focused scholarship. The National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, through its publications and events, has helped to shape how I approach my work as a higher education professional, and for that I will be forever grateful. As I reflected on how to start this column, I was reminded of some of my earliest memories of reading. I grew up in a blue-collar family, just across the Ohio River from Wheeling, West Virginia. While there were not many books in the house, my father knew I loved our trips to the local library. In what could be described as the nerdiest birthday gift of all time, he and my grandparents saved for months to surprise me with my very own set of World Book Encyclopedias. I was over the moon! I don’t know if I’m the only kid to read encyclopedias cover to cover (multiple times), but I have a hunch it’s a small club.
The good news is Vice President Savarese has never lost younger Bernie’s curiosity and desire to make meaning of the world. I believe this is evident in the books, articles, podcasts, and other media I consume on a daily basis. Choosing only a few to highlight was not easy, but my hope is to give you, the reader, a sense for the different ways I engage with meaningful content to learn, challenge myself, and get inspired.
When it comes to academic literature, I’m currently teaching a doctoral-level course in the University of Tennessee’s higher education administration program and our reading list is very much top of mind as I write this piece. The book I selected for the class is, College Students in the United States: Characteristics, Experiences, and Outcomes, by Renn and Reason (2021). I had the pleasure of getting to know Dr. Renn through our shared work on the University Innovation Alliance more than a decade ago, and I was excited to assign her text to help bring the college student journey to life. I love how the book is framed around Astin’s (1993) Inputs – Environment – Outputs (IEO) framework; this has helped open the door to so many conversations about how to better support the college students of tomorrow. Beyond the class, my team selected, Land-Grant Universities for the Future: Higher Education for the Public Good, by Gavazzi and Gee (2018) for our summer reading. As a lifelong Buckeye, I can’t help but love reading a text written by fellow Buckeyes centered around the critical role land-grant universities have and must continue to play in today’s society. For my team members, especially those who have not had much exposure to this topic, our monthly conversations have helped us re-center our work and feel more connected to our mission.
In my personal life, I have a thing for rereading books I really love. There is something special about coming back to a book that changed the way I viewed the world. It’s like coming home. One of those recent books for me was, Thinking, Fast and Slow, by the late Daniel Kahneman (2011). I was introduced to the book at about the same time I was taking over the leadership for Ohio State’s FYE efforts. The program had earned a national reputation for its ability to help make one of the largest universities in the country feel small, but by 2010, the campus was changing and the data were telling us that large pockets of students were feeling disconnected and left behind. I wanted to find a better way to both understand and impact student judgment and decision making, and the student development theories I learned in graduate school were no longer sufficient. This is when Kahneman’s book unlocked an entire world of scholarship for me on behavioral science. I was hooked! I’m not sure if anything impacted the next decade of my professional practice as much as that book. From there I went on to read works such as Nudge, by Thaler and Sunstein (2008), Predictably Irrational, by Ariely (2009), and most other relevant literature I could get my hands on. When I learned Dr. Kahneman passed in March, I decided to read the book again. It was like sitting with an old friend whose advice and insights were just as relevant today.
Like many of us, I also work hard to make time to read timely articles from publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education and Trusteeship, by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. While the number of compelling articles are seemingly endless, one that has stuck with me of late was “Governing and Hiring for Systemness: Revenue, Resources, Planning and Collaboration,” by Lane and Zimpher (2023). Being relatively new to system leadership, I am always looking for insights and frameworks that help me navigate a role that requires simultaneously balancing the needs from multiple campuses, diverse students and faculty, and the state we serve. Lane and Zimpher do an excellent job speaking to the challenges and opportunities of system leadership. I have also gone back to this piece more than once in the past few months.
When I’m not reading a physical book or article, you can almost always find me listening to a podcast, whether that’s during my commute, when I’m out grocery shopping, or doing work around the house. This now daily habit started in earnest during my daily commute from my home in New Jersey to my NYU office in Greenwich Village. It was a great way for me to feel like I was using that time to continue to learn and grow. While my list of favorite podcasts is long, there are a few that are always at the top. If you’re looking for a podcast with a higher education focus, you’ll want to check out the content from my former Big Ten colleague, Jared Tippets, and his co-host, Eric Kirby, on the ASCEND to Higher Retention Rates podcast. With two seasons and over 100 episodes to explore, you will find countless nuggets of wisdom applicable to anyone looking to improve student outcomes. I know I had a blast engaging with them during their first season, and so did many of the colleagues and thought leaders I look up to in the field. Outside of higher education, I love anything produced by NPR and the Freakonomics family of podcasts. The latter has the unique ability to integrate insights, especially from the social sciences, to explain how we can better navigate a complex world. My current favorite show from that channel is No Stupid Questions, hosted by Angel Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, and Mike Maughan, CEO of Qualtrics. Each episode is grounded in research while also maintaining a practical and accessible tone. You should check it out!
While I could go on, I will stop here. I hope by sharing a little about the content that fuels my curiosity, I have exposed you to a new author or inspired you to check out a new medium. As we work to meet the challenges before us, I would argue that what we choose to consume intellectually is just as important as how we maintain our physical health. Making time to nurture this critically important part of your educator’s soul will always be time well spent.
References
Ariely, D. (2009). Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. HarperCollins.
Astin, A.W. (1993). What matters in college? Jossey-Bass.
Duckworth, A., & Maughn, M. (Hosts). (2020–present). No stupid questions. Freakonomics Radio Network [Audio podcast]. https://freakonomics.com/series/nsq/
Gavazzi, S. M., & Gee, E. G. (2018). Land-grant universities for the future: Higher education for the common good. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.
Lane, J.E., & Zimpher, N. L. (2023). Governing and hiring for systemness: Revenue, resources, planning, and collaboration. Trusteeship, 31(6), 10-19.
Renn, K. A., & Reason, R. D. (2021). College students in the United States: Characteristics, experiences, and outcomes. Jossey-Bass.
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press.
Tippets, J., & Kirby, E. (Hosts). (2022–present). ASCEND to higher retention rates [Audio podcast].