Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hi, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Southern Pride Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. I'm Rex Nelson, Democrat Gazette Senior editor, and it is my great honor today to have down from Jonesboro the Chancellor of Arkansas State University, Todd Shields. Thank you for joining us today.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: That's my great honor. Thanks for having me. We're glad to be here.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Well, so much to talk about. I mean, as you know, I love writing about all that's going on at asu, but all that's going on in the northeast Arkansas quadrant, I want to expand out into that. It really, really is exciting. I mean, as we tape this, people will be listing later, but as we tape this, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette front page this morning has a story on US Steel building yet another steel mill in Mississippi County. An announcement. So things just keep happening. But I want to go back because, as you know, I really love your perspective, and I have used this in columns, but you spent much of your career in northwest Arkansas at the University of Arkansas.
And you have told me that the feeling in the northeast quadrant now, where it feels like big things are on the verge of happening, reminds you a lot of what northwest Arkansas felt like 30 years ago.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, maybe even 20 years ago.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Just that we see the opportunities, we see the ways the universities can facilitate and help, and we see the need for it.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: But, you know, when my wife and I first moved to Fayetteville in 1994, there wasn't even a movie theater in Bentonville.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Unbelievable.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Walmart and Springdale. That probably took us 25 minutes to get there because it was just back roads.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: You know, it was a very different place.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: You know, I see the same type of thing happening in northeast Arkansas with the new mill that you mentioned, the new Google data plant that's coming in west Memphis.
There's just lots of growing industry in northeast Arkansas and lots of opportunities. And I see a state playing a very similar role in helping those industries grow. And in many ways, we are set up to do that and facilitate that even more so than we were in northwest Arkansas. Yeah, I'm really excited.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: So let's go back a few years to when you accepted the chancellor's job in Jonesboro. You had established a great career in northwest Arkansas at the University of Arkansas, found a home, raised, raised her children there.
What was the attraction of Arkansas State University? When did you say, this is why I'm going to make a major career leap at this point in my life.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Rex, you know, I love Building things. I would not have known that about myself 10, 15 years ago. I mean, I got into this because I still do love changing lives and teaching and that's my major passion. But I know that I affect more students and more lives when I'm in administration.
But when we're in administration and we're making changes of like let's improve this 3% or let's fix this one little bottleneck and that'll help 10 kids. Yeah, I just really want to build things. And being a part of the explosion that happened there and seeing what institutions of higher education have done for as an economic engine in other regions of the United States, that's what I was really wanting to be a part of. Yeah, but building a vet school, building and able to get into testing centers, building these things that I know are going to really change not only the industries, but our students lives too.
That's exciting for me. Those get me up in the morning. Those get me excited to figure out big picture questions of building. I guess I'd like to build the train station. I don't want to necessarily make sure they come in on time.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Well, you have already done a lot of building over the last few years.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: You mentioned the vet school. Of course, we already had the medical school that's associated with New York Institute of Technology on campus there.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: And we already had Darkness of Biosciences Institute, for instance.
So now you're going to be one of the few places, and I know ASU likes to promote this, but I love it. It's true that as a medical school, as a veterinary school, a Reese, a major research institution, all on one campus. All right there with in a rare.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Category, there are lots of institutions that have a medical school or a veterinarian school, but they're located three or four miles away. Yeah. Not necessarily on campus. We're one of the very few. There's maybe four or five where you could step on campus your first year as a freshman and then leave as a physician or a veterinarian and have a pathway that clearly they're designed to help you succeed.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: That really puts us in an elite position.
And I love promoting that.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: From promoting it too.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Well, you know, I have told you the story when you and I have walked around campus in Jonesboro before. But I have vivid memories. I'll take you back 25 years ago when I was working in the governor's office and we were coming up but with a plan to how to spend the tobacco settlement money, which of course, was coming to all states at that time. We ended up going to the ballot. We couldn't get it through a special legislative session. Ended up going to the ballot and doing an initiated act, which. Which passed overwhelmingly. But I was in that meeting when we were talking about we needed more research capability in the state.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: And.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Our immediate plan was to have a research center on the UAMS campus in Little Rock, to have one on the Fayetteville campus.
And the leading Democratic senator at that time, of course, was Mike Beebe, who had to have his support.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Thank you, Mike.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: And he said, you will not have my support. I was in the meeting. You will not have my support unless there's one on the Jonesboro campus. Of course, when he became a trustee there, he was like the youngest college trustee in the country.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: I think he was.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah. In his 20s.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: And has long had a deep love for that institution. And over his eight years as governor. But even back then, and this was 25 years ago.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: I know he had that vision and others have grown into that vision that, you know, Arkansas is big enough for two strong systems of higher education, not just the UA system, but the ASU system.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you look around at other. Other states that have similar populations, you've got Kansas State and Kansas, you know, Mississippi State and Mississippi Miss. And you've got Auburn, Alabama, and you've got Oklahoma State. Oklahoma. And honestly, even when I was in northwest Arkansas, I always thought that competition's good.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: We're not going to all hit the same type of things. I mean, when I was partnering with the engineering and Walton College of Business in Fayetteville to create the data center data analytics program, we really focused it on retail. Right.
And our data center and data analytics programs now are focusing on the region's interests and needs there. So precision agriculture, steel manufacturing, automated manufacturing, healthcare, those types of things. And so those very different types of needs and then both systems are really needed.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Let's go back to what's happening. Big picture again.
You know, I mentioned.
I mentioned US Steel just announcing it's going to build a third plant in southern Mississippi County. Of course, it bought Big River Steel, which built Big River One. The then was already, when it was purchased, was nearing completion of Big River 2, the two most modern, efficient steel mills in the history of the world, actually in Arkansas now, their third facility. Interestingly enough.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: That announcement came on the same day that Dave Stickler's high bar rebar plant in Osceola was having its official dedication grand opening. He's about to go with a second plant there. You've got the two older plants, as I call them, but still very efficient.
More than $1 billion since the pandemic Nucor going on. So we are seeing billions flowing into northeast Arkansas. You then mentioned West Memphis, which I've just written a perspective cover story on Google saying that it will invest $4 billion there.
And this was interesting. They made clear through the end of 2027. So that's just through the end of 27. And Mayor McClendon in West Memphis tells me he thinks that may eventually be a 7 to 10 billion dollars.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Clearly phased. Yeah, I mean, it's the way it's written. You can clearly see there's another phase coming after that.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Yes.
So we are literally seeing billions flowing into northeast Arkansas.
The biggest private investment in state history is Big River Steel. 2, 3 billion.
Google's about to surpass that.
And so if you were to ask the average Arkansan, where are the two biggest private investments in Arkansas history?
They're going to say northwest Arkansas or maybe central Arkansas. Both of them in northeast Arkansas.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: They're in northeast Arkansas. Yeah. And the thing that I love about it, too, is that these are really lucrative careers. And the industries themselves are very environmentally friendly. Yeah. So Mississippi water comes in and it leaves cleaner than when it went in, and air comes in and leaves cleaner than when it went out. These electric arc furnaces that they're using are just really efficient, which helps them be very profitable. But it's also great for Arkansas. It's great for the nature, it's great for environment.
These are wonderful things that are happening.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the keys, as you well know, as longtime resident of northwest Arkansas, to that region's success has been regional cooperation. Thinking as one region, people tend to say, as you know, I live in northwest Arkansas, whereas here they say, I live in Benton, or I live in Bright, or I live in Conway, or.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: I live in Little Rock. Right.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Northwest Arkansas Council, early on, you know, was created to build an interstate and build an airport, which indeed. But then went into all this regional cooperation. It's been a real key.
I know you believe Arkansas State University can be the catalyst for that same kind of regional planning and cooperation.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Northeast Quad, when you look at chambers of commerce and you look at the different industries, and it's difficult for them to all come together because they're paid by different sources. But Arkansas State, much like the University of Arkansas, you know, when we win, they win. When they win, we win. So in many ways, we're A neutral convener to basically provide data, to provide the analyses that people need, help guide decisions, and to say, hey, yes, every area can keep its own identity. But then there are two to three things that we're all going to agree on. We really need this. And you get 16 different counties and 600,000 people all saying, yeah, we're different, but we've got these two things we want. That's really difficult to ignore.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it really is. Once you all get everybody on the same page. And you recently hosted what was known as the Catalyst Northeast Arkansas Forum. You had over 600 people show up for that event. Talk a little bit about that.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: So. And that's our second one. Our first one was in earlier this year, and we had over 600 people come to that.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: And just recently another 600 plus people come to that one. And that represented several different counties, many different industries, several universities. We're acting really like region already.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: And many people are living regionally, working in one area, living in another, playing baseball, going to church service in another area. I mean, we're acting like in a region already.
You know, Graham Cobb with Chamber of Commerce in Bentonville, saying that when he turned on the tv, he was surprised to hear there was news about Manila and Paragould and all these different places are going, and we're acting like that already. So I think that the turnout for these is showing that, yeah, there are a lot of people ready to say, yeah, how do we get together and how do we do this? And our Catalyst conferences are showing that people are ready to do it. So our next steps are really to bring these leaders together, start talking about the data and the trends and demographics and needs, and then start identifying what are the couple of things that we as a region really want to prioritize.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: One thing I know you want to see Arkansas State do more of is. Is really act as a research and development arm for the business community. So, you know, it's the kind of thing that we see, let's say, in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, where they've traditionally relied on the universities there to. To drive growth, drive research, speak a little to that, how you're positioning Arkansas State.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: So, you know, when I presented it to faculty, I wasn't, you know, three years ago when I got there, wasn't really sure what their response would be, but it was overwhelming.
They were saying, yes, let's find out what their needs are, let's design our programs, let's design our labs, let's design our research agendas to align with the problems they had. So the programs we're coming up with and the research projects we're coming up with are not ones we're coming up with. In our, you know, our meetings on campus, we went out and asked the industries, hey, what is it you need to win from the workforce pipeline into the continuum all the way to the R and D end of the continuum of the workforce. And they said, we need this and this and this. And we're putting it all together with their input. So it's not just academic led program, we're getting industry input. They're like, what do the students need? What do they have that's really good? We'll double down on what do they don't need and we'll drop that and we'll add what they need, make sure that they're successful. Day one.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: You're launching, among other things, a multimillion dollar steel testing and research center.
I mentioned the companies that are involved, US Steel, High Bar, Nucor.
Why is it important to have a neutral third party testing facility for the.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: So a lot of companies are, I mean, steel companies are increasingly being asked by their consumers to say, traditionally these companies did in house testing, right? To say, hey, this steel is this level of quality, that's why it's this price. And then this other steel is really high quality, that's why it's this price. And honestly, consumers want to know a third party evaluating that. So what they've had to do in the past, if a consumer or customer has asked for that, they've had to send samples out, out of state to the coast or to Chicago or New York. And that that causes delays, it causes friction if the results come back differently, that kind of thing.
What we're going to try to do is basically make a testing center right there in their area so that there's not a delivery problem that we're working right there with them so that we know exactly what they're looking for and also provide some redundancy for them because when their equipment fails or they get a big shipment and they can't process it quickly, we can help them with that as well.
So we're really changing from not just the testing center, which we will be, but also really a partner. So moving from we're not selling steel, but we're telling customers what's in it, right? And then also helping the steel companies design, hey, is this steel that you're new designing, is it better? Is it stronger? Is the welding that you're putting together better? Is it going to break if it is how and what is going to be. So we're really helping them build not just manufacturing steel, but the science of manufacturing steel.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah. You're also talking about that regional approach and getting everybody on the same page.
You're also partnering with the two year institutions in the region, asu, Newport, Arkansas, Northeastern College in Mississippi county, something called the Crest Center. Talk about what that does and how it helps companies that are now locating at such a rapid rate.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. So on the, on the entry level, workforce development part of it, we are working already regionally and you mentioned asu, Newport and ANC and we expect to expand that. But we're also working with the high schools and the superintendents, bringing them in together with the industries to say hey, what are these students that are coming out? What do they have that's really great? What do they need to have added to it? And we're not just doing it ourselves, we're partnering with everybody that has the skills to make that happen. So we really got K through 12, two year institutions, four year institutions and industries working together to say how do we provide the workforce for all these new big companies that are coming in?
And a lot of students are seeing there's a great deal of training and support for really lucrative jobs right there.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: That's exciting. Now I touched on both the medical school and the vet school, so I want to get into both of those a little more.
Well, let's start, let's start with the medical school. I mean everybody in Arkansas knows what a challenge we have had heading providing health care. I mean we're a rural state still and we've got real problems with a lack of health care in rural areas. Now the institution has made a real commitment to growing the health care workforce. And so talk a little about the, the school, how it's associated. I mentioned New York Institute of Technology, how it works with ASU and the problems you see it helping solve. So not just in northeast Arkansas, but statewide.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Statewide. Absolutely, statewide.
You know, when I, when I got there we, there wasn't a lot of collaboration and partnership between a state and the med school.
So when we were saying basically they.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Were just on Wilson, all there on campus, but they weren't collaborating a little.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Bit more than that. Not a real strategic here we're going to do. So I said let's develop the best pre medical program in the region and maybe in America because a student can come in on campus day one if they want to go into a health care field.
A lot of our students are first Gen students, they don't really know what that means. And so they may have gaps in their, in their high school education.
We're going to try to make sure we fill those gaps. By the time they're juniors and seniors in that program, they're going to be working with the medical students and working with the doctors and the professors in the medical school.
We'll provide a step by step approach so that it's not ambiguous and they don't really know what to do next. And we're also going to make sure that they know exactly what to expect in medical school. I mean, my experience has been that we prepare students the best we can and then we send them off and then it's a shock when they get to med school. We're going to make sure that that's not the case, that they know exactly what to expect when they're there because they've already been working and taking classes and participating together already.
So the pathway is going to be there. You maintain a 3.5 GPA and then you're not even going to have to take the MCAT to get into the medical school. And then we'll provide support staff the whole time.
And then we use the distributive model, which means that you do your rotations not in St. Louis or in Dallas or in Atlanta, but you'll be working with doctors and with the vet school, with veterinarians in the state.
So that when you're finished, you're going to stay in Arkansas.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: The national data that's very, very clear where you're going to train. That's where you stay.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: And put a lot of doctors across the state already.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: I was going to say what you call the freshman to physician pathway. And so you're literally taking these kids the day they enter leave high school and enter college as a freshman and guiding them till they are a practicing physician.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: We are guiding them through there. And I'll even go further than saying we're even talking to the students who are in high school and saying, hey, if you're going to come into this program, you've not had this kind of a class here, so why don't you take this as a concurrent class.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: And it's offered at your high school or we'll help offer it at the high school for a concurrent. So we're even starting in the 11th and 12th grade. If they're interested in the healthcare field now, they often don't realize there's so many different careers in the medical field. But if they're interested in healthcare, wanting to become a doctor. We are working with them in high school all the way through when they're in the distributive model and they're out practicing helping them, getting placed and all of that too.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: So yeah, and I will mention to some of our listeners who may not realize, of course, ASU Jonesborough is the flagship institution. The ASU system includes another four year school, Henderson State University in my hometown of Arkadelphia, and they are part of this.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: Program. So again, this is not just a northeast Arkansas program. You're literally looking at placing physicians in all 75 counties all over Arkansas.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: All over. And this distributed model has already shown that they're putting doctors have graduated from NYIT med school all throughout Arkansas. And yeah, they're really being placed there. And that's the same type of a model that we're going to take to the veterinary school as well.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Well, that's where I wanted to go next. Your new College of Veterinary Medicine.
It is always, frankly amazed me in a state where agriculture is the leading sector of our economy. Still is.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Leading sector of our economy. A rural state that we didn't have a veterinary school in Arkansas. We never have. Our veterinarians have all my whole lifetime.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Been having to be trained out of sight outside the state.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Right. So my numbers may be off a little bit here, but I think last year there was 120 different students that applied to out of state vet schools.
There were, and these are qualified applicants. But there are only so many limited places. If you're going to go to LSU or if you're going to go to Oklahoma or in Missouri or Tennessee, there are only so many places because most of them are serving their states as well. So it's very tough if you're in Arkansan to get into those schools. And so what we're doing is basically making it so that you can stay here in the state, also have support systems and be successful in vet school here and then use a distributed model there. So you're practicing and you're doing your rotations in the state and developing those connections and we're expecting them to be able to stay in the state as well.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Yeah, you're looking to the future, it seems, in so many ways. Right now you're rolling out degrees like a master's in cybersecurity and you're integrating AI.
Talk about some of the ways AI, cybersecurity, all of that area which an old Luddite like me really doesn't understand. But old newspaper man who still wishes I was on an electric typewriter. But.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: You'Re really planning for the future. Talk about a little, little bit that you're doing in that area because we hear so much talk about AI in this day and time.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: You know, this is another example of something that we really wanted to do, but it was industries that were telling us we needed it. So it was banks and it was healthcare, it was hospitals, it was agricultural companies, it was steel mills, it was everybody that was saying, hey, we're being cyber attacked all the time and we need help with that. We don't have enough pipeline, we don't have the training. And, and even our current workers, the technology fields changing so much, even last month and a half, things have changed so much that keeping up even in training and upskilling incumbent workers is something that we're really going to be taking on in part of that program. But you know, the, the need for cybersecurity has never been greater and it's going to keep growing.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: And then in terms of AI, the not only do our students need to have that as a fundamental skill to succeed, but then incumbent workers that are 30, 40, 50 are realizing, I've got to learn how to do this or I'm not going to be able to keep up with the people that do. So. It's a whole different population of people we're going to be educating, but we're so excited to do it.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: At the same time that you're doing this, AI, cybersecurity, all the things I don't understand.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: You also, I know, want to emphasize personal skills like financial literacy and service. Adequate.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Yes. I mean, professional skills. I was again listening to the industries. I mean, whether it was whatever industry we're going into, whether professional in precision agriculture or whether it was healthcare or the steel industry or advanced manufacturing or food processing, they were all saying, hey, a lot of times the skills that these students have are great. But then the professional skills, like, how do you lead, how do you work with a team, how do you think like an entrepreneur and move forward and solve a problem, how do you do that?
We started thinking about, hey, can that be trained? And yeah, it can be trained. Like any type of a skill, it can be trained and say, like a lot of students don't really even know, like, how do you put together a resume and how do you interview and then how are you expected to dress and how are you expected to act in a team and how you expected to function within a community or a business? In an industry. And we're going to basically put that together and then we're going to give them experiences on campus. There's always this quandary of like, I need experience to get a job and I need a job to get experience.
And we're looking at our students going, there are a lot of places that you get the experience right here on campus. And so we're going to be training them in these professional skills that they need, that industry tells us that they need, training them through that and then getting them experience working on campus in very. All different units. And then, then they're going to be able to go out into these industries and say, hey, look, I've got the skills and I've got the experience. Here are things I did, whether I was working in finance or whether I was working in athletics, working on campus, so that they got that experience when they leave.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah, you're going to start me to preaching now because I spent five years in higher education as head of the association of all the private schools in the state, all liberal arts schools. Now you're a career academic, so I'll toss this one at you, But I always found this STEM versus the liberal arts debate silly.
It's not either or, it's both. It's absolutely industry specific skills. But you also need those critical thinking skills.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: That you're talking about there. Am I not right?
[00:28:20] Speaker B: You're completely right.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: I mean, why have we squared those two off through the years in academics against each other?
[00:28:27] Speaker B: It shouldn't be that way. A lot of times it's funding. You know, funding is funding STEM fields and it's not necessarily funding the liberal arts. But then what we're hearing from industry is that a lot of the liberal arts, the communication, the emotional intelligence and the ability to work as a team, critical thinking, that's what things that they really want.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: And what, what we're finding is that the students are getting those types of things in the classes, but then they're not necessarily being able to take it to an industry and say, okay, here's what I learned and how do I practice it? And so we're just going to bridge that gap. But you're right, the distinction between them is false. They need to be working together so the students can succeed in this generation.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, one of my favorite things is I travel the state, have the best job in Arkansas. As you know, I travel the state looking for great stories. And my favorite stories are those people who really went out and created something and made something big. Happen.
And I love it when people read something, I write about that and they'll say, I had no idea. I had no idea that was person was in Arkansas or doing that.
You've launched a new Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurial Management and Strategic Leadership. So talk why that is important and why the entrepreneurial mindset is now considered so critical.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Well, I'm co teaching it with Heather Nelson and we've brought in a lot of leaders who have lived the experience. So we're teaching it from the theory side and they're using the books about entrepreneurial thinking, but we're also having them interact with people who've lived it and contrasting what we're learning and what they've experienced and where they're similar, where they're different.
But basically it's another industry need that industries have said we need people who are thinking like entrepreneurs, whether they are starting their new business, teaching them how to do that from start to finish. But then also if they're in a, a big corporation, how do they think like an entrepreneur within that large organization?
I got interested in the class honestly, because when I was reading the book, I was going, man, I'm not an entrepreneur in the sense of I'm creating.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: A new business, right?
[00:30:39] Speaker B: But every project that I'm putting through and the things you've mentioned here have followed the same steps of an entrepreneur.
I'm not selling an IPO at the end of it, right? But up until then, it's all the same entrepreneurial thinking. We've got a problem, we've got a bottleneck. I've got to be very creative. I've got to build a team to get it done. I've got to keep the team motivated. I've got to morph into what it really is going to be. And what I initially think it might be turns out to be something even better.
If we're listening to the customer feedback and the industry feedback. And that's really what entrepreneurs are doing if they're starting their own business. And it's what people are doing if they're really successful in a career in a large organization.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Say what you're saying is you don't have to be starting a new business to have an entrepreneurial mind.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: No, I mean, we, you know, one of the things we found is that, yes, we've had people that have started their own businesses, some small, some very large. But then we've had people from Anheuser Busch, we've had attorneys, we've had people working in insurance agencies, had people working in energy. We've had people that are talking about, hey, I'm an entrepreneur in my area in this 3,000 person organization and you have to be thinking like that in order to make sure that you're continually growing.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Things are moving so fast right now that you just have to keep up. And they really are thinking like that. And like an entrepreneur, you've got to keep getting feedback on what you're doing well and what you're not. Fix those things where you're not quickly.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: I knew we were going to run out of time too quickly because I've got to get you back soon. I hadn't gotten a half of what I wanted to ask you, but I'll wrap up with this because we are running out of time.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: Look ahead a little bit into the future and tell me just big picture, kind of five years from now, even 10 years from now, where you see ASU and where you see Northeast Arkansas.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Northeast Arkansas is going to explode.
We're going to see a lot of students that are going to be choosing a state to go there because the pathway programs that we're providing and the support we're providing and the career pathways into these very lucrative industries. We're going to see Northeast Arkansas acting like a region.
We're going to see them working together, not competing with each other.
We're going to see an explosion in a state which we've already seen over 30% growth in three years.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Unbelievable.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: We're going to. We're just going to keep seeing more of that. And that's really exciting. That's the type of thing I love to build. Yeah, I know I'm changing lives in that area and that's what excites me.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: It is exciting. I love writing about it. We'll get you back soon.
Dr. Todd Shields, Chancellor of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Really appreciate you coming in.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Thank you having me. It's my honor.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: All right. And thank you for joining us for yet another edition of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Sam.
