Angie Cooksy: 0:11

Welcome back to another episode of the Bradley University Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Angie Cooksy. I serve as the Vice President for Enrollment Management, Marketing and Communications.

Ben Jedd: 0:20

And I am AVP of Marketing and Communications, and my name is Ben Jedd.

Angie Cooksy: 0:24

I was wondering if you were going to call them your name. We're just going to go with Title. If you've not heard us on the show before, we record in the lower level of University Hall in our very own Hilltop Studios, which is a place and a space on campus that faculty, staff, and students can come and record podcasts, do music, all sorts of technical things related to uh arts and performing. And it's a really great space. So we're lucky to be able to be in here. And today's guest, I am so excited to have join us, uh, Dr. Jobie Skaggs, who serves as an associate as the associate provost here on campus. Thank you for joining us.

Jobie Skaggs: 1:03

Thank you for inviting me.

Angie Cooksy: 1:05

Everyone's always so nervous to come on our show, Ben.

Ben Jedd: 1:07

Yes. And Joey, did you know that Angie actually plays the drums here in studio?

Angie Cooksy: 1:12

Ben is a liar.

Jobie Skaggs: 1:14

I thought I heard on one of your podcasts that you play the drums, but I didn't know that you actually had played on that set.

Angie Cooksy: 1:20

No, Ben just likes to spread rumors about my musical ability on our show. And so I think we've just we're going through all of the instruments. I think one time it was a triangle. We're just we're just seeing.

Ben Jedd: 1:31

Cowbell.

Angie Cooksy: 1:32

Cowbell. Yeah. I might be able to play the cowbell, but probably not well. Um, so let's get started because nobody wants to hear about that. Uh, Jobie, one of the things that we do on the show, and the reason we have the show is to highlight the people who are amazing on this campus and are doing amazing things. And um to start, we always give everybody a little bit of space to talk about themselves and introduce themselves and share a little bit about your journey um to the seat that you sit in today at Bradley as associate provost.

Jobie Skaggs: 1:59

Well, thank you.

Angie Cooksy: 1:59

Yeah.

Jobie Skaggs: 2:00

Are you wanting me to respond? Yeah. Yeah.

Angie Cooksy: 2:04

Okay. So how what where did you start? How did you land at Bradley? How long have you been at Bradley? All those good things.

Jobie Skaggs: 2:11

So uh I guess uh the the probably the clearest path when I think about my journey is is really begins at I was born in the South, uh in Oklahoma. Family uh dispersed between Oklahoma and Arkansas. My parents ended up in Idaho. Uh of course I tagged along because I was quite young. That's good. Um and it spent an uh a lot of time in the West. My family also raised uh horses, so I spent a lot of time on a horse farm. And the quick of it is I ended up entering into the field of mental health to be a more effective trainer of horses. So it just started with psychology, and then my uh interest uh was piqued. I ended up in clinical mental health counseling because of my strong foundation in psychology. Ended up completing my doctorate, and as I was looking for a teaching position at Bradley, was one of the first universities that posted a vacancy. Um I saw it in the chronicle, and my initial gut, to be perfectly honest, was oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm ready to live in Peoria. I didn't really know much about Peoria other than Caterpillar. But then I learned about Bradley University and I fell in love because of Lydia Moss Bradley.

Angie Cooksy: 3:44

Yeah.

Jobie Skaggs: 3:44

And I when I first arrived here, I thought I would maybe be here five or six years, and I'm still here. One of the values behind the scenes that I think I provide is just my knowledge, historical knowledge of where we are, how we got here uh over the last uh 25 years or so.

Angie Cooksy: 4:03

That historial knowledge is so valuable. I think people don't re recognize always, you know, higher ed is cyclical, and so every new idea was probably an idea that somebody else had four or five years ago, and there wasn't a reason there was a reason we did or didn't do it at the time. And so having somebody who's been here through lots of changes, good and lots of changes, challenging, I think adds a perspective to campus that is really invaluable. Is there a time where you have seen that play out in your work that you're like, I know something here that that is?

Jobie Skaggs: 4:36

Yeah, I I I suppose at times I I uh my peers when I sit around meetings, maybe with the two of you, there'll be you know discussions about there's a challenge, we need to come up with a solution, and people start brainstorming, and then it's like your old relative who's sitting around a family reunion table, and let me tell you about when. And that that's often what I do. And so um things, uh challenges, solutions that we're looking for, um uh uh sometimes those new ideas we have tried previously doesn't mean we shouldn't try them again, but it's like let me provide some context and history. And um I would uh say that most often uh those occur around how we can be uh more student focused and improve, say, advising. Uh and so uh a new idea that pops up may have be identical to something we did five years ago or we talked about doing, but we have scads of research and we even marked out a plan. So we can bring that to the table, and the the new folks can look at it and decide, yeah, let's implement this, or nope, we need to to toss it and come up with something completely new. So I think that's the value of the historical um uh uh uh memory.

Ben Jedd: 5:59

Yeah. So your portfolio as associate provost is pretty dense. Like you you are you you do a lot of different things at this university. Could you talk about like I mean, I know you do the H you're in charge of HLC, you're in charge of Ali and professional development, all kinds of different things. Can you kind of talk about that?

Jobie Skaggs: 6:20

Yeah, I'm I'm super excited about my direct reports. Uh, and you're very generous with leading HLC and continuing it. No, no. What I I I I think I'm conduit to help. I I have amazing leaders of My Direct Reports, and my primary goal is to remove barriers, solve problems so they can thrive. So honors, amazing program. Yeah. Um uh uh international education and study abroad, spectacular. And I get to participate in that. I was just before coming over here planning an Ireland trip.

Ben Jedd: 6:57

Angie and I really want a podcast in Ireland. That's so weird.

Jobie Skaggs: 7:01

I'll let you know. I'll let you know if we can uh squeeze you in. Um uh Office of Institutional Effectiveness, which they oversee the uh HLC Higher Learning Commission.

Angie Cooksy: 7:11

Can we just give a shout out to the Office of Institutional Effectiveness because they are like some unsung heroes of all of the data and research that's happening on this campus, and they are amazing. Not that everyone else isn't amazing too, but like that team is doing some heavy lifting.

Ben Jedd: 7:26

And HLC, for anyone that's listening, is incredibly important for any university. It's our accreditation. It basically says we are an effective university. And we just got our report back, right?

Jobie Skaggs: 7:38

Yes, it's a second time uh where we have gone under review and there have been no, I call them dings, uh, areas of improvement, or we have to report back. And and I the it takes many people to write these reports and prepare for these reviews, the entire campus and some external partners. But the hub of that is Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Ginny Grooning Burge. Uh she's a powerhouse, we all know. Sure. We we're delighted to have her. Uh she does an amazing job, but she makes sure you've crossed your T's and dotted your I's.

Angie Cooksy: 8:16

Can you talk a little bit about HLCA for anyone maybe outside of academia or even people inside the college world, like if you're not directly involved with it, you don't necessarily know what it means. And going through accreditation sometimes feels like this big, sort of scary thing, like, oh, it's accreditation. But it's also, I think, such a remarkable exercise for an institution to go through, not only to do its own self-check, but to in some capacities learn about what it's doing really well. Um, how would you describe the HLC process and the accreditation process?

Jobie Skaggs: 8:48

Well, uh an accrediting body sets minimal standards, and those standards are developed by experts in the area, our peers. Um and in this country, uh the Department of Education recognizes uh uh uh institutional accreditors as as the ones who ensure that we're complying with federal standards. Uh, and I should say that uh we also have an obligation to follow state standards. And so there's minimal standards, um, the expectation we meet them, we get to decide how we meet them, we state how we meet them, and then we have to provide evidence. It's not enough to say we do it, we have to provide evidence of. We have to demonstrate that we have policy and we're following our policy. We have to demonstrate if we stub our toe and misstep that we've addressed it, and this is our plan to make sure we don't do that again. If we can demonstrate that, then we are in the clear and we're we uh maintain um uh our ability to receive federal funds for students to attend university. And it enables us to do a lot of other things, get specialized accreditation. I come from counseling, so a specialized accreditors K Crep, and K Crep requires evidence that we're meeting our national accreditation, which would be with HLC. So it's very robust, and it the requirement is the entire university community and some external partners are involved in documenting this. Uh it's a giant book report, and it takes two to three years to write. Yeah. You should have uh Ginny Gruning Burge on sometime, Dr. Ginny Groening Burge, and have her talk about HLC.

Angie Cooksy: 10:27

Yeah, we will.

Jobie Skaggs: 10:28

It takes a special breed to appreciate accreditation, not everyone does.

Angie Cooksy: 10:31

I feel like Ben and I have learned more about it this year, maybe than we knew we were going to, just because with everything that we've been doing on the website and how all of those pieces are connected. Again, I think in a lot of ways that that institutional reflection is also the evidence. And then you have to know where the evidence is and is it actually where we say it is? And if it's not, how do we put it back together? And I think doing the the website in tandem with that showed us a lot of things this year about where we can be smarter and cleaner, and um, you know, even just the the transition into course leaf, which I think has been such a cool project, sort of all tied in together about which is our new catalog.

Ben Jedd: 11:11

Yes, I was getting there. I know. Understand.

Angie Cooksy: 11:15

That's teasing and tedious. It's tedious, but it's so important. And it goes back to what you said about being student-centered and being student focused and making sure that we're providing a resource that is delivering what we're promising, and I think it's so cool.

Jobie Skaggs: 11:30

It's it's been quite a project. It's been great to to partner with the other offices, particular marketing. Um it's been intense.

Ben Jedd: 11:38

I told her to say that.

Jobie Skaggs: 11:40

Yeah, yeah. When I sent the email, yeah. She knew it. So I I I would that to get to go through an accreditation review without any dings is extremely rare, and we've done it twice in a row. So that speaks to how dedicated the faculty and staff are to this institution. Um, and it's also about moving forward, where are we going to go next? I know we're getting involved, uh engaging in strategic planning and so on. So it's pretty, pretty awesome.

Ben Jedd: 12:07

So you've been at Bradley for a little while. Um thank you. You're welcome. Uh what do you love about your job and what do you think makes Bradley unique?

Jobie Skaggs: 12:18

What I love about my job is it's uh changing all the time. I I never know what each day is going to bring. Um I love the campus, I love the neighborhood, love walking to work. What I love most about Bradley is Lydia Moss Bradley, the history. Uh, and I always uh look forward to opportunities to celebrate that history, uh, that foundation. And um uh I've always thought about ways to uh help our uh students be more aware of the history. I remember when I was teaching at the graduate level, um, I would often integrate uh trivia questions about Lydia Moss Bradley, and I was always surprised that some of the information I would share about Lydia was new to her students, and so it just these were graduate students, so uh they didn't necessarily have time, non-traditional evening students, to maybe learn about Lydia, but boy, I loved lighting that fire, and it was always well received.

Angie Cooksy: 13:20

Do you have a favorite Lydia Trivia Fact?

Jobie Skaggs: 13:23

Oh gosh, it's been so long since I've had to draw I I had the the I used to have the two houses, the house that's uh by the the spring that's uh essentially decayed, I understand. I I haven't been over there, and then the house on Moss Avenue, and so I'd ask questions around where she lived. Um so I I'd have to dust that off.

Ben Jedd: 13:48

So I was I was in the library yesterday and there's like a case of Lydia's China in there. Yes, and oh I didn't know that. Yeah, it's like pink china, it's awesome. And yeah.

Jobie Skaggs: 14:01

Have you seen the uh watch in Westlake Hall? It was one of the first early pocket watches um that came out of the School of Horology in Peoria, Illinois. It's on it's beautiful showcase down on the garden level of Westlake Hall. You should visit it.

Angie Cooksy: 14:19

I'll look on my way to class next week. Um now I feel like we should create like a Lydia fact-finding scavenger hunt around campus, like find the china, find the watch, find her dress, take a picture with Lydia. My wheels are spinning. I love Lydia. I'm with you. Like I think she's just remarkable. And one of the things I think is the coolest about the job that Ben and I get to do is we get to showcase how someone who was so visionary in 1897 over a hundred years ago is still so applicable to what we're doing here today. And I think that that's just a remarkable um opportunity, but also responsibility that I I think is really cool.

Jobie Skaggs: 14:58

It's it's uh it's humbling at times when you look back at the history and what she put together still exists and it thrives and it's uh future-facing. And then the the tragedy around her life with the number losing her children and uh she was a remarkable woman.

Angie Cooksy: 15:15

Extraordinarily resilient for sure. Um you mentioned you have taught over the years. Are you currently teaching in your role?

Jobie Skaggs: 15:23

It's been a year and a half, two years since I've taught. I'm looking forward to perhaps the spring, maybe next academic year, uh picking up a course again. I think it's important to teach at least one course a year. I'd like to teach two, but I stay busy with you know all of my direct reports. Uh that's part, you know, about a third of my third to half of my job, and then there's a a a section that's special projects or intensive um uh strategic planning or internal reports, analyzing data. And then the the the final piece would be um dealing with not dealing with helping work through primarily student issues that matriculate up to higher administration and the provost, he takes on the faculty side and the two intersect, but so it's hard to carve out it's a challenge to carve out time to teach and do a good job uh if I uh were to pick up more than one class a year.

Angie Cooksy: 16:25

I totally get that. What's been over your years, what's been your favorite course to teach? What do you love teaching?

Jobie Skaggs: 16:30

Um, my favorite course has always been research methods because students are typically terrified of it. Um and they dread it. They dread it.

Ben Jedd: 16:39

You love that look on their face when they come in just miserably.

Jobie Skaggs: 16:43

And they're gonna be counselors, they're gonna why do they need to know this information? By the time they finish my course uh over and over and over again, uh I I have they they would be they were transformed. They loved it. Um and so it was exciting to see that journey. Uh and theories of personality would be the other.

Ben Jedd: 17:01

So, what's something people may not know about you, Joey, or an experience you've had at Bradley?

Jobie Skaggs: 17:07

At Bradley?

Ben Jedd: 17:08

Well, or not Bradley.

Jobie Skaggs: 17:10

Well, I I think a lot of uh people may not know that I am heavily involved in study abroad and now I've transitioned to a place that they report to me. It's uh it's uh it's so satisfying to watch students' transformation when they uh participate in an interim course. They I always say they go as late teens, very very late teens, uh, and they they head from Peoria or their hometown out of O'Hare to let's say London. Late teen, they're tired, they're fatigued, they've maybe maybe never flown alone, many have never traveled abroad. So when they arrive, they're sleep-deprived, they're confused, they're stressed, they're cranky. And within three or four days, once they settle down and start exploring, as we make our way to the end of the journey, get ready to head back, fly back, they're young adults. They're transformed within a matter of two weeks. And so I get amazing delight out of participating in that.

Angie Cooksy: 18:12

Do you have a favorite student story that you'd want to share, Jobie? Over the years?

Jobie Skaggs: 18:17

Oh my goodness. I don't know if that it's a specific student story, but well, no, I do have one. Uh I was volunteering and working, I believe, a beer booth years ago at a festival uh at the riverfront. I don't remember what the event was. And so someone approached me, I didn't physically recognize, and she says, Oh, Dr. Skaggs, I had you in 604 research methods. How are you doing? And I could not remember her name. And I said, tell me what the title of your research proposal was. And she did, and then I remembered her name and we could talk about it. So I tend that's probably my my my favorite, because uh many of my students, if they who've graduated, if they approach me, I may not remember their name until they tell me the title of the research proposal, and then I remember their name. That's awesome. That's amazing.

Angie Cooksy: 19:09

It's odd, but hey, you know, whatever you need to do to connect the dots, right? It's uh it's there you have worked with a lot of students over the years, and yes, I have you have a lot of stories to remember, so that's that's amazing. Um, we ask one question on the show to everybody at the end uh as we wrap up, and that is really to try to highlight specifically the people, and and everyone that comes on talks so much about how great Bradley is or the experiences they've had at Bradley. But what we like to ask everybody is Dr. Jobie Skags, what are you unapologetically exceptional at?

Jobie Skaggs: 19:42

Passion. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I uh my intensity. Um, and it can I have to catch myself, Ben.

Ben Jedd: 19:51

I've never noticed that.

Jobie Skaggs: 19:54

Ben knows, and you may know too, because he may have shared our stories. Uh I can be intense, uh sometimes over the top intense. Um but I am could never be accused of not caring. No. Yeah. So I I I it creates synergy and energy and I like to say lean into what you're doing, including with students.

Ben Jedd: 20:16

If they need encouragement, boy, I can meet them and well I I think that once you realize that it is passion and not intensity, I think that that makes a difference.

Jobie Skaggs: 20:27

It helps. Yeah. And you never well rarely do you have to guess what I'm thinking.

Ben Jedd: 20:33

That's that's very true.

Angie Cooksy: 20:36

Is there anything else you would like to share with with our audience, Jobie?

Jobie Skaggs: 20:40

No, not at this time. I'm really excited about the future. We're going through a lot of good change, forward-moving change, and um it there's a lot of work to do and I believe there's it it will all be worth uh getting to the other side with the effort and I'm just excited about the future.

Angie Cooksy: 21:01

I love that.

Ben Jedd: 21:02

Awesome. Thank you, Jobie.

Angie Cooksy: 21:04

That wraps up another episode of the Bradley University Podcast. Dr. Skaggs, thank you for joining us. And as always, if anyone wants to come on the show you can email Ben and we look forward to scheduling your time to come on and see us. Bye everybody.