Next Leaders Fellowship: Building Community and Careers

Jack Suess: Welcome to the EDUCAUSE Integrative CIO Podcast. I'm Jack Suess, vice president of IT and CIO at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Cynthia Golden And I'm Cynthia Golden. Each episode, we welcome a guest from in or around higher education technology as we talk about repositioning or reinforcing the role of IT leadership as an integral strategic partner in support of the institutional mission.

Cynthia Golden: Hi everybody. Today on the Integrative CIO, we're talking to Michael Cato, who is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Bowdoin College, and to Kenitra Horsley, who is the CIO at Queen University of Charlotte. Welcome Michael. Welcome Kenitra.

Michael Cato: Thank you. Thanks for the invitation.

Cynthia Golden: We're really excited to have you both here as our guests on the program today. And for our listeners, we're here to talk about developing people and developing leaders, and specifically to talk about the Next Leaders Fellowship program, which was launched in 2022 under the direction of Michael and Kenitra was one of the members of the inaugural class. So for our audience, this is the NLF is a year long program. It's designed for tech professionals working at colleges and universities and offers professional leadership development with a focus on representation from historically excluded backgrounds. So with that, Jack,

Jack Suess: Well thank you, Cynthia, Michael, and Kenitra. Why don't you briefly introduce yourself to our audience and tell us a little bit about your current role and maybe your prior role.

Kenitra Horsley: Kenitra Ley, and as Cindy mentioned, I'm the Chief Information Officer here at Queen University of Charlotte. I started at Queen's in June of 2019 as Deputy CIO, director of Enterprise Systems. And prior to that I've done a number of years of consulting work, including 11 years at a heavy industrial equipment manufacturer heading up about it, but always in a technology position.

Michael Cato: And Michael, I'm at Bowdoin College, as Cynthia said, I've been here since 2018 and I always have to do the math slowly to make sure I get it correct. I believe this is my 21st year in higher ed it. I've worked at Vassar College before coming to Bowdoin, but I spent more than half, almost half now of my career in large public institutions in the UNC system. So I was down the street from where Kenitra, it was actually for quite a while.

Jack Suess: Well that's wonderful and both of you seem to have long histories in it, so this is going to be a wonderful conversation.

Cynthia Golden: So Michael, could you talk a little bit about the Next Leaders Fellowship and how it got started?

Michael Cato: I appreciate it, Cynthia. The way I like to describe the fellowship is the idea is what would it look like for us to bring a group of really smart and enthusiastic professionals together, wrap resources around them and connect them to community and a larger network to see how it might propel their careers forward? Right. That was the genesis of the idea and myself, I realized that in the intro it's described as under the of Michael, it's myself and 11 other mentors is the language that we use. These are the people who helped me come up with, take the concept, my initial idea and refine it into what became the fellowship itself. So it's one year in the program here, but they spend with virtual experiences with the mentors and then we sponsor them to take part in one of the existing professional development programs around the country that the program then sponsors their registration and contributes to their travel to take part in that second year experience.

Cynthia Golden: And could you talk a little bit about your target audience, who you're really focused on?

Michael Cato: So that's actually one of the interesting parts about this. I look forward in a longer conversation. We are trying to figure out what would it look like to move people's careers forward. And when we first started, there was some question of whether we are picking people who are earlier in the careers at some midpoint or just ready to become CIOs. And we decided to go out and just make an open call because there's a new endeavor and see who would put themselves forward. And so we had participants like KRA who was already a deputy, CIO, was serving as interim, if I remember correctly, KRA by the time you began the program. So she was right on the cusp and we had other people who were much earlier in their careers. We ended up with this profound experience because there was this internal peer networking that was able to happen because there was such a variety of where people were.

Michael Cato: Our starting concept really was about trying to address the underrepresentation of people from historically excluded backgrounds of underrepresented minority groups. And so for the first two years we were very explicit and that was our area of focus in who we were bringing into the program and whose careers we were trying to move forward. We'll talk about this later, I'm sure after the Supreme Court decision. We've had to be more flexible with that though our intent is still to try to think about how we are contributing to the overall increase in representation in our industry. So those are the ways I would answer that question.

Cynthia Golden: I really like that concept of a mix of professionals who are at different stages in their career.

Jack Suess: Michael, one of the things that really intrigued me was thinking about the word fellowship. And the reason was it just sort of struck home to me is one of the programs that's at UMBC is something called the Meyerhoff program. And the Meyerhoff program is a program where we bring in traditionally, historically excluded students from different backgrounds who have a commitment to diversity and who are planning to get a PhD in stem. So that program over the last 35 years has sort of changed the face of science. UMBC is now the largest producer of African-Americans that go on to get PhDs. PhDs in engineering or the natural sciences. It's the largest that do MD PhDs for those groups. And the key to that was the fact that we bring them in as a community and building that community is so hard and such a challenge. And so I'm sort of curious how you thought about some of the community and can you try feel free after that to weigh in on how that sort of worked with you?

Kenitra Horsley: I would say the program and of itself as a participant was quite cathartic. It allowed us to have a safe space to share our different journeys and how we were moving about succeeding in our careers and just sharing. And part of that allowed us to create that community and that really, I would say the first week of the program was really that opportunity where we shared got to know each other. And as Michael mentioned, it was a variety of age demographics where people were in their careers, but we were able to connect and share because we all had similar stories.

Michael Cato: I appreciate that Kenisha. And it's interesting because one of the points of feedback I've received, especially the last two years from fellows, was that they were grateful to have that experience that Kenisha just described of connecting almost immediately with each other when they first came together. For our first in-person experience, of course there's some trepidation like this is new, I don't know these people, I just know I've applied. We give them a virtual introduction to each other. But the feedback I've received is that the application itself, many people found it required a level of vulnerability that became this almost distillation filtering process that the people who were successful were already willing to, it's not even just about disclosing but being in a mindset where I'm willing to engage with other people to grow. And so once you put them in a setting where we did a lot of work about embracing you as a whole person, that's part of what that initial week long experience does. We found that they went deep really fast. And this is the third time it's happened. We just brought the third cohort together in March and I think it's allowed them to really move forward in some very unique ways because they're so connected to each other. And so in some ways we as mentors are there to support them, but there's so much going on within the fellows, among the fellows themselves.

Jack Suess: That's really great. The funny thing back to the story that I was talking about with the Meyerhoff program is what was the key thing that they ultimately came up with about four or five years into this was we bring all the students in for a summer bridge and they all are taking a class and the way to get them to become a community was to say, you're all going to get the grade of the lowest score of the class member. And so it was all about helping each other. So you went from these highly competitive students who had always wanted to be the best in the class to now it doesn't matter, it's all about bringing everybody up to the same level. And that sort of changed the dynamic that would be there. And so I think figuring out how you can make people vulnerable enough to be comfortable that we're all going to be sharing and we're all going to be doing this together and all of us are going to be successful is really, I think a fabulous thing. So thank you.

Cynthia Golden: So along the lines of that idea of sharing and collaboration, Jack, you mentioned earlier before the program, the word fellowship being part of the title.

Jack Suess: Yeah. Well, and it was this idea that to me, fellowship and Michael, maybe you can talk about it, but it probably means that you're part of this community, whether you're in this official program two year period forever so to speak, is the way I'm thinking about it. But please talk more.

Michael Cato: I really appreciate the question from both of you, Cynthia and Jack, that I think this is the first time someone's actually asked me something about the name, why we chose to call it a fellowship. It was actually intentional. We actually had some conversation about that as mentors and we landed on fellowship because we wanted to imply community that that's an intentionally part of the design. So it's an invitation to be part of a community. And the point you just made, Jack, that the community extends, the community experience extends beyond your program year participation. And that was kind of a bold thing to put forward, especially in the first year in Kenitra's class that we talked with them, that you were trusting us to come into something where you're the first 12. So this is a bit of a gamble to see whether we will successful, excuse me, in bringing other cohorts in. And that's the language we've been using. I will tell you, I think we've been really successful and this is the credit to the participants. Kisha, what's the term? You all are calling each other in the inaugural class now? Was it the Alpha cohort?

Kenitra Horsley: The Alphas. But they're my friends in my family, so I call them family. That's how I feel we connected. And that was a true testament, I would say, Michael, to just the program design, because I say Jack, as you mentioned, you guys put before your class almost like, hey, if you service around a grade. Whereas they just really created this safe space. And it was something I know that was very intentional in the design, but it was effective. We still are very much connected today. We talk all the time. I talk to various fellows. We collaborate in a number of ways. So it's working, it worked.

Cynthia Golden: That's a common theme in a lot of these programs I've worked with when I was at ed. Cause I worked with a number of the leadership development programs and the way the cohort connects and to watch it continue across time is really, it's really a testament to I think the program itself and what it offers people. But Kenitra, would you talk a little bit about what it was like to be a participant?

Kenitra Horsley: Sometimes I would say it was very intense. We said really you took an introspective view of how did you approach work, how did you approach life and even your career? And then connecting that with others, creating that community of sharing and then ultimately learning and adding tools into your toolbox to carry forward as I was, I was in interim, so I was transitioning into the role. So being able to put those things into practice almost immediately.

Jack Suess: So I'm assuming that as being part of this community, you're constantly sort of leveraging the community as you're running into the day-to-day aspects associated with your job, or am I wrong in that? Is it in through that?

Kenitra Horsley: Sure, absolutely. When some technical challenges or I'm looking at new technology, I immediately reach out to the group bill or and others as well to say, Hey, have you done this? Have you used this vendor? Have you looked at this technology? We often are coordinating who's going to which conferences so that we can, oftentimes you go to a conference and you can't be present in every session. So we're actually helping each other by going in and doing some investigation and research. So some of that operational support has been extended.

Cynthia Golden: And so you've had a few years now since your inaugural cohort, and could you talk a little bit about how the program has had an impact on your career or on you in general?

Kenitra Horsley: A lot of, I would say personal and professional growth has come from this program. One of the things that I, as a technologist, I feel like I'm an introvert naturally. So one of the things that I wanted to work on was public speaking. And even with the cohort, we came together and we did various presentations at Ed cost together. I've sensed participated in various panels and other things, even in my local community. I'm a member of Charlotte CIO, the Inspire CIO network, but actually helping to lead women in tech events and things like that, that I may not have had the confidence to step out front to do. So some of those skills and just that experience has given me the confidence to do those.

Jack Suess: So Michael, could you tell the audience just some details about your program? How would they find information about it? Or is there a cost and other sorts of things associated with this?

Michael Cato: Sure. So the information about the program is on the website next leaders fellowship.org. That's the easiest place to find it. We've been trying to keep that updated with specific information about the cost of participants, how to apply and so forth. But let me add a couple things. There's a thousand dollars participant fee is the language that we use, but in the application there's a clause that says that that can be waived, reduced, or waived depending on the need of the applicant. We don't want that to be a barrier because the ironic thing is it's a participation fee and you're getting a lot more value than the thousand dollars. This really is just to create a sense of connection between the applicant and the program itself and the applications themselves. We've been trying to open it up around edgy cause because that gives us the best time to talk about the effort itself at scale because we begin each program year coming together in March at the NERCOMP annual conferences in Providence, Rhode Island.

Michael Cato: We bring everybody together and we pay for them to come out and pay for the registration and hotel and so forth. So the program structure is such that we begin in March at the NeuroCom conference. As I said, we have these monthly virtual experiences that happen throughout the program year where different presenters come in to take on different topics, conversations with search firms, conversations about negotiating for compensation and advocating for yourself if you're an internal hire, that kind of thing. We joke openly that we talk a lot about money, we talk a lot about money. So Kenitra has talked about that really trying to create that safe space. We realize the way to do that. What's it the Patrick Lencioni quote that if you want to build trust, you have to go first. So the mentors really are trying to demonstrate that level of vulnerability, talking about our own career trajectory, successes, failures, that kind of thing.

Michael Cato: And then we bring them together again at EDUCAUSE in October, same thing. We fly everybody out, we put them up in the hotels, we pay for all the expenses, and then we do programming at both in-person experiences. So you're at the conference, but you also have these opportunities to engage in the fellowship programming itself. And then we've had this third piece that we've done with Deloitte for the last two years. That's actually been a profound contribution to the program itself that if we can talk about later, I'll be happy to. So that's the basis of the program. I'll pause there. Is that helpful? Did any questions that come up from that?

Jack Suess: No, actually, I think really it's a great model and it's one that when I was on the board we were sort of talking about is how do you leverage the conferences as these elements of professional development? But you have to be then building in connectedness between the events and other sorts of pieces associated. So it sounds like you've really done a fabulous job. And so I assume you have a pretty good collaboration with EDUCAUSE at least in this particular sense

Michael Cato: We do EDUCAUSE and NERCOMP are two lead partners is a language we've been using. So a lot of logistical support has come from the EDA staff and their frameworks connecting us to the hotels. But I joke that I never realized how expensive catering was until I actually had to be part of the planning for these efforts. And it's the EDA staff who've I'll just say, here's my credit card, help me figure this out, and they'll guide us through the process. So that's been an invaluable piece to this. And so those partnerships have been really helpful. We also have a number of search firms who have been contributing from their own areas of expertise in ways that have been profoundly helpful. And we actually have a smaller number of them that are actually financially supporting what we're doing as well.

Jack Suess: Well, that's wonderful.

Cynthia Golden: We should mention for our listeners who don't know that NERCOMP is a regional association in the Northeastern part of the state of the country and puts on a great conference every year as well as they're pretty active with a lot of professional development programming.

Michael Cato: Thank you for that, Cynthia. I keep forgetting not to use just my acronym and keep going. So apologies for that.

Jack Suess: Well Michael, would you like to go a little bit deeper into what the work that you're doing with Deloitte is?

Michael Cato: Sure, there's two places I'd go, but yes, the Deloitte session is, it's called, oh, why am I blanking on the name now? Now that you've asked me even though I asked for the invitation, right? Greenhouse Lab, that's what they're called. And they have these locations around the country. I think there's six of them where they bring, and it tends to be leadership teams from big companies globally. And they bring them through these experiences to help them encourage, how do we be more innovative as a leadership team? How do we identify and challenge the barriers that help keep us from interacting with each other authentically in the ways that we really need to be able to do, to put new ideas on the table, consider them and accelerate them. And so through one of the contexts of one of our mentors, we invited them to do this session for the fellows the first year.

Michael Cato: And it was profound. Kenitra can speak to her experience with it, but they really committed, they came to Denver, they flew eight to 10 people out from their teams. They took a conference room, not a conference room. They took one of the venue rooms, the event spaces in the hotel. They set up lighting and sound. I mean, they really invested in having this phenomenal experience. And then the second year we got a chance to do it at one of their locations when Edika was in Chicago last year. And it took that experience and kind of elevated it. So one simple example of something that we did, they had an elephant, a stuffed elephant in the room, and they introduced it to us as Ellie. And the introduction or the invitation was if you wanted to put an idea on the table that was sensitive and you were trying to identify the elephant in the room, then you would ask for Ellie, you could wrap your arms around Ellie and then speak your truth. And it sounds really simple and kind of funny. I did it with my team here just because I thought it was such a great idea. It really releases people to speak much more candidly, right? Because the stuffed animal is really comforting and we've also got an agreement that you can speak something that might be difficult to hear just as this is our vehicle to make that happen. So I turn to You had that experience the first year.

Kenitra Horsley: Yeah, I would say just the exercise alone, like you said, you took it back to boat. And similarly, I took it back to Queens with giving us an opportunity to, we learned how to better communicate and to be authentic selves and to have better collaboration. For me, I feel like I have better emotional intelligence because of the various exercises that we did throughout the fellowship year, and that was just one of 'em.

Jack Suess: So Cynthia and I, what we're going to do is make sure before this is released that we go out and get our big stuffed elephants that we can be bringing in. Otherwise there's going to be a run on them, stuffed elephant out the door store. So sorry listeners, if the fact that you can't find them once we release this. So Kenitra sort of turning back to you, you've had this great opportunity. You now are a CIO, you're sort of connected. How are you trying to be thinking about, one, you're e evolution as a leader, but also how are you thinking about being a part of this larger community and what you can offer this larger community?

Kenitra Horsley: One of the things I think as a leader I've always tried to do is to invest in others and to develop others. So what I've taken away from this, not only in the fellowship and supporting the other fellows, but also my direct reports in my organization. I have members of my team that I've said, Hey, I would like you to apply. This would be a great phenomenal opportunity for you. But also just sharing about the program because I think it is such an amazing program because it's not only the community that it's created, but it's done through sponsorship and scholarship. So as Michael mentioned, a thousand dollars is nothing based upon the types of programming that you're exposed to and the ability to go to these various conferences. As a small institution, my budget wouldn't have, it allowed me to attend all of those conferences within a single year or these types of programs all in one cycle. So I would say advocating and sharing about the program and then offering it up to others.

Cynthia Golden: Right. So Michael, you mentioned earlier that you just launched the third cohort this spring, right at NERCOMP. How is the NLF evolving? Are there any lessons you're learning or things you're doing or changing along the way?

Michael Cato: I appreciate the question. There are a couple of places that my mind goes. The first is now that we have two alumni cohorts and one active program year cohort, watching the interactions between them has been just a profound experience for me that when we were together at the NeuroCom conference in Providence in March, I believe we had six if not eight of our NLF alums who, and a number of them were in the region. So this was a conference they might've attended otherwise. But then we had some from DC and California coming in from other areas because they wanted to get a chance to connect to each other, but also to get to meet the incoming cohort and see how they could contribute to them. And so we did a couple of things where we invited everyone to come into one of the active sessions, but then one of the alums organized a dinner that we funded so that everybody could get together.

Michael Cato: It was just so interesting to drop in and hear them talk across the cohort years, but sharing from their experiences and comparing notes, and here's some things I would suggest, and you want to make the most of your relationship with a mentor and don't worry, speak to the other mentors as well. And I did already mention we talk about money a lot, so there was conversations about that too. So it was profound to see that my framing, the visualization of the flywheel, it takes energy to start it going, but some of that activity is now happening between the fellows themselves and the alums in some really interesting ways that I'm just profoundly excited to be part of. I

Cynthia Golden: I'm guessing that you, oh, go ahead.

Michael Cato: Sorry, I had a hiccup on my side. I'm not sure if you lost me.

Jack Suess: No, we heard you fine.

Michael Cato: Okay. Okay. Apologies on that side. Well, the other piece that I wanted to add is one of the evolutions has been external to the program, right? I mentioned the Supreme Court decision earlier and it really took some intentionality for us to seek feedback from legal counsel. Bowdoin is our administrative home and is one of our primary sponsors. So it was really important for us to make sure that we had dotted all our i's crossed all our T's to make sure that we weren't increasing any legal exposure for any of our sponsoring organizations. And I will be honest, that was a really difficult process for myself as an individual and for the other mentors because it felt like we finally found a model that was working. And Jack, I'm thinking about the program at UMBC, I'm really curious how, I imagine you're having similar conversations there. You find a model that works and suddenly the external forces are telling you you can't do that anymore even though it's been effective. And so trying to figure out how do we evolve to make sure that we are being proper stewards of what we're doing while continuing to stay focused on our mission. So those are the two I would offer as evolutions.

Jack Suess: Well, the good news, Michael, is so we had a court case that actually came up in 97 or 98. And so that was when we ended up changing that program to be broadening it. And the reality is, is that it hasn't changed the real results that come out of that. We still roughly have 60%, 65% from excluded historical backgrounds. We broadened it, but we broadened it with a set of people who really care passionately about what the goals of that program were. And so they're allies that we're forming that as they go off into their careers and they do great things, they're there to be helping to be lending a hand and bringing other people forward as well. And so I think you'll see probably the same thing as you look back 10 years, 20 years from now, that in broadening, hopefully you're creating allies that are going to be just, again, a part of this community to be making a difference. I do have a question, but I want to ask Cynthia a question that there was an It is Fry leadership program and what's really interesting to me is you have some elements that remind me of the Fry leadership program.

Cynthia Golden: Very similar,

Jack Suess: And I had become a CIO before that started, so I never had the opportunity to do it, but I've had some people that went through it and they're still connected 20 plus years later to each other. I'm curious though, as you think about bringing everyone together, how do you find, if you think out 10 years from now, how are you going to find a room that's going to be able to hold everyone through this? You'll be getting lecture halls, I guess is the idea

Michael Cato: I would imagine. And we'll be on the road bringing people around. So one connection, I think that's a really astute observation to make the connection to the Fry program. I was a member of the 2012 Fry class, the last Fry class before the name change to leading change. And ironically enough of the 12 fellows, there are three of us who were in that same class myself, Keith McIntosh and Jose Rodriguez, that's how we met each other. We were all in that same fry class. So we've been, some of that influence is because of the experience that we had and really thinking about how we build into the fellowship itself. And I think it's important to make, the reason we added that additional professional development year is we wanted to make clear that the fellowship has not intended to compete with the existing programs. There's some phenomenal programs in the country, and we wanted to make sure that fellows had an opportunity to get connected the existing networks in those programs as well, as opposed to trying to create something that was off on its own that we had to then build its own reputation around. And this has actually served us really well, I think.

Jack Suess: No, I think that's a brilliant idea actually, because otherwise it begins to be that you're trying to be in competition where now you're in collaboration through these sorts of things. So as you think about this, and we began to talk a little bit, and you talked about your staff and others, but how are you or other alumni from your class working to be thinking about this question of bringing more people into the profession? That's a key element to just as how do we get that seed corn started? How do we get people coming in from these diverse backgrounds? Are there any ideas that have sort of germinated out or that you're sort of looking at trying to help move forward that either yourself or others seem to be finding successful?

Kenitra Horsley: Well, one of the things that I'm doing through my connections here in Charlotte, Charlotte CIOs, we've come together and one of the things that with our partners, and they're from banking energy, we are looking at how do we give back to the community and creating a program where we are focused on the next generation of leaders and we are trying to leverage, and we've started with existing programs and at the community college level, even at K 12 level, doing speaking engagements, finding ways to partner with existing programs to capture those that may not have been in the funnel. So that's one of the things that I'm doing. But also my peers that have moved into CIO and CTO roles are doing similar exercises. They're leading DEI initiatives on their campuses and their communities as well.

Cynthia Golden: So I guess a question for both of you to follow up on that a little bit is what can our listeners do? What can our higher ed IT community do to help move this kind of work along?

Kenitra Horsley: I would say I feel like one is awareness, right? Making sure that people know about this program, that we support it, that we support individuals in their desires to move and advance in their careers. So that would be key. I would also say just supporting NLF, as I mentioned, it's a lot of scholarship. I don't know that Michael, what kind of funding all of the funding sources, but all of that would also be equally, I think well received and being able to provide this to a larger group. I think the cohort size, I think we're keeping it at 12 or so for logistics and other things, but being able to continue the program obviously would be financial support and then mentorship. So

Michael Cato: I appreciate all of that. If I can add one quick thing to it, I think that the observations that you just shared from your experiences of the way you're contributing in your local community, I think that answers true for so many of us where sometimes we just look at the larger scale efforts and say, well, if I can't do something like that, then I can't make a difference within my own IT organization or within my own the IT function in my library or wherever it is I'm serving. And yet there are so many opportunities to share from what I've learned with people that I think sometimes we miss those. So I think being able to take a more holistic view of it is one of the ways I would try to encourage people to be thinking about this work.

Jack Suess: No, that's a great point. And one thing that we've talked a couple of times about at EDUCAUSE and internet too that has really sort of changed my organization is the fact that we became intentional about how we hire students. And in the past we were hiring students mostly as referrals from other students. And what we found is we were mostly white males because at that time, that was who was in the organization and they were referring other friends. And we decided, no, we're going to be really deliberate post all of our jobs, but also be intentional in doing outreach to groups like our Center for Women in it, the National Students for Black Engineers, other groups. And within a year, we were able to sort of change the dynamic in our student population to be a much higher proportion of women and a much higher proportion of minorities so that we actually reflect the diversity of UMBC itself.

Jack Suess: And once we got to that, it's been really straightforward to maintain because people are having great experiences, but you get to see the benefit sometimes of the mentoring and other things that the staff would put into student employees now going to a much larger diverse group of students. And so again, I think there's lots of little things that we can all be doing to be helping to try to be bringing more of these historically excluded communities into our profession. And I think it's fabulous the work that you're doing. So let me though, ask one question, Michael, as you're thinking about the long-term sustainability, this is with you, with Bowdoin Mike, will you be working for the next 50 years? How are you thinking joking? How are you thinking about this program evolving and will it always stay at Bowdoin? Are you looking to replicate it at some point? How this is something that's needed longterm?

Michael Cato: So the way I'd answer that is we've purposely tried to design the fellowship so that it is something that could be built on, it could be replicated, and hopefully others could decide that there are enhancements they would take to the model that could use for different demographics or different fields of study, or I dunno, it decided we wanted to grow the next generation of leaders focused on serving ai and we're going to draw them from library professions and data professions, right? You name the model. I do think this is the model that would lend itself well to having that kind of focus. And if anyone's ever interested, we actually came up with at the very beginning, what's our minimum viable product version that costs nothing, right? So we went into this knowing we needed to have that as a starting point. Basically, if there was no money involved, how would we do this?

Michael Cato: It would look very different in some ways, the in-person pieces as an example. But we knew that there was so much of the work that wasn't really about money, but having resources allowed us to be much more flexible. Long-term. We are hoping to approach some foundations to give ourselves some runway that if we can get a three to five year runway that we can really focus in on refining the effort itself, building out a assessment. We've got some assessment in it, but not at the robust level that I'd like us to have that we're trying to build some of that this year. And then really start to question what does it look like to make this self-sustaining or at least sustaining with enough interest from either industry or within IT focused institutions or institutions that are willing to contribute to it. Right now, this costs about $15,000 per participant for what we're doing.

Michael Cato: And we've been really grateful. We've had the first year, Bowdoin fully funded it. The second and third year, we had a combination of a small number of institutions that thankfully saw this as a means of them making a contribution to the wider industry. And as I mentioned before, we have a number of search firms who saw this as something that was contributing to them, moving the needle on something that was really important to them. And so that combination, in addition to our partnerships, is how we've been able to do it successfully for the last three years.

Jack Suess: Well, it's fabulous. And for anyone that's listening who's part of one of those organizations that might think of contributing, I don't think we're too many years away from being at an award ceremony at Edge of Cause, where you run the gamut of every one of the award winners has a connection to NLF. I know last year there was at least one, and I expect that that's two. Okay. Yeah. I expect that it's going to be continuing to grow over time because you're just doing a great job with the work that you're doing.

Cynthia Golden: I agree. This has been a fantastic conversation.

Jack Suess: So before we close, we always like to end on a little bit of lightheartedness. So we've had some serious conversation here, but on a personal level, you've all got high visibility, high pressure jobs. What do you do for fun? How do you relax?

Michael Cato: Tanisha has to go first because her answers are better than mine. Okay.

Kenitra Horsley: No, I don't know. I've got a 5-year-old who keeps me very busy, and as of late, she has wanted to roller skate. So several evenings out of the week, we are roller skating through the neighborhood. That sounds like fun. That's a great de-stressor. She tells me no cell phones allowed. So that's how I am recharging these days.

Jack Suess: Well, that's a centering activity into a, so, Michael, how do you,

Michael Cato: Sorry, I just had another hiccup, but I think my answer starts with my son. I have an 8-year-old son, so it's not roller skating right now. He's had a switch for the last couple of years, so he's really into video games. He's gotten really good, and I've been trying to keep up with him trying and failing to keep up with him, but spending quite a bit of time with him perhaps has probably been the place I'm having a lot more fun right now.

Cynthia Golden: Well, I think part of why we ask this question is because everybody, we really do recognize the importance of having some balance in your life. Yet we've all had jobs where that's hard to find sometimes. And kind of keeping it front and center I think is helpful.

Jack Suess: Well, and what you're talking about where you're doing both development at the personal and professional level to have a long career requires that you also focus on your personal relationships as well. If you don't that you're going to not be able to sustain a long career because you're going to end up having challenges. But now we want to end with our last question, which is what does the term integrative CIO mean to you? And Kenitra, since you have the better answers? We'll let you go first.

Kenitra Horsley: It's really about, to me, bringing it all together, right? Showing up with technology and our institutions, but actually seeing how we are enablers in every area within the institution, whether it's enrollment, advancement, athletics, being at the table, showing how they can leverage technology to create that new student experience, digital experience, whatever is needed, but actually being an active participant in the future of Queens. For me. That's Michael.

Michael Cato: I appreciate that Kenitra. The part I would add is I definitely as a yes. And that for me that one of the definitions I found as I started looking up the word was bringing together diverse things. And I thought that was just apropos to today's conversation, right? Because for me, it's also about the people part of it that I joke often that my job really is about people. The technology is secondary, and being able to do that and bring in perspectives from people who have very different lived experiences, I think just I know makes your organization better at solving complex problems, which is at the core of it, that's our jobs. But also, I enjoy my work a lot more when I can sit down and talk to people who just experience the world so very differently than I do because I learned something every day.

Cynthia Golden: Well, thank you both for joining us today. This has been a great conversation, and we really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us and let our audience learn about the NLF.

Jack Suess: I'm looking forward to that year when you sweep the awards, Michael.

Michael Cato: Well, thank you very much for the invitation, and thank you Kisha. Yes,

Kenitra Horsley: Thank you for having us.

Michael Cato: Thank you. Okay.