Hello and welcome to Higher Thinking on Higher Ed. I am Charlyn Carrington of Content Strong Communications, the fractional communications and marketing leader of choice for universities, colleges and nonprofits. And today I am so excited to continue diving into the trends and challenges encountered by leaders in higher education. I'm honored to welcome Chris Mueller to the hot seat today. Chris is the Vice President for development and alumni relations at Texas Lutheran University, bringing over 15 years of senior advancement leadership across multiple institutions. A Texas native and seasoned case faculty presenter, Chris has dedicated his career to building meaningful donor and alumni engagement in higher education. Thank you again so much for bringing your expertise to this conversation today. How are you doing? 

04:39
Chris Mueller
I'm doing well. It's happy to be here. And thank you for the invitation. I'm looking forward to it. 

04:45
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Yes, it's all. These are always such fun conversations. I tell everyone I get so many. I get something big out of each one of these conversations. So the first question I always ask is just a little bit of context, setting. Let me know a little bit about kind of where you are and what your role kind of looks like in the context of, you know, your. Your institution. I think you stepped into advancement leadership at TLU maybe seven or eight months ago. You can correct me if I'm wrong. And I know you bring a deep experience from, you know, several other institutions. What drew you to this opportunity and how does your work and advancement kind of align with this university's broader mission right now? 

05:20
Chris Mueller
Yeah, so I grew up in Texas, went to college in Texas, eventually moved out of state, met my wife in the Midwest, became a midwesterner for about 25 years. And last summer, the kind of. The timing and opportunity presented itself to come back to my native Texas. And I was so happy to be here and come back to a school that I almost attended when I went to undergraduate school. And so it's almost like a full circle kind of situation. But, you know, I've worked in faith based education, I've worked in state universities, I've been in higher ed my whole career. Kind of went to college and never left. And there's something about faith based schools that I think is just really needed in the world and serves a unique mission and is insulated from a lot of the politics at some level. 

06:09
Chris Mueller
And you just kind of control your own destiny in a way that I think is very unique versus some other institutions. So coming here was kind of an amazing opportunity that the stars align just right in a lot of ways and just couldn't be more pleased to be here. This group that I lead is the fundraising operation, the alumni relations team, and we also manage our grants operation, which is government grants, foundation grants, those sorts of things. So, you know, a fairly diverse portfolio. I like to say we do. We're responsible for all the revenue that's not admission enrollment. 

06:50
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right, right. 

06:53
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I think, I mean, I love to hear that. Just this idea that you. The joke of, you know, you went to college and you never left. I think that gives you kind of probably a really good lens as to kind of what's going on in the broader world here. Something you did say before I asked your next, the next question is, you know, you feel that your institution, and faith based institutions in general are insulated from the outer world a little bit. Why do you think that is? 

07:18
Chris Mueller
Well, I think, you know, we just don't have the politics. You know, in Texas, the governor signed a bill, you know, just recently giving presidents control of faculty senates. You know, and that's could be good, it could be bad, it could be controversial, could be not. But that's not a dynamic we fit into as a private institution. And so we are just having, There's a little difference there, but it doesn't mean the macro environment doesn't affect us at some level in a lot of ways. And I'm sure we'll dig into that a little bit as we go along. But from that standpoint, I think we're unique in private higher ed. 

07:58
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Well, let's dig into that kind of right now because my second question is always, what's going on in the broader world and how is it impacting you? I mean, from your perspective at your institution, but specifically in, you know, kind of fundraising and alumni relations, what larger sector shifts are having kind of the greatest impact on how your team is approaching donor engagement, institutional growth, et cetera? 

08:21
Chris Mueller
Yeah. You know, higher education is in this very dynamic environment. Right. Things are changing, you know, in our broader world. They're changing very quickly. And institutions themselves have, you know, we developed these three year and five year strategic plans partly because it's what we've been trained to do and partly because our accrediting agencies expect them. But if you were sitting down in 2020, would you have imagined your five year plan would look like where you are today? 

08:49
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Yeah. 

08:50
Chris Mueller
And so the dynamics of everything is changing. And just yesterday I was part of a roundtable discussion. It was talking about strategic planning in the sense that, you know, we really can set a path, but every three months, once a quarter, we gotta be rethinking our go, you know, our strategies, our tactics related to that. It's not just once a year come back and, well, what'd you do on your job evaluation? I've been at those institutions. You know, what'd you do this year to support the strategic plan? Well, the last time you looked at the strategic plan was a year ago when you did your other evaluation. So, yeah, it's a much different dynamic environment. I think the other thing is you know, how we fit in with larger society, you know, and what is expected of higher education. 

09:37
Chris Mueller
So this is where we are part of that larger continuum, if you will, because, you know, we want to build relationships with corporations, with the larger community, with potential students, with funders, with, you know, all these partnerships. And I had a regent at a former institution tell this story one time, which I think really illustrates the point. He said, in higher education, we work with a calendar. You know, we start dealing with, you know, we have, let's say, a strategic plan. So you form a committee and you have a workshop and you put some goals together. And this, you finally, it gets to a board for approval and it takes about a year to do this and then you have a three or five year plan for how you're going to implement it. And he said, you use a calendar. 

10:27
Chris Mueller
In business we use a watch. And so whether you call me at nine in the morning or three in the afternoon, my answer is going to be different depending upon what happens. I don't have a year or three years or five years to wait for you to get somewhere. And we're finding that now in higher education. And so we've got to adapt to that schedule for people so that we can be the kind of partner that they want us to be. 

10:54
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right, Right. 

10:56
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I think, you know, that's a very well taken point. I think that the piece that really speaks to me in that is just generally that everything is moving so quickly. I mean, we see, you know, AI disruption, technological disruption, what that means for our everyday jobs, what that means for learning environments, what that means for, you know, students, ability to do things, what that means for the value of higher education as a whole. And I think it speaks to that larger shift in general that things are moving so quickly and our institutions have to be nimble enough and adaptable enough to. 

11:25
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Along with that, as you rightfully said, if we think about kind of what your current priorities are, what are the most urgent priorities for your team right now at this moment, whether that's related to, I don't know, major gifts or alumni engagement or donor communications, what are the kinds of things you're really focused on right now? 

11:43
Chris Mueller
Yeah, I think the thing we talk about the most right now, and as you mentioned, I've only been here about seven months, but I think it's true across all organizations is how do we reach our constituents? 

11:55
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

11:57
Chris Mueller
And you know, there's plenty of research out there and data points that kind of breaks things out generationally and it, nothing is absolutely true. 

12:05
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

12:05
Chris Mueller
But you know, it kind of gives you the trends. So if we're trying as an institution, trying to reach our prospective students, that signals one kind of marketing. Right. If we're going to try to reach our young alumni, that's a different channel. If we're going to try to reach our middle aged alumni, that's a different channel. If we're going to try to reach our, you know, reunion class of 50 years ago, that's a different chance. So it's these multi channel approaches that, and segments that you're trying and that becomes time consuming, it becomes expensive, it becomes a challenge because you're trying to take one message and adapt it to all these different audiences. 

12:46
Chris Mueller
And with that, when you start thinking about your major donors, which is where I spend a lot of my time, these are people that came to this university in many cases, 40, 50 years ago. 

12:56
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

12:56
Chris Mueller
And they reminisce back on that university that doesn't exist today anymore. 

13:01
Sharlyn, Content Strong
It's different. 

13:02
Chris Mueller
Right. So how do you take what they remember, their fondness about that and make it relevant to what's happening today in this marketplace and to this university as we've adapted to the changes. So, you know, we spend a fair amount of time just thinking and talking about this, realizing our resources are limited. So some of it becomes trial and error. And it's a lot more error than trial, I would say. Yeah, in that were willing to fail forward in what we're trying, but there's no prescription, there's no recipe, there's no tried and true formula at this institution. It works. So therefore everybody can use it. You know, if that existed, that's that person will be the first trillionaire in the world because everybody's going to buy it, but it doesn't work that way. 

13:49
Chris Mueller
And so how do we adapt things to our own situations and how we've evolved as an institution over time, I think that becomes the crux of what we kind of think about. And then, you know, that leads to how are we achieving our goals, you know, what messages are we sending, what are we doing to try to attract people into our mission. 

14:14
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

14:14
Chris Mueller
And to, and to be donors to this institution. 

14:19
Sharlyn, Content Strong
And, and so I love all of that. I see it as really the bigger picture setting, if you will, as to what it is that you do and what your day to day looks like. But how are you doing that? Do you have any good specific examples you could share? How are you, is it a matter of storytelling? Is it a matter of, you know, just like you mentioned multi channels. Like what are you. 

14:41
Chris Mueller
Yeah, you know, I think for a lot of donors, which is where we spend a lot of our time, it's, and you could say it for prospective students as well, it is someone that you can relate to that's, oh, I could be that student. Or I know I sponsor a scholarship and that's not the student that's specifically receiving my scholarship, but I'm supporting a student like that, you know, and a lot of nonprofits in the world have been very successful at this. You think about compassion and world vision, that you get this own person, this is your person that you're sponsoring. And that psychologically fills a lot of buckets for people. And so the more we can do that. 

15:25
Chris Mueller
And so we're trying to lean into storytelling and we have a new person on our staff that I think is very good at this, but has only been here a few months. So now we're going to go through the first cycle of a lot of our work and trying to tell more stories about our students. The impact that people are having. And I think that's another part of the storytelling is people aren't just giving to colleges and universities just to give anymore. They want to make a difference somewhere. They want to, you know, and there's plenty of choices. There's almost 2 million not for profits out there. If you have something specific you want to support, you've got a lot of options. So how, what are your goals and ambitions and how do we fit into that and can we develop a partnership? 

16:09
Chris Mueller
Thinking of it as an investor mentality, not just right. 

16:14
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I think you've hit the nail on the head. So interestingly, there is that comparison or that connection between a private cause based, faith based institution like yours and nonprofits and drawing that line between how you make that connection with donors. You mentioned that, you know, this may have been an earlier conversation we had, I can't remember, but you mentioned that many institutions face kind of similar struggles but still expect, you know, these different outcomes. What are the biggest internal or external for that matter, challenges that TLU is working to overcome right now. 

16:50
Chris Mueller
Yeah, you know, I think some of it's that messaging, you know, our brand, you know, our place in the marketplace where people view us and what's true and what's not true. Some people have seen it, some haven't. But there was the movie the American President, you know, that was out with Annette Benning and Michael Douglas years ago. But there's some interesting little leadership tales and there's the scene And I. We don't have time to go through the whole thing, but, you know, it's just kind of the messaging that's out there. And the point was the president wasn't saying anything, and his opponent was saying everything. Well, if you're not saying something, then it must be true. Right. But I think we face that in our own world. 

17:32
Chris Mueller
You know, the things happen, you know, around us, and rumors start and gossip starts, and people develop theories that fit the facts that they're not true. But in their own way, they, you know, they. They think they are. And so those become the obstacles, you know, that I think we face. And, you know, for a marketing department at a university, they are really focused on student recruitment. You know, a vast majority of what they're going to do is on student recruitment. Well, we're not trying to recruit students. We're trying to recruit people in large cases that were alumni, so they were students decades ago. 

18:08
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

18:09
Chris Mueller
So it goes back to the point of those messaging and how do we adapt all of that? And so it. It's really trying to figure out where you can take your limited resources and have the most impact, and that. That becomes a challenge. I. I think in some ways about how we try to overcome our message because we just simply don't have. There's not enough room and not enough money in the space in order to. To. To address every rumor, every obstacle, every concern, you know, so you got to kind of fix. 

18:47
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I think you made a really interesting point there. I mean, obviously, limited resources is something everyone's talking about across the board is that, you know, we don't have enough people. Of course, people are using AI to kind of supplement that in different ways. But I think, you know, what you mentioned there, this. This almost struggle between, you know, marketing departments really working towards creating their messaging for students, and then alumni relations departments, for example, working towards creating their messaging and their storytelling for donors. I wonder, you know, if you've ever encountered this where the messaging doesn't align and is. And sometimes the messaging is in conflict. And does that impact, you know, the way you do your job or the way you create your strategies now? 

19:26
Chris Mueller
Yeah, you know, I was at a. I was an institution once. I won't tell you which one, but the person who is the head of admissions there says, sell the sizzle, not the steak. 

19:36
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

19:37
Chris Mueller
Which was an interesting idea. Which, you know, you're at a restaurant, you want the sizzle. You know, that vibe that goes on. Right. And. But what they discovered is they were recruiting certain students based on the sizzle. But then they weren't delivering on the stake. And so the students themselves were choosing to transfer to other institutions because they weren't getting what they thought they were promised. 

20:05
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right? 

20:05
Chris Mueller
Yeah. And if we're going to a restaurant, we just choose not to go back. Right. Or whatever. But for a student that's a transfer. So I think that speaks a little bit to the what and the why, not just the how of how we have to do planning. And so you think about the what is the students weren't staying, why weren't they staying? So now how do we create a plan that addresses that? Because if the plan is simply grow enrollment, you're not speaking to the what, the why. 

20:37
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right, right. 

20:39
Chris Mueller
And that was a, you know, for me, that was a very compelling kind of moment, you know, kind of seminal thinking, if you will, about you have to deliver, you know, in this day and time for donors, particularly those of higher wealth, they make what we call test gifts. 

20:57
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

20:57
Chris Mueller
You know, and I've had this experience many times where someone who has uber capacity makes a small gift. 

21:04
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

21:05
Chris Mueller
They could afford a lot more, but they're testing us. 

21:07
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right, Right. 

21:08
Chris Mueller
Will we use the gift as promised? Will we deliver? Will it have impact? Will it make a difference for our institution? 

21:15
Sharlyn, Content Strong
How will you demonstrate? 

21:16
Chris Mueller
And how do we demonstrate that? And then at that point, you know, we'll make a bigger gift. Yeah. And so you have to follow through. So that one gift is not the end, it's part of a longer relationship. And there's plenty of thought leaders out there that are, that talk about this all the time. And I think for institutions, we face this issue where, you know, the urgent is right now. 

21:39
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

21:40
Chris Mueller
We have this budget challenge or we need to recruit these students, or we need to change this program, or we need to do this sort of thing. And for donors, it's a much longer. 

21:48
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Longer. 

21:51
Chris Mueller
Window, you know, and so we have people who graduated who still very fondly remember a certain president hasn't been here in 50 years. Right, right. And there's been a whole line of other presidents since then. And this happens to institutions. The average tenure might be, you know, four or five years. Sometimes it's shorter, sometimes it's longer. But over a 50 year period, an alum, a potential donor, might deal with five or six or ten different presidents. 

22:21
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right, right. 

22:23
Chris Mueller
Yeah. And that becomes, you know, so you have to somewhere institutionally find this consistency because that relationship lives with the institution. It's not on me. I, I once interviewed for a job. The president said, so how many donors can you bring with you to this organization? I said, zero, you know, and he was dumbfounded. Well, we want to hire somebody that already has a Rolodex of potential donors that they're going to bring with them. Well, why would the donors that were supporting the organization I was working at support your organization? Why, why would they do that? And second of all, isn't that. Wouldn't we think that might cross an ethical line somewhere? You know, but they weren't concerned about that. But that was. It was a very interesting interview question. I realized I was not going to be a good fit for that organization. 

23:18
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Yeah, right. 

23:20
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I mean, like, I think. I think it's a really interesting way of thinking about, you know, donor relations in general is that, you know, they're. They're completely removing the relationship of the donor to the institution and putting it on the individual who's doing the outreach, which is, I think, kind of backwards. 

23:36
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right? 

23:37
Chris Mueller
Yeah. 

23:37
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

23:37
Chris Mueller
I mean, for our top donors that, you know, they might have 20 or 30 relationships at a university, and we have no idea person, my role, wouldn't even know who all those are. 

23:49
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

23:49
Chris Mueller
I had a situation at an institution where were doing a capital project and we had been working with this one donor on a potential naming situation, and they were planning to make a hundred thousand dollar gift is what were talking about. They called me in my office one day and said, well, we've decided that we're not going to give 100,000. Yeah, all right. We've decided we're gonna get 500, 000 instead. Okay. So now that I picked myself off the floor, get back in my chair. Okay. Now I can. Now I haven't. Wow, that's very generous. Why? They said, well, they called a faculty member who they knew. I didn't know they knew each other. 

24:34
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I knew them. 

24:35
Chris Mueller
I said, I've been asked to make this gift. I think we're going to do it. Before we did it, I wanted to ask you what you thought about that. Oh, wow. You know, that would be amazing because this is one of our biggest priorities and we've needed this for a long time and we've talked about it a long time and we're finally at that moment that we really can do it. And if you could support that project at that level, that would be amazing. I know it would really help. Thank you so much. Right, right. And they went back and said, you know what? We can do better than $100,000. 

25:07
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

25:07
Chris Mueller
But that conversation could have gone a completely different way. And I would have never known it. 

25:11
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

25:12
Chris Mueller
And I would have felt like, oh my gosh, I failed. 

25:16
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

25:17
Chris Mueller
When actually the decision, I was never really part of the decision. That decision process. There was other dynamics going on and I think we often in our work, you know, we need to think about not just what we, what an individual does, how we work together as a team to do things. 

25:38
Sharlyn, Content Strong
It's that strategic alignment kind of across the board. 

25:41
Chris Mueller
You know, who's the vice president of first impressions at an organization, the person that answers the phone, the person who cares for the lawn and the facilities at a university. I mean, that's your first impression and that's really important to what we do. 

25:56
Sharlyn, Content Strong
It is absolutely shifting gears just slightly thinking about, you know, all the things that you do on a day to day. I wonder about what metrics you're tracking. You know, what are you, how are you tracking or measuring how you're achieving your outcomes and your goals and what does that look like for you in your world? 

26:16
Chris Mueller
Yeah, I think for us just trying to implement some metrics because here we haven't used metrics historically. I mean, there's been some ideas, but so we're just starting to implement that. So now our fiscal year started June 1, so now we have some metrics place. We have a list of 10. How do we choose that 10? Well, there are things that are very commonly measured within development alumni relationships like ours. They're benchmarkable to peer institutions. So we have a list of peer institutions. The university just picked a new set of peers. Well, we can benchmark ourselves to that group. Right. That data exists. If it's not publicly available, we can call them on the phone and say, hey, how'd you do? And so we can benchmark that. And what are things? Information we already capture. 

27:03
Chris Mueller
So it's not something we had to create out of our database or something that we're not already doing. So I think that's for me, that's the key. And for anybody that's listening, I think that's the, for your institution, what are those eight or ten things that meet that criteria so that you can track something in an hour a month, not days a month. Right. So some of those are very common things like for gift officers, number of visits per year or you know, dollars we raise for the unrestricted fund or for current operations or new plan gifts that we receive or those sorts of things. But we also have some in there on the alumni relations side, we're not tracking event attendance, we're tracking our open rates for emails. Right, Right. That's very easy to track. 

27:53
Chris Mueller
And so many alumni don't come back to campus anymore. They're interacting with us completely digitally. It's very hard to track likes on Facebook or reposts on Instagram or you know, all these other sorts of things. 

28:09
Sharlyn, Content Strong
And how does it mean, you don't know if it necessarily means that yeah, they like something you don't know. 

28:14
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

28:15
Chris Mueller
And I know there are companies out there that say they can do all this for you, but for us I, I don't need the time and expense. That open rate would tell us something. Right? 

28:24
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Exactly. 

28:24
Chris Mueller
If our average open rate is 30% and this email was 5 or 6%, something was wrong. 

28:32
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

28:33
Chris Mueller
And if this one was 80% and what were click through rates? Did they go somewhere? Yeah. And so it just kind of tells us a little bit back to that messaging. Is our messaging resonating with people in a way that they're interacting with the university in a positive way? 

28:48
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

28:49
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I think I, I, I think it's really eye opening that, and interesting, I guess that you know, the metrics weren't there before. I wonder what, you know, the team, and this is certainly before your time because I know you've only been there for eight months or so, but certainly what kinds of things the team was trying and you don't have to answer this question, I'm just thinking it through. What kinds of things, you know, the team was really looking at before? How were they really measuring success if it was literally just dollar value being brought into the door? May, you know, I think you spoke so eloquently earlier about building that relationship. 

29:21
Sharlyn, Content Strong
And other than a dollar amount coming in, how do you track to know that you're saying the right things to your potential donor and getting that message across the board and exactly as you said, making sure that message resonates with them in a way that motivates them to action, let's say. Yeah. If you look ahead to the next six to 12 months, what does success look like for you and for your team? Are there specific targets you have in mind or specific goals or transformations you're working towards? 

29:48
Chris Mueller
Yeah, I, I think there's two parts to that. I, I think one is just stability in our office. There's been transition, there's been leadership transitions. It's, you know, when I came here I had to commit to the long haul and that's what I intend to do and Providing that stability and leadership that we need, but also, you know, a commitment to, we have an emerging strategic plan. How is that going to change our institution? You know, how is that going to move us forward? Thinking about all the things we've already talked about. 

30:22
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

30:22
Chris Mueller
You know, but in my view, you know, a fundraising goal is not part of the strategic plan. 

30:29
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

30:29
Chris Mueller
Fundraising is what makes the strategic plan happen. 

30:32
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

30:33
Chris Mueller
You know, and you know, I've been parts of lots of strategic plans that says we're going to finish this campaign or we're going to build this building or we're going to raise this much money. Well, really in our work, we should not be setting what those priorities are. That's what university does. And then we go out, grab donors and interested parties to support, to bring that strategic plan to life, to make it happen. And that really is, I think, the. 

31:01
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Work we have to do. 

31:02
Chris Mueller
So that plan should get to the board this fall and we'll presumably have about a three year plan, which I like a little shorter, a little bit. 

31:13
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

31:13
Chris Mueller
A little bit more dynamic there. And it. But that brings up one of the paradoxes that we have. You know, a strategic planning and you know, boards approve strategic plans. That's one of four or five things that boards really do. Right. Is approve a strategic plan, but then the donors set the strategic direction. 

31:35
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

31:35
Chris Mueller
And so if the board as themselves are not lead donors and boards tend to over time be giving less and less. And there's reasons for that. But the percentage of giving from the board of part of a total campaign goal is shrinking. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I'm just saying it's a fact. But then these other donors are coming in and setting strategic directions. And so the trick is you got to align all that. Otherwise you end up the donors putting you in a different place than what the board thought you were going to be at. So there's a paradox that exists there. 

32:11
Chris Mueller
And the more that donors are influencing these big transformational gifts, you know, we hear about 40, 50 million, $100 million dollars gifts that happen, you know, those should change an institution for the better for a long time. 

32:26
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right, Right. 

32:27
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I think that's an interesting, really interesting point that you make that donors really do have a huge role to play in terms of setting direction. 

32:36
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I wonder if. 

32:38
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Actually, I'm going to leave that question on the table because I think it's, it's a sensitive one. I'm going to leave that one. I'm going to ask you about challenges and about what your big one major challenge is. If I were to give you a magic wand right now and you could remove it, snap your fingers, remove that one big barrier out of your way, what would that barrier be and what would that mean for your team and your ecosystem? 

33:03
Chris Mueller
Yeah, I think, you know, I started with the private higher ed kind of has its, you know, it's insulated from, you know, some, certainly the state level politics as an institution. But at the same time we are still, we still have donors and alumni that feel that, you know, so, you know, there is this pressure that exists of the, you know, the institution. In our case, we're faith based. 

33:30
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

33:30
Chris Mueller
And so we have a, a certain denomination that we, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is kind of our parent organization and we have a corporation board of the bishops and lay leaders and so forth. So that influences us. 

33:45
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

33:45
Chris Mueller
But not everyone feels comfortable with maybe where the church has transitioned to or, you know, and so that influences us. 

33:53
Sharlyn, Content Strong
So as an ELCA school. 

33:56
Chris Mueller
So this becomes a dynamic that's really challenging, you know, at times. Right. And so that division that happens, you know, instead of focusing in on the good stuff, well, you did this, so therefore I'm not ever supporting you again. Right. And so, you know, you get politics that get involved and the visions that get involved and you know, so if I could snap my fingers, it would be, can we focus back on kind of our faith based mission? What are the kind of graduates that we're putting out that we feel are benefit to society, that make a difference, that do good things? They're in classrooms, they're nurses in hospitals, they're social workers, they're business leaders, they're all these other sorts of things. 

34:39
Chris Mueller
And isn't that a benefit, you know, because I'm not sure any of us are ever going to all agree again on politics and society and all that sort of stuff. But can we have the conversation? Yeah. And it's this absolute nature of it right now that is, that I think is. It was a challenge. It's, it's a barrier for all of us. And then I think the other thing really is this sense of the urgent and what have you done for me lately? 

35:06
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

35:07
Chris Mueller
And you know, I think we all have short memories, you know, when it comes to certain things. You know, I've got a situation, you know, with my alma mater, one of them that, yeah, they haven't really been warm and fuzzy to me. They kind of made a Promise that they didn't deliver on. I still remember the good times and I want to remit. I'm one of those. Right. I want to reminisce about my time when I was in school and I still want to support them someday, but I'm not sure that I can support now. Now just being the. And I'm more attuned to it because I'm in field. 

35:44
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

35:44
Chris Mueller
You know, and so how should you treat your donors? Well, that's. I feel like I should be given a certain, you know, if you say if you give to this is what's going to happen. That's not what happens. Then why should I give you again? 

35:57
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

35:57
Chris Mueller
Sort of thing. 

35:58
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Absolutely. 

35:59
Chris Mueller
But, but I'll illustrate this in my. And my daughter, when she watches this, will be horrified that I used her as an illust story. 

36:07
Sharlyn, Content Strong
You have to now. You have to. 

36:09
Chris Mueller
Yeah. So we had taken a vacation. It was part business trip for me, but it was turned into a two week family vacation to China. It was an amazing trip. We're hanging, you know, one day my daughter comes home after talking to some friends and said, well, you know, on Christmas break they went to Disney World and they went to the beach and they went snow skiing. We never do anything fun. Three months ago were in China. 

36:37
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Yeah. 

36:38
Chris Mueller
Yeah. That doesn't count. You know, so it's like you. So it's this sense of what have you done for me lately. Right. It's the now is the urgent and that's a hard thing, you know, and our society has become accustomed to that. 

36:58
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

36:58
Chris Mueller
Our marketing speaks to that. Get the whatever that you deserve and you deserve it today. 

37:04
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

37:04
Chris Mueller
Yeah. And so that's, I think for us a, a barrier and a challenge that we have to overcome, particularly as we're trying to recruit students, engage young alumni. What have you done for me? 

37:17
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right, right. 

37:19
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I think that's a, it's a very tough, I mean, it's a tough dance to dance because as you mentioned, on the one hand, I mean, young alumni are digital natives. Just like the students coming in. We expect everyone consumes things, you know, automatically. We expect things to happen for us automatically. And we see that in terms of, you know, the way we're using AI, that we're. The way we're doing anything, quite frankly. 

37:41
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

37:42
Sharlyn, Content Strong
The way we watch tv, the way we see movies, everything is urgent, immediate. We expect to see that immediately when we want it and we want it now. And I see that being a very difficult dance to Play when you have things like, as you mentioned, really embracing or changing or working within the limitations of a brand. You have those expectations that you mentioned around, you know, your faith based organization and the connections to the church and what that means, what some of the opinions are, you know, in the. I'm just going to say in our current climate right now, what those opinions are and how that impacts you. I see that as being a very kind of difficult dance to play between kind of all of those worlds and how you find a way to balance that. 

38:25
Sharlyn, Content Strong
I don't have a question, it was just a statement. I mean, my last question really is there anything else that you wanted to mention that I didn't specifically ask you about? 

38:34
Chris Mueller
You know, I, what you were just talking about that, what occurred to me there, I think it was John Maxwell back in the day, you know, used this as an example from Scripture and many people know it. Be not conformed, but be transformed. 

38:49
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

38:49
Chris Mueller
By a renewal of your mind. And he used this in terms of planning and business planning to say being conformed as being subjected to these external pressures. You're allowing your outside environment to mold you into what you are. Transformation is internal. It's you becoming what you want to be, even against that external force. 

39:15
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

39:16
Chris Mueller
And I think that's a very nice illustration of really, I think what a lot of people, both that work at a university, that supportive university, that are part of our constituencies is they want us to be transformed. We use the word transformative gifts in our vocabulary and it means that, right. We're going to not be subjected to these external pressures. We're going to take something that is going to be its own thing. 

39:43
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

39:43
Chris Mueller
And, and you know, back to the. What could, what I snap my fingers. That's. Where can we rally around this general principle, you know, that we're going to transform and create a university that has meaning and purpose that's different than what all of this thinks we should be. You know, who is that core group of people that is willing to say, I want to be like this. 

40:10
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Right. 

40:11
Chris Mueller
And I'm willing to invest and I'm willing to make a difference, to make that happen. So again, I, maybe that's a common theme of everything we talked about today, but I think that's really that. And that's a very hard thing to do. Yeah, that's not easy for any of us to figure out. 

40:28
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Yeah. The way forward, I think in all of the conversations I've had is, is difficult to see and difficult for Everyone to figure out. I think people are, you know, institutions are definitely juggling with the same set of challenges, but everybody is in a different place in terms of, you know, how it impacts their brand, how it impacts their bottom line, how many, you know, they certainly regionally. Regionally and what that means for them as an institution and their ability to, you know, their longevity in general. But so I think the transformation pieces is well taken and it probably is, you know, something that everyone is trying to figure out what that means for them in our current climate and, you know, the current set of circumstances everyone seems to find themselves in. 

41:16
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Thank you. 

41:16
Sharlyn, Content Strong
Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your time and your experience and perspective with us today. It's been a thoughtful and generous conversation, of course, to our listeners, our watchers. I hope this episode sparked ideas, affirmed your own experiences, or maybe helped you see a challenge in a new light. If you're a leader in higher ed, communications, marketing, advancement, alumni relations, whatever it is, a president, finance, and you want to contribute to this evolving conversation, we want to hear from you. The truth is, this is more than just talk. Ideally, it's the start of a shared roadmap for the future of our field. So let's get to work. Thanks so much again, Chris. 

41:49
Chris Mueller
Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.