Episode 50 - Professor John Frazier

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to Kendyl speaks. I'm Dr. Brian Stewart Kendall campus president. And today we're blessed to have one of our professors here at the Kendall campus, Professor John Frazier from the Arts and Philosophy department. Welcome. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Thank you and welcome to everyone else. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Also sitting in with us today is our dean of Faculty, Dr. Jorge Michael Cuellar. Welcome, sir. [00:00:27] Speaker B: It is a pleasure. [00:00:28] Speaker A: It's great to have you two with us today. We're going to talk a little bit about what goes on in the classroom and all the things that you have going on. But first tell us a little about your path to Miami Dade College. How did you get to the Kendall campus and to Miami Dade College? [00:00:41] Speaker B: Well, I grew up in very rural, very rural Ohio. And even then I didn't really fit in, like into farm country, factory work. My favorite book to read, it sounds like I was a geek when I was a kid book. But I used to look at Guinness Book of World Records and atlases and I wanted to travel. And so for me, I've kind of compiled a series of about every 10 to 15 years different experiences, different jobs that ultimately led me to teaching at Miami Dade College. So my first job out of college, I ran a really cool arts program out of the Field Museum in Chicago, one of the major kind of natural history museums, working with 350,000 children. And after about 10 years of that, I wanted to have more of a hands on experience. So I ended up spending about 10 years working for the United nations in Africa, working in different refugee camps. And when I was basically ready to settle back in the States, a position opened up at Miami Dade College in the art history department. My wife is also a college faculty who's now at fiu. So it was kind of a perfect mix, kind of moving into Miami Dade from there. [00:01:42] Speaker A: And you've always been at Kendall, right? [00:01:43] Speaker B: I've always been at Kendall, yeah. [00:01:45] Speaker A: That's really rare. A lot of the people we've interviewed have migrated to other campuses. The fact that you've been at Kendall is really. That's awesome. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Year 16, we're starting right now. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Year 16. Wow. And what part of Ohio? [00:01:55] Speaker B: From about an hour outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, small little town called Amelia, Ohio, which now is actually only about 45 minutes from Cincinnati because we have a new highway which we did not have back then. [00:02:05] Speaker A: I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but I have relatives in Cincinnati. Where at Florence. [00:02:10] Speaker B: Oh, that's 30 minutes from the house for the last. [00:02:13] Speaker A: I've been married 30 something years for the last 35 years. Every other year, we've been going to Florence for family reunions. So I love that part of the country. [00:02:21] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you a funny story about that. So my mom, because I wanted to travel so much, and my brothers and sisters, there were four of us, we always wanted to travel. And so we told them, my mom said, all right, we're going to have a great family trip. We're going to go to Paris. We're going to go to Florence. Here's the hook. We're going to go to Athens. Turns out all of those cities are also in Kentucky. So that was the worst vacation we ever had. [00:02:44] Speaker A: Florence, y'. All. Right. [00:02:45] Speaker B: Florence, y'. All. Yeah. [00:02:46] Speaker A: All right. Sorry for all that. Let's get back on topic here. Your major, you're an arts and philosophy major. What attracted you to that? What made you realize that that was the right path for you? [00:02:57] Speaker B: I had a really odd experience in terms of kind of getting to where I am today. So I am a lover of almost every educational subject you can imagine. So I had seven college majors. It took me five years. [00:03:10] Speaker A: Seven. [00:03:10] Speaker B: Yes. I went in as a genetic engineering major studying chemistry. Actually have a chemistry degree undergraduate. And I was doing undergraduate biochemical research in Nigeria on a study group when a mini civil war broke out. And I was forced, as well as the other people that were on that study group, into a refugee camp. And we were stuck there for a couple of months because it wasn't safe enough to get us out. This is rural Nigeria in 1992. And so I saw the power of the way that art was used within the refugee camp to heal people, to heat them up, to. To get them to kind of bond the community together. And I saw that, and I never had that love of genetic engineering or chemistry. And so I'm like, that's what I want to study. So I came back, and that one experience, that really travesty that took place is really what brought me here and changed my major forever. [00:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And you've done a lot of traveling. [00:04:01] Speaker B: I know 114 countries. [00:04:03] Speaker A: 114. And I've had the pleasure of seeing you teach and talk to students and. And I could see those other majors in you. I almost see you as a philosopher at times. And the way you work with your students, I think it's really cool the way you. [00:04:14] Speaker B: Thank you. I was a philosophy major for one semester. Philosophy. Marine biology. Marine geology, Genetic engineering, Chemistry, Art history, Women's studies. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Wow. It's almost like a Kevin Bacon. We could play John Frazier. How many Degrees from a major, talk a little bit about what teacher or mentor made a big impact on your life and helped significantly influence you to today. [00:04:38] Speaker B: For me, it was Dr. Patrick McNaughton out of Indiana University. That was my graduate advisor. He's a special individual and I mean that in the kind of the most kind empathetic way that I can. He allowed me to do some of my coursework in absentia because I had a job with the United nations and I was able to spend my summers really working in refugee camps, kind of gathering data, working with local populations, perhaps particularly in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. So I had been there. I was 11 days into Rwanda after the genocide supposedly ended, at least on one side of the country. So I had language skills, though they wanted me there. So he was very open about that. The other thing is that he was very open minded, like. So the first degree ever in African art history was granted in 1968. It's a brand new field. So my advisor is the second generation and within that he had to fight as well as all that second generation did for African art, African culture, to be considered on the same par as Renaissance culture or really European white culture. So I saw that, that kind of fight and that envy on how important it was to have a much more inclusive world than what we ever seen. And I, I think that kind of fight continues. And then the other thing is that he was very forward going in terms of technology. So when CD ROMs became a thing, I know they're no longer even here and our audience might know what those are, but they used to make these for educational materials. He had a grant and I was his teaching research associate on that grant. So looking at how technology can be used for education, which has really allowed me to be open minded about using AI in the classroom and developing it. So there's something special about someone who has all those different skills. [00:06:11] Speaker A: And you think you bring that to the class. You think you're a good mentee of his after all these years? [00:06:15] Speaker B: I certainly hope so. I think he would say yes. I mean, I think part of it is kindness kills. I mean, I try to be. I tell everyone in my classroom, I never want to be the smartest in the room. I always want to be the kindest because I think that matters. [00:06:28] Speaker A: I have to ask this question. I'm not getting political, but I just think of the way we are today. We're in a difficult world in a lot of ways. Where do you think we are today? How do you think things change from all the years that you've done, all your traveling in the various countries. And I know that's a tough question. It's really not an easy question because a lot of the things that have changed are political. But I know you've seen so much in the last number of years. What do you see? [00:06:51] Speaker B: I will talk about the level, then I'd bring it to human rights. So I've been at this and doing human rights work in Africa for the better part of almost 30 years, or just over 30 years. And I think two things are very apparent. Number one, with the advent of social media, there's a huge awareness of what's going on. Right. We know so much more about any time than we've ever known in the history of humanity, which is wonderful. But it also means that we know so much about the negative things that are happening. We almost never talk about the positives. There are enormously positive things going on all over the world. But we are so drawn to the negativity. And so human rights around the world are better in the last 30 years than they've ever been probably in the history of humanity. We can look at violence, numbers and things that are showing. Right. The Enlightenment ideals come up have actually changed us. The last five years we've seen a backslide though, as democracies are slowly being challenged because they're slow moving intentionally to get to the future, we've seen a backslide. So for the last 30 years, way ahead. Last five years we've had a backdrop, particularly in the idea of women's and LGBTQIA rights. And that's true all over the planet. [00:08:00] Speaker A: It's a great answer. Not an easy question. I love the positive aspect, that there are positive things we don't recognize that we probably should. Well, one of the things I'm especially proud of you, Professor Frazier, is the endowed teaching chair. You are our winner and our person selected this year. Talk a little bit about what that means to you and again, I want to congratulate you because I think it's a well deserved honor. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Thank you very much. I think the number one thing for me is that it is a validation that your peers, because it's voted on by your peers and faculty, have recognized the impact that you have on the next generation of students. That's really the interesting ensemble. These are students who are going to go out and change the world. These are our change making students. The idea that you can actually do that in not just a change making class or with a small cohort like in the Honors College but that we can do that for all of our classes, right. That. That show up to have that impact. I mean, if you think about kind of what our students have done, at least my students in the last 15 years, my students have raised $50,000 for charity. They've done 40,000 academic service learning hours. Right. They've provided solar lamps to an entire village in Africa. So people in the graduation rates have gone up. Like, it's a kind of a validation just on the global impact that our students can have if A, we. We give them the opportunity and B, challenge them that they can have an impact and teach them how to. So that they can have that impact, not just here, but then when they leave here. And I think that's the most amazing part, personally. It's amazing because coming from rural Ohio, first college graduate, right. Growing up on food stamps, all sorts of things that are showing up, it really is a testament what good parenting can do. Like, almost both my parents have recently passed. [00:09:39] Speaker A: Oh, I'm sorry. [00:09:39] Speaker B: And the idea that they got to see me win, you know, an award that's kind of by my peers based upon everything that they sacrificed in terms of kind of getting me to college. The question was never would I go to college? The question was always, how are we going to afford him to go to college? Which is kind of an amazing thing for a family to have built into their system. [00:09:58] Speaker A: And it's really appropriate at Miami Dade College because we have so many students that reflect you in that role. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I do look a lot like our students if you look at kind of economic background, social background. Yeah, I feel very much for them, very empathetic to kind of what they experience in life on a daily basis. [00:10:16] Speaker A: You mentioned honors college students, and I'm really. You're kind of my mentor as it comes to the honors colleges. I've only been in it a short time, but I love your projects that you do for your students. Would you mind talking a little bit about your end of class project? Actually, it's not end of class. It's presented end of class. But talk a little bit about that, if you wouldn't mind. [00:10:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the most important things about education is that I want my education to matter. Not just matter for me and them, but matter for a project that they're doing to show them that they can have an impact on their community. So in my art appreciation class every year, my students are required to do what's called a culture box, which is a box where they create information that goes out to a Teacher in the Miami Dade public school system. So that it kind of encourages them to learn about an area of the world that's generally not covered, that most teachers wouldn't feel comfortable with. Like when. One of the really interesting things is that when students in my art appreciation class raised their hands, none of them studied China before. I mean, think about the ramifications for us as the United States. We are a world superpower. China's the other world superpower. And we know nothing about our competition. Right. We know nothing about kind of what's going on in the world there. That is a huge oversight in our educational capacity if you want to continue to be kind of a dominant world power and know what other players are doing. And so one of the first boxes they ever did was on China. That box has been out to more than 20,000 students. So much so it's fallen apart. And we've had to reproduce it a couple times. And each day then it's a week's worth of entertainment, It's a week's worth of education, It's a week's worth of kind of new ideas on China to get the teacher, the students kind of interested in what's going on in China. So they get just enough. They know a little bit about the background, but. But that they will kind of continue their studies hopefully afterwards. And people always pick their favorite area of the world that's underrepresented. They can choose the grade. And then we work along collaboratively with other teachers. And my favorite part is now we have teachers that have graduated our program that have now come back and are the advisors to the teacher. So we have six of them now, which is a really cool kind of second time attempt for them. [00:12:20] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that. That's a really cool project and I'm glad to put that out there. Arts and philosophy encourages us to look at the world in different perspectives. We talked a little bit about that. What do you hope your students take away from your classes? [00:12:33] Speaker B: I think the most important thing I want our students to come out after our classes, whether it's an art and philosophy or mine in particular, is that I want them to think that the world is available to them. I want them to know that. Right. Every year I have roughly 500 students, up to 600 students a year. And I want to basically give them a change making mindset. Mindset such that they know that they can create a better world for themselves, their family, their community, the world by studying the great minds and the great ideas that have ever been out there. Right. Combining the ideas of Plato and Newton and Aristotle, looking at art from Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci, looking at feminist movements around the world and how actually moved the bar forward for half of the world's population like Mary Wollstonecraft or the gorilla girls. And the idea that they can actually have a positive impact on their is the greatest mindset we can ever give them. Right. Because that's not just us, that's helping everyone out in the community as well, [00:13:29] Speaker A: preparing them to be adults and working adults. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Not just adults, but change makers, change makers. Individuals that actually can have a positive impact on their society and have the skills to do it. I was not taught that in undergraduate. We didn't have that. So we figured it out along the way. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. Today's students get information almost instantaneously. How do you encourage your students to slow down, think critically, ask questions and challenge things? [00:13:58] Speaker B: I think that is one of the modern day aspects of education, particularly in the aftermath of AI revolution that's taking place. So I think two things. One, because I have degrees, I might be the only professor they ever meet that has degrees in the social sciences, the natural sciences and the humanities. I tell them over and over, the arts are one of the most difficult subjects to study. And I truly believe that because you have to understand the psychology of not just the creator, but the audience viewing it. You need to know the economics of who's paying for the artwork, where is it going to the social marketing that shows up all the artistic skills, the history and cultural context, the religion that's going to go into the science of actually seeing and understanding the idea of communication. That it's a two way street that is both the viewer as well as the person actually creating. And there's mix manage that show up. So I think on some of it we want them to look at it from different perspectives. So one project I do in class actually did it earlier today is I had them tell us what their major was and they had to add something to conversation about an artwork based upon their major so that everyone had, oh, I'm in economics. Let me hear about the finance. Oh, I do psychology. Let's hear about the mental health aspects that are showing up that you can see within it so that we can all see that there's these interconnected aspects. [00:15:15] Speaker A: That's a great lead into my next question. What have you learned from your students and how has being a professor changed the way you look at the classroom? [00:15:23] Speaker B: On day one, I tell my students that if I don't learn anything from them. That's not a great relationship. The relationship between professor and student should be interactive, right. I'll give them all sorts of information and insights and ideas, but I also want to hear their perspectives and what they believe and what they hear. Whether that's on a personal level or something they've seen in artwork they've never seen before or. Or whether it's me being introduced to a new musical group. Right? Because we want to bond together. That's how learning works. It's a social environment. So I always want to have that aspect of interacting with one another. And I think that's the key is all my classrooms are what are called flipped classrooms, which means they watch the lecture before they ever come to class. So the entire classroom we're spent discussing doing small group work, then kind of evaluating that. So I always want to have that kind of model of education. [00:16:14] Speaker A: That's great. Is there a particular artist or philosopher, book or work of art or idea that has influenced you? [00:16:21] Speaker B: For me, I think the beauty of art history and of the arts field is that it's all of them. And I say that, you know, because think about what art is, right? Art is the idea of putting new ideas that have value to a community out there, right? We train our art, our new artists, we train them in all the old methods, right? They learned the idea of drawing and perspectival drawing and three dimensional drawing, and then they go into anatomical drawing. But the goal at the end of the arts program is not perfection. It's not to match what people have done before. It's to break the rules, to make something new that has value to us in society. So my field itself is the idea of challenging the norms that happen to be out there, which is a fascinating field to be in, right? So when new innovations come up and change, we don't fear change because some of we embrace that because those are new opportunities for all of us. So I think for my entire field, to put one spin on it. For example, I mentioned the Gorilla Girls earlier. The Guerrilla Girls are a New York City based feminist group that wear gorilla masks to hide their identity. So they're unknown or not well known artists, at least early on when they start. And their job was to question the sexism that was in the art market over and over and over. And in the time that they've been doing it over the last 30 years, we haven't made much an improvement. So they're still wearing their gorilla masks. So their comment is always, I don't want to wear the gorilla masks anymore. Like when will we be free in order to be able to have this? And so my field, we embrace that and yet we don't fully embrace it in terms of the economics of galleries and markets. We still need to work on that. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's a great story. Do a little advertisement for the Kendall campus. As I listened to you talk here a little bit, I think about the art and all the talent we have on this campus. Talk a little bit about, for someone listening here that might consider coming to Kendall, all the opportunities that we present in our art department. [00:18:17] Speaker B: We have the best facilities of anywhere in Miami and that is including the University of Miami where you'll pay a premium price. We have printmaking and photography. Right. Our photography professor is a national award winning photography professor, Tony Churinos. Right. Jennifer Bissile actually has a budding art career that's actually taking off in printmaking and she will drive you to make the best figure drawing. We have the most empathic faculty you'll ever find. Right. When we were working with the Art Institute of Chicago a couple of years ago, they mentioned to us that our first two year programs were as good as their first year two programs. Why? They're real faculty teaching. They're not all adjuncts. Right. We are absolutely in the midst with them. We have public shows, we have miambiance, an award winning magazine that they can actually get published in that wins national awards. Right. There's access shows, one's actually coming up next week that deal with the arts, the care, the love. And the amount of time that we invest in students is really going to be unlike anywhere else. Our students, when they travel with their portfolio, they get scholarships at the best art schools in the country. Sometimes free rides to places like the Art Institute of Chicago. Right. Scad in Georgia. We actually have had people go to NYU Cooper Union. Just the best of the best. So it's really a remarkable thing what we can actually do with. If you're willing to invest the time to actually come in and work hard with us. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Great job. Appreciate you answering that question. Just coming up, one other thing that we have in common, we both love Disney. Talk a little bit about your Disney connection, if you would. [00:19:52] Speaker B: So I have been a cultural consultant with Disney for the last 30 years. I actually am. There's one of their specialists on African, oceanic and pre Columbian art. And so I'm in Disney pretty often, pretty often into the tunes of. I think I've worked for them 60 days so far this year. So when we're in October So, for example, if you've ever been to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, the Animal Kingdom Lodge is the only hotel in the world that's also a registered museum. So we actually helped select the objects and write up the objects that are actually on display so you can actually get in the museum experience while you're staying at the hotel. I do a cultural consultation. So my job is to make sure three things happen when I work on a particular project like Moana, Black Panther, the Caribbean Beach Hotel. Anything that I actually have had my hand in is the idea of, number one, what are we doing that's representing the culture positively? Those are wonderful things. Second, if we are representing the culture in some kind of insight that's not completely positive, number one, is it accurate and is it going to be overly offensive? In every culture, there are certain things you can make fun of. We've seen comedians make fun of, you know, Jesus giving a sermon, but we never see a comedian making fun of Jesus on the cross because of the pain and the suffering. So my job is to know where the lines are within different cultures that we work with so that we're not really, not just embarrassing, but hurting a culture in terms of its foundational beliefs. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Very moving answer. I have to ask one more follow up question. What are your three favorite rides, things to do at Disney? I love Disney, as you know, and I just love to hear, and I know it's a hard question to maybe even do three, so I wasn't going to ask you one, but are there [00:21:34] Speaker B: three things that for me, they're easy. Okay, good. So each park has one and part of it is emotional connection as well. Okay, so my daughter and I, when we go to Magic Kingdom, even though it's on our favorite ride, the Haunted Mansion, we always ride together. So even if we have three people and the other person could squeeze in the car, my daughter will say, no, no, no, no, push the other person off. Even if it's my niece, you're going to ride by yourself. That's a. It's kind of a magical thing since we've been coming for so many years together. So Magic Kingdom. Absolutely. At Epcot. The new ride, Guardians of the Galaxy, is one of the best, if not the best roller coaster on the planet. And so we actually in line. We'll wait the hour and be thoroughly kind of talking overnight. Which song do you want? I don't know what your favorite song is. Do you have a favorite song for Guardians of the Galaxy? Mine is September. [00:22:20] Speaker A: That's a good one. The music is incredible. On that ride. [00:22:23] Speaker B: So you get six different choices. So that would be absolutely that. And then the third one for me is we almost always stay at the African Lodge, the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Eat at Boma, which is my favorite restaurant in the world. It's a buffet African restaurant. I got to help design that. And so on some level, I will. Sometimes it sounds geeking out a little bit, but I will go out with my computer, try to do work, and I will just sit and I will watch people enjoying the art. Enjoying. Because I'm like, all right, I had a hand in that. Right. And that's a remarkable thing to be able to say that millions of people have seen what you do. [00:22:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. I've got one place I haven't been to that I need to go to. My wife. Every time we go to Magic Kingdom, the Small World. I've written that so many times, it's stuck in my head. It's like a. And then the other thing. Gardens of the Galaxy, she hates standing in line for. All our life. I'm the one that stands in line. We stood in line for 90 minutes three times in a row to ride that ride. She loved it so much. So two out of your three are awesome. [00:23:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:23:20] Speaker A: They're really good. All right. Thank you for sharing Disney with me. [00:23:22] Speaker B: And I'll throw another thing into Disney. So Disney in the future will be redesigning It's a Small World. Right. It's been up for. They will be. And that is because part of the issue is that it was done in the 50s. There are some issues with it. Right. We think very differently about different cultures around the world today than we have 50, 60, 70 years ago. And so one of my students projects, actually, at the end of the semester, their final exam is to take It's a Small World, and it suggests 50 changes to Disney and why. And so we're hoping some of those changes get incorporated in part of the ride. And so suits are kind of excited because they could have a real world experience and the impact on Disney. [00:23:58] Speaker A: I may want to sit in on that presentation. [00:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Two things. You brought that up. What about the. At Epcot, the ball. What do you. I know they're redoing that. Would. Any thoughts on that? No, that was. [00:24:09] Speaker B: I will say. I will say no at this point. [00:24:11] Speaker A: Yeah. The other ride my wife loves is the one at Magic Kingdom, the one that he designed back in the. At the fair. Oldest carousel of Carousel of Progress. She is so upset that that got changed. [00:24:24] Speaker B: I am not a fan of the new changes either. [00:24:26] Speaker A: Yeah, so. [00:24:26] Speaker B: But my children are very excited. But they're the younger generation. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:24:30] Speaker B: I guess my issue, if you don't know what's happening at the Carousel of Progress, it is that they are. It used to go all the way back in the 1800s and talk about the history and how we've changed over time. So now they sound like they're going to change starting in like 1960, still showing the change over time. So my suggestion more than anything else would be why not just, you know, do every 30 years rather than every 10 years, so you get a little bit about the historical aspect versus. And that's more of my concern than anything else. I'm sure they'll do a fantastic job, I'm sure. [00:24:56] Speaker A: But she has that concern. Okay, enough about Disney. Let's have a little fun. If you could sit down for dinner with any artist philosopher from history, who would it be and what would you want to ask them? [00:25:06] Speaker B: For me, it would be Leonardo da Vinci. There's no question. I mean, think about my own background in the arts, the sciences. Here's the man who very well might be the greatest mind that we've ever created. Math, scientist, artist. As a side note, he did art, as a side note, right? That was his night job. And he made it the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, polymath, Probably the most curious man in history. I mean, if you think about it, right today, if we want information, we have AI. Ten years ago, we had before Google. Before that, we had a library. Before that, you went to da Vinci, you went to the smartest man in town and asked him. And if he didn't know it, he invented flight and anatomy. So particularly if that dinner could be today, where we're more on an equal pairing, and I could show him, hey, look what you did. Like this world, here's the result. That flight, that's you, right? That is you. That car and ball bearings he invented, that's you. So I think that would be the idea just to on some will be his tour guide to the impact that he's had on the world and to see kind of that curious mindset. What would his mind come up with thinking that, man, what's the next stage then? [00:26:12] Speaker A: That's a great answer. That's a great answer. As we close, what advice would you give students who may be struggling academically or questioning where they belong in college? [00:26:21] Speaker B: Well, I think I'm one of the people that's almost a perfect answer for this, specifically because I have seven college majors. Like, I couldn't decide. So I've been through the ringer, the sciences and the art. So very open. So when we're talking to different students and they are struggling with, I don't know if this is the right field. Come talk to me. How are you going to try to figure it out? What classes, what organizations could you join within it in terms of struggling students? I think one of the things that's interesting is that more and more we're being much more proactive. So for example, all of my students have to meet with me in the first five weeks of class. They have a 10 or 15 minute one on one meeting. So I get to know them when they come in, I ask them about, you know, not just their academics, hey, what do you listen to? What do you do on the weekends? Right. If there's a musical artist that they bring up that I've never heard of before, we pop in on and listen to it. [00:27:09] Speaker A: How many students do you teach that you do that? [00:27:12] Speaker B: 300. Roughly 300 a semester. [00:27:14] Speaker A: So that is an amazing. [00:27:15] Speaker B: Yes, that's a lot of. That's a lot of. And they also sign up late. So that's a lot of. That's a lot of people in the fourth and fifth weeks and the bleed then clearly over into the sixth week that show up. But I want to show that I care and that kind of interested in the same thing. They're interested, right? I have a love of knowledge in what's going on. So when they tell me they're struggling later on, I've already got a little bit of a relationship with them. But then I also want to know what are they struggling with? That's the challenge, right? Getting people up, is it. It could be a family issue, it could be the idea it's a mental health issue, it could be a economic issue that they really have to work and they can't keep up with the workload. Right. So there's all sorts of different things. And then I try to help them as much as I can kind of navigate that, but then also tell them, hey, you have someone here who's in your corner, right? And I tell them, I tell all of my students when we finish the class that once you're a Fraser student, you're always a Fraser student. So you can always contact me no matter what you want to do. Negotiation for your job salary, 10 years down the road, you need a recommendation for med school, right? That's the nice thing about a community college, particularly Miami Dade College. Like we have empathic faculty that we know our students, we go to their weddings. Right. Sadly, sometimes we go to their funerals as well. And that's kind of a remarkable thing, to have that kind of connection not just with a single individual, but with a family. [00:28:30] Speaker A: Yeah, we mentioned Honors College, but I would be a pre interviewer if I didn't give you a chance to talk about what the Honors College means to you, because you're a big part of the success here at Kendall. So talk a little bit about that, too, if you would. [00:28:41] Speaker B: Well, I want to be part of the success. I don't want to say a big part. I think that. So There are about 10 faculty here that have actually shaped the honors program. And a shout out particularly to two of them, Dr. Stuart Williams and Dr. Yuli Pomaras, who for years headed up kind of what I've actually inherited in some capacity. So that's been wonderful to have that kind of experience as well. I think the other thing that's wonderful about that is that they form a natural cohort because their classes and many of them, they are together, they know one another. We know them individually. They help run a lot of the student organizations and so on. Some of them, they push us. Right. When they come and say, frazier, we don't understand things that immediately go, I have to rethink how I teach that. Then if this group is coming to Mel and they've worked together and they've got their study groups and they can't come up with something, we've got to figure out that for everyone as well. So on some of them, we can use this as a pilot ground for new academic, new ideas as they come up. And the nice thing is also the faculty that teach in that we form a cohort as well, we bounce ideas off. We know these students. When one of them has a problem, we. We talk, hey, have you seen this? What can we do to actually help this student? And we generally don't have that in the other departments. Right. They're just so large otherwise. [00:29:52] Speaker A: Thank you for that answer. As we close, we always like to turn the microphone around here at Kendall Speaks and let you ask me a question. So we'll do that now. If you'd like to ask me anything, I'll do the best I can to answer. [00:30:02] Speaker B: Okay. I won't even ask you about Texas football right now. [00:30:05] Speaker A: So we didn't even talk about. [00:30:07] Speaker B: That's not. That's not fair. [00:30:08] Speaker A: You're a big sports guy, too. Yeah. [00:30:10] Speaker B: Well, one then. So one question. I'm always interested, actually. I have two questions, but one question. I'm always interested in is this. We all have points in our past that are turning points, right? I. As I mentioned before, I was stuck in a refugee camp, and it changed my major, my outlook, everything about my life for the future. Do you have one or two moments in time where you're like, all right, this was transformative on who you've become? [00:30:35] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a couple things that comes to mind. I went to a very small country college in Texas called Tarleton State University. It's the number one rodeo school in the country. That's how different it is than where I grew up. And when I worked on my bachelor's degree in math, I went to my major professor in math and asked him, hey, I was thinking about getting a master's in math. And he told me I couldn't do it. And, boy, it hit me hard. And now I have a master's in math and even a Ph.D. and so there have been many days that I wanted to go back and, you know, tap him on the shoulder and say, hey, guess where I am now? And now look where I really am. But that's not my style. The other thing that occurs to me is when I played college basketball and when I went to sign my scholarship, my dad was a university professor. He's the founding president of UT Tyler. And so I went to sign my scholarship, and I had to put a major there, and I wanted to put coaching, and I still, to this day, would love to be a coach. And he goes, you can't put that. And so the only thing I was. Not the only thing, the thing I was best at was math. So I wrote math in there, and little did I know that that's gotten me here today. It was a big part of that. So those. Those are two big, big kind of things that. And there meant a lot more. There's a whole lot more that helped me. You know, athletics to me, was one of the things, the structure of it, that helped me be an administrator that I am today. So. [00:31:56] Speaker B: And I have one other question. Okay, if that's okay. The other question I always like, because I talk to students about this as well. What's today? So you have a day free. What do you do to energize yourself? Like, what's that perfect day that you come back and you're like, man, this life is worth living. Look. Look what today brought me. [00:32:13] Speaker A: Yeah. If. If. If I could have all the pieces together at once, it would be my. With my family, my wife, with my two kids. I have a son and a daughter to spend the day, you know, half the day with one, half the day with the other. And then my wife and I go to a musical or a play or a movie or something, something entertainment like that. My wife's a big college football fan, so the weekends we watch sports together. So there's so many things. I love to play golf. There's so many things that would energize me. But being with family, I think, would be number one. Maybe even being with family at Disney would be up there pretty high, so. Well, Professor Frazier, this has been a great conversation. Thank you for sitting down with us. Congratulations on your endowed teaching chair. Thank you for all you do with our faculty and our students. You are such a role model for this campus, and I'm proud to have you as a part of the Kendall campus and appreciate you sitting down with us today. [00:33:03] Speaker B: Thank you very much. [00:33:04] Speaker A: I'd like to thank Christina Signs, our head writer, Paul Klein, our executive producer, and Alex Bellows, our producer. Thank you all for being with us today, and goodbye for now. Ra.