Hot Takes and Hot Wings: Spitting the Hot Fire of Truth with Beth Wolfe

Gil Rogers and Beth Wolfe do their very own “Hot Ones” challenge while talking higher education!

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Who is Beth Wolfe?

Beth is the VP of Enrollment Management at University of Charleston in West Virginia. She is known for “spitting the hot fire of truth”.

In this Episode

Beth Wolfe, Executive VP of Enrollment Management at University of Charleston, joins FYI host Gil Rogers to get spicy as they mix the heat of Buffalo Wild Wings with the burning questions of enrollment management in higher education. They start off mild but quickly escalate, tackling topics from the pandemic’s impact on college admissions to inventive strategies for keeping cool when the pressure mounts.

Beth imparts wisdom on the courage it takes to lead with innovation, make data-driven decisions, and stay genuine amid the dual challenges of professional life and also mango habanero hot sauce.

Listen to FYI on your favorite podcast platform!

Episode Transcript

Hot Takes and Hot Wings: Spitting the Hot Fire of Truth with Beth Wolfe

Publishing Date: January 9, 2024

[00:00:00] Gil: Welcome back to FYI, the For Your Institution Podcast, presented by Mongoose. I’m your host, Gil Rogers. And today, we’ve taken a slightly different approach to our episode. I asked my longtime friend and colleague, Beth Wolfe, who’s the executive vice president of enrollment management at the University of Charleston in West Virginia, to join me for a special Hot Ones challenge. We take on hot takes while eating hot wings and talk all about the challenges facing enrollment management in higher education. Let’s take a step back and listen in.

All right, everyone, this is a special edition of FYI, the For Your Institution Podcast, presented by Mongoose. I’m your host, Gil Rogers. And today, our title of our session, which is actually very fitting because a couple weeks ago we had a fireside chat with Jeff Selingo, now we are going to have a hot takes and hot wings spitting the hot fire of truth, with Beth Wolfe.

So, Beth, welcome. Say hello to everyone.

[00:01:05] Beth: Hi. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:08] Gil: Awesome. So, we’ll do introductions and stuff in a second. I need to lay down some ground rules and some framework for our listening and our viewing audience. I think this is probably going to be the most popular YouTube version of FYI once we get started. A few weeks back, Beth and I were texting about what we were going to talk about on this podcast. And I had the brilliant/terrible idea of doing a Hot Ones challenge. If you’re not familiar with Hot Ones, Google it after listening to this amazing podcast. But essentially, the gist of it is we will be talking about higher ed topics. I’ve got a series of questions that Beth does not know yet, and they go from easier to harder, not necessarily, that’s a lie, but they’re various topics that we’re going to talk about. And we have ordered special orders of Buffalo Wild Wings with different flavors and levels. As we go, I’m going to eat them along with you, as I ask questions, just to be an active participant in this process.

A couple of disclaimers for our viewing audience. We are not animals and we are on YouTube. We’re recording this from a professional environment, at least on Beth’s side. I work from home, but she’s in an office. So, we got boneless wings, and we can have a whole separate debate on if boneless wings are actually wings. We get it. Don’t want to hear it. The other is that we have wings that start with mild and go up to the hotter ranges. We’re not just going to go right out of the gate with the hottest flavor. Although, looking at the mild block in my block of wings, mild still looks like it’s going to be pretty bleh, too. So, we’ll see. But Beth, we’ll start with mild. And then, we’ll do… we’ll introduce yourself and your role.

[00:02:49] Beth: While, while I eat my mild wings?

[00:02:51] Gil: Yeah, your mild wing. Now, we’ll do an introduction. I got to open my cutlery, because I didn’t do that again.

[00:02:56] Beth: Okay. All right. Gil, it’s like, you know, okay, go. Like, I know we’re skipping the debate on boneless wings-

[00:03:04] Gil: We’re skipping it [crosstalk 00:03:04].

[00:03:06] Beth: But you can’t use cutlery. You still have to use your fingers.

[00:03:11] Gil: Perfect. All right. Your mild doesn’t have color on it. You just got, like, bones in it.

[00:03:14] Beth: All right. Okay.

[00:03:17] Gil: Okay. So, Beth, what’s your story? Tell us about yourself.

[00:03:21] Beth: Oh, my gosh. My name is Beth Wolfe. I’m the executive vice president of enrollment management at the University of Charleston in Charleston, West Virginia. I’ve been here since January of 2020. So, I was here for two months before we started working remote because of COVID. Prior to that, I worked for several years at my alma mater, Marshall University. Started my career in K-12 education as an English and chemistry teacher. So, I am a self-proclaimed freak of nature. And, yeah. So, now, I’m here at UC. I’m coming to you today from our innovation center podcasting studio. Thought that would be an appropriate place to film a podcast. And, yeah, so I have… I brought supplies. I brought a partial roll of paper towels, because I think I’m going to need these, as well as the napkins that Buffalo Wild Wings sent. So, I’m stocked there.

I did bring… I mean, I do have the sides of ranch, but I also brought an additional bottle of blue cheese, just in case.

And then, I was on the hunt for some milk because I hear that that’s supposed to be helpful, right? So, I stopped in our food services offices, and I was like, “Do we sell bottles of chocolate milk anywhere?” And they were like, “Yeah, in the coffee tavern. Why?” And so, I explained to them what I was doing. And they said, “Actually, what you want is orange juice. The orange juice supposedly neutralizes the heat.” So, I am going to attempt, when we get higher up in the scale, they said, “Do the milk first to, like, coat, give a little coating to protect, but then chase with the orange juice.”

Now, honestly, this sounds completely disgusting. Chocolate milk and orange juice in [crosstalk 00:05:07]. But, I have a feeling that, by the end of this, I’m going to be so desperate for any kind of relief, that I won’t care.

[00:05:18] Gil: There we go. So, for the audience, one of the things Beth had said to me is, “I don’t do spicy food.”

[00:05:25] Beth: Yeah.

[00:05:25] Gil: So, we did not go to the super, super, super hot level for this because we’re being a little kind, but, and she said, two flames is just as bad as four for her. But you’re eating another bite of your mild wing. So, there you go.

[00:05:36] Beth: I’m going to eat the whole mild wing.

[00:05:38] Gil: Mild’s not bad. So, just for the point of order, we’re going to go mild, medium, hot. Then, we’re going to go hot barbecue, then mango habanero, although the mango is supposed to neutralize the habanero a little bit, probably the same issue with the orange juice, but I’m going to give you a break there, and then we’re going to go to Nashville hot.

So, that’s our order in which we’re going to do things. Just as a point of order, on my side, my little cheats are, I have the orange from them as well, I brought my orange from downstairs, which is a lot emptier than I thought it was, which is not a good thing. But we’ll see how it goes. And then, I brought bread, because bread will absorb the oils that are on your tongue and, hopefully, ideally help to neutralize.

So, for anyone who’s just listening to this podcast for the first time or watching it for the first time on YouTube, this is the first time we’ve ever done this as a format, typically a much different format. But Beth and I always do things differently. The other item that we do have is fries, but there’s a lot of black pepper on these fries. So, although black pepper is not, like, super spicy, it’s still, my fries are very, very much coated in black pepper.

[00:06:41] Beth: Mine are not very peppery.

[00:06:43] Gil: Okay. So, you should be good. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to do this.

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[00:07:30] Gil: All right, take a bite of your medium.

[00:07:32] Beth: Okay.

[00:07:32] Gil: We’ll get whatever you want on your medium. So, we cleansed the palate with the mild. We’re going to take a bite of the medium. And I’m going to start you off with, oh, there we go, I’m going to start you off with a softball. You just got done, because I follow you on the Facebook machine, in addition to the LinkedIn machine, with a college fair roadshow that you were on recently. I would love to hear your stories from it. How’d it go?

[00:07:57] Beth: So, I’m shocked that you asked me about that, Gil. So, it went… I mean, as well as it can for a just-turned–48-year-old who hasn’t been on the road in a really long time, and, oh, my goodness, that sauce is starting to kick in already.

[00:08:13] Gil: There you go. And this is medium, folks.

[00:08:15] Beth: And it’s medium.

[00:08:16] Gil: I have to take my medium while you’re talking.

[00:08:18] Beth: In for a ride. In for a ride. I was in the northern part of the great state of West Virginia. Went to a couple fairs that were hosted at individual high schools, and then there was one that was like a regional fair hosted at the local sports complex. So, anyway, I mean, it’s interesting how some things change and some things stay the same, right?

It’s still some students who have a very clear idea of what they are looking for. I think, for the first time, a student apologized to me that my school didn’t have the program that she was looking for. I was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry we don’t have that.” And she was like, “I’m sorry.” And I was like, “You don’t need to be sorry. You have nothing to do with this.”

But, and of course it’s always interesting to observe the various sartorial choices that the cherubs are wearing these days. A lot of stuff that was flashing back to when I was in high school in the early ‘90s, which is terrifying that it’s like cycling back. But, you know, I just, I have such mixed feelings about the whole college fair model because it was built pre-internet, and I feel like, in many, many, many ways, it’s really dated and obsolete. But living in a state with, kind of, low attainment of college degrees and, also, low, like, probably some of the nation’s lowest rates of, like, high-speed internet in homes, I can, kind of, see the benefit in certain areas for students to have the chance to have a conversation with, with folks that they may not be able to get to, either, virtually or in reality.

So, anyway. So, it was an interesting week. I ate terribly [inaudible 00:10:08]. I’m coming back to this healthy snack, but, yeah, I mean, hats off to the people who do it weeks on end, year-round, because, like I said, I’m not cut out for that life, by the way.

[00:10:24] Gil: But we’ve talked, and feel free to take a sip of your milk or what have you, the medium has a, has, like, a nice, like, subtle burn for me. I don’t know.

[00:10:31] Beth: Yeah.

[00:10:31] Gil: And I’m munching on my peppered fries. So, I think one of the things we’ve always talked about, and for the viewing and listening audience, Beth and I have had this conversation probably for about 10 years at this point, which is sad as well, but there’s a place for all of the things and the ways that students connect with schools. College fairs are still one of them. It’s just finding the way to get that balance between those “traditional methods of engagement,” but also having to do the virtual stuff, and also having to read files, and also having to do this, this, this, this, this, right?

And so,I don’t think, and if you can find it on Twitter now, X, or LinkedIn, if you go through the archives, you can find where I’ve ever said completely stop doing college fairs, please share with me, because I don’t think we’ve ever said that. But there’s definitely still, sometimes, an overemphasis on some of those things. And I don’t know if it’s because we have to check the box to say we’re encouraging a college going mindset or we have to check a box because we have to say that we were at this fair so that a board member here is if you were there, whatever, right? There’s things that, kind of, get in the way. And that dovetails as well into question two. So, go ahead and hop into your hot train.

[00:11:40] Beth: Oh, no, I got to do the hot one now?

[00:11:42] Gil: Yep. Now, you got to do the hot one now. That’s the name of the episode. I’m going to grab my hot one, too. So, let me take a bite.

[00:11:45] Beth: Okay.

[00:11:50] Gil: This is also why we did boneless so that I can just, like, throw one in my mouth and go.

[00:11:53] Beth: Oh.

[00:11:54] Gil: You good? Getting there?

[00:11:55] Beth: [inaudible 00:11:55].

[00:11:56] Gil: You mentioned pre-internet, right, was the college fair original timeframe. We’re now post-COVID, “post-COVID.” What’s different now than pre-COVID when it comes to connecting with students? What are some of the things that have actually changed now that we’ve exited this global pandemic mindset?

[00:12:14] Beth: Yeah. So, I think one thing that we’re seeing is that COVID… so, for all the, like, people, you know, wanting to, like, oh, you know, I want to be alone and, let me do my thing and don’t call me on the telephone. I think COVID showed people that there’s, like, a happy medium, right? So, they don’t want to be completely isolated like we were during COVID.

And so, I think, just seeing people appreciate the power of direct connection and being able to, like, talk to a person, usually, in person is a good thing. I think there’s still some of that awkwardness. And I don’t know how much of that is, like, generational and how much of that is, like, the still coming out of COVID kind of thing, where, I mean, because how many of us had those meetings or class sessions where we’re like, “My camera isn’t working,” right? I didn’t have to, like, look like I was being engaged in that session. And so, I think there’s still a little bit of that awkwardness, but I think it’s really post-COVID people are seeing, like, the importance of connection with other people.

[00:13:26] Gil: You are doing extremely well for someone who doesn’t eat hot things, because even this hot level is, like, under my tongue now.

[00:13:31] Beth: Right?

[00:13:31] Gil: Are you going to do it, Gil? And so, I think, just to add to that, a couple or a few weeks ago by the time this episode is released, we had released conversations from the NACAC Conference where we had recorded interviews on site with people. And Carlos Cano from Georgian Court University had really good insight around how students still want to hear about the school, right? They want to know what majors you have, etc. But they also want to tell them about themselves, right? They want to tell you about themselves. And they want them to know you. They want you to know them. I keep getting things backwards, but you know what I mean. They want you to know who they are, right? And they want to showcase themselves differently than have been in the past, right?

And so, I think, to your point from the original question about the college fair circuit, the interactions, I feel, change now than they did before, right, where there’s hopefully more substance to those conversations because they are in person. And so, the value of those in-person interactions carry more weight than maybe they did prior to the pandemic. I mean, do you have thoughts on that before I make you eat a hotter wing?

[00:14:39] Beth: Right. I mean, I think, like, thinking about the conversations that I had last, last week? It was just last week, oh, my goodness. Just last week, yeah, I can see, thinking about that, there were students who were very eager to, like, have a conversation about, not just what they had in mind in terms of what they wanted to study, but, like, why they wanted to do that. Like, so, you know, kind of, asking the question, you know, are you looking for a particular academic program? It wasn’t just, “Oh, it’s this.” It’s, “This because…” And then they were telling a little bit more of their story, which, now that I think about it, is not what the norm was before. So, yeah, I think that shift has happened. And I think a lot of that is generational. And this generation, I think, cares a lot about the why of what they’re doing.

[00:15:28] Gil: Absolutely. And I think that’s a big piece is, before, it was walk around the fair with your… you’re cheating with that milk, by the way.

[00:15:38] Beth: I just did, I just did my research.

[00:15:40] Gil: There you go. Fair enough. Before COVID canceled all the college fairs, everyone was walking around carrying papers with, “What’s your average SAT? What’s your average GPA? What are your top three majors? Are you ranked,” right? And they were filling those things out because they had to.

Now, these interactions, hopefully again, carry more weight because they’re… the absence makes the heart grow fonder in some respects, right? And it makes that process, and just the generational difference of the students who are coming through having a different mindset on the value of higher education, what value even really means, right, is a big part of that.

Yep. So, we’re going to go to hot barbecue next.

[00:16:15] Beth: Barbecue, okay.

[00:16:15] Gil: If my memory serves me correctly, hot barbecue is definitely not a fun one to have. Fortunately, I got lucky. I got a very small one. So, here’s my small one.

[00:16:25] Beth: Oh. Yeah, this one’s not so small.

[00:16:28] Gil: Oh. This is where you zoom in on Beth’s face and say, “How are we doing?” That’s not bad. That’s more barbecue than hot, I think, for right now. So, we’ll…

[00:16:38] Beth: For now.

[00:16:39] Gil: What? The slow burn.

[00:16:40] Beth: It doesn’t kick… like, it doesn’t always kick in immediately.

[00:16:44] Gil: Yeah. Nah, this one doesn’t feel like it’s going to have a slow burn. This one’s going to be a letdown for me. I’m willing it into existence that it’s not.

[00:16:50] Beth: Okay.

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[00:17:43] Gil: Outside what we’ve spoken about, so far, what is the biggest challenge that you face in your role?

[00:17:48] Beth: I mean, right now, staffing. And that is not, that is not what used to be my biggest challenge, but right now my biggest challenge is staffing. And, and there’s a lot of factors in that. I mean, not least of which is one that’s very specific to where I am. So, I’m in Charleston, West Virginia, or the capital of West Virginia. We are about 40 to 50 miles east of Huntington, West Virginia. There’s an interstate that runs from Huntington to Charleston. So, a lot of people will live in Charleston and work in Huntington and vice versa, except right now there are two totally major construction projects between those two places. And one of them does not seem to be making any progress whatsoever. But because of all of the construction, and then there’s, like, constantly accidents, and so nobody wants to do that commute right now because it’s brutal.

So, I’ve had some people who, like, live west of here that got jobs. You know, they left me to get a job closer to their home, so they didn’t have to have this commute. And the thing is, as we were just talking about with the college fair, there are some things in my office that can be done remotely, but there are some things that cannot, like, you cannot give a campus tour remotely.

You have to be here on campus to give the campus tours. So, there’s some limitations for us in terms of what we can do, you know, which jobs can be remote or partially remote. And that’s what a lot of people are looking for these days. They’re looking for jobs that can be remote.

Yeah. So, it’s just it’s been a challenge. We have some opportunities in my office. If anybody would like to come work in Charleston, West Virginia, send me an email, and I will send you the link to our job postings. They’re on our website, ucwv.edu. But yeah, and it’s hard.

And then, I think the other thing is, obviously, this is a challenging time in higher ed. And if you are that newly minted college graduate looking for a job and you read the news and you go, “Do I, would I really want to go work at a college? Is that a good idea? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” And so, I think that’s a challenge, too, is that our industry is in some tough times. And that can be hard to convince people that this is a line of work that you want to go into.

[00:20:07] Gil: I think, and so I’m going to have you hop to the mango habanero while I share my thoughts on that piece.

[00:20:16] Beth: Okay. Okay.

[00:20:16] Gil: I’m going to love watching your face as you do that. But one of the things that’s interesting is, like, I’ve heard a lot of folks doing, like, hybrid work-from-home/on-campus things. And I think, for admissions counselor, there are opportunities for that where you don’t have to, you don’t need every admissions counselor to be on campus every day for greeting families or giving tours or what have you. You can rotate who does that. How’s that flavor treating you, by the way? Is that a good one?

[00:20:43] Beth: So, so good.

[00:20:44] Gil: There you go. So, I’d love to hear creative ideas you have for supporting people and who might be… oh, you’re jumping right to the orange juice on that one. Supporting people and, and obviously not everything works for everyone, but what are some ways that you support hybrid opportunities for people, if at all?

[00:21:05] Beth: Yeah. Ooh. Oh, the tip of my tongue is burning right now. Let’s see. What was I talking about? Yes, ways to support people. I’ve just always had the philosophy of supporting people in their role and respecting their time as humans. Gil, are you all right?

[00:21:29] Gil: I’m laughing because I can clearly see that you’re having a hard time with formulating your thoughts.

[00:21:34] Beth: I am. I am. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s important to respect people and respect their time. So, you know, I mean, one thing with admissions, right, is if you’re doing travel, you’re doing a lot of things in the evening, you’re doing a lot of things in the, on the weekends. Most of our admissions folks are salaried, so they’re not entitled to overtime or comp time.

But is it really right or fair to expect them to work three evenings of a week and then be gone all weekend and then just be like, “Oh, well, that’s part of the job?” I’ve never been okay with that. I think that people expect to have lives outside of work. So, I’ve just always been a big proponent of things like giving them flexible work days, or, if they’re on the road and they have an evening fares, don’t start your day at 8:30, right? Start your day at 11:00 or whatever is reasonable to do.

I do think, if you can find a way to do some hybrid, whether that’s, like, that you can work from home one day a week or you can do some kind of rotations where, you know, maybe one person gets to work from home week one and then another person gets to work from home week two, I think the challenge is being equitable, right, and not setting up a situation where it looks like, oh, well, you just, you let him work from home all the time because you like him better than everybody else. Like, you have to be careful about things like that. But that’s, to me, I think that’s always been part of my approach as a manager. That’s not necessarily a new thing that I’m considering. So, I don’t… did that answer your question? I feel like [crosstalk 00:23:13].

[00:23:13] Gil: No. I ate the habanero one partway through. Yeah, I ate the habanero one partway through. So, I think that one of the, one of the things that you mentioned is, like, the mindset shift, right? I think the mindset used to be, out of luck, you have to work nine days, 10 days in a row because you had a regional visit, you had your own, your on campus visit.

Oh, yeah, that mango. Mango doesn’t do anything. So, you have the, you have that, like, mindset shift that a lot of people now I think are getting… I think one of the lasting COVID pieces is just the work-life balance element. Whether you’re offering hybrid work from home or not or flex time or any of those sorts of pieces, those are the things that, kind of, come to mind when we’re talking about the different ways to better support our staff.

I think one of the things that, you know, and was last season on FYI, I interviewed Teege Mettille from EnrollML, and he was talking about the types of people that we hire for admissions roles has changed over time, right? It used to be pre, pre-COVID, the college fair people, who’s outgoing, who’s enthusiastic, who can you put in front of people and have talk to people. And now, as we’ve gotten more data, as we’re data-driven, we have more insights into data, and because of COVID we had people on Zoom and all that sort of fun stuff, there was a… it’s a shift in the requirements and the need. And if you’re watching on this on YouTube, you’re seeing the watering in my eyes from just the buildup of all of this. You have all of that, kind of, changing the job of the admissions counselor over time. We still hire, in a lot of ways, that energetic, enthusiastic, outgoing person, but then half the time we put them behind a desk and make them look at spreadsheets, right?

[00:25:02] Beth: Right.

[00:25:02] Gil: And that’s just a different skill set that you have to hide, therefore. And, and I’m going to make you hop in now and do the Nashville hot.

[00:25:10] Beth: Okay.

[00:25:10] Gil: Is the, as a manager, how are… you got to take your bite before I ask the question.

[00:25:16] Beth: Hold on. I just, I wanted to say-

[00:25:19] Gil: Okay.

[00:25:19] Beth: … something about that whole, like, we send them on the road and then stick them behind a desk. One of the things that you can do is separate those into different jobs, right?

[00:25:28] Gil: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:28] Beth: There’s nothing that says that your person who’s, you know, your face, the one that’s going out to fairs and doing your campus visits and visiting schools and that kind of thing has to be the person crunching numbers and checking, doing the app stuff. You could separate those out because they are two different skills.

[00:25:50] Gil: Yeah.

[00:25:50] Beth: And so, I have different people to do that. I am so scared of this one.

[00:25:55] Gil: Take it. Take it. I mean, honestly, if you made it through mango habanero, probably.

[00:25:58] Beth: It’s so, it’s so dark, though.

[00:26:00] Gil: You’ll survive. Here we go. Initial reaction. So, to your last point there, who on your team, you can… even like little things, like, they can be outgoing, enthusiastic, but the people who you put on stage at an open house are a lot of times different than the people you have talk to small group of families, right? Because different skill sets, they might be energetic and enthusiastic, but they might be terrible in front of large groups, right?

[00:26:20] Beth: Right, right.

[00:26:20] Gil: And so, you know the skills you have give people the jobs and the responsibilities that play to their strengths, right? And I just think that’s a big piece. So, speaking of data, that’s one of our favorite topics to talk about. We have all this data. Yet, we make gut decisions, right?

[00:26:34] Beth: Yeah.

[00:26:34] Gil: Now that our guts are on fire, what do you, what are your… what, how can we encourage people to become more data-driven while not losing the humanity of the admissions process? And I have to eat my Nashville hot now.

[00:26:49] Beth: Yes, you do. In some respects, if I had an answer to that question, I’d be able to, like, sell it and be living on the beach somewhere. That’s a hard one, Gil. That’s a really hard question. I think so much of it depends on… I really think so much of it depends on having good leadership and people being good leaders, right? So, are we doing what we say that we’re doing?

And so, I just started reading a new book, Whatever It Is, I’m Against It. And it’s a new book about resistance to change in higher education. And in the very first chapter, it’s talking about the author and his institution. They were going to look into whether faculty research really did, like, improve instruction in the classroom. And then, they didn’t want to do the research.

So, here we are, like, a group of people, saying, “We depend on research. And we depend on data,” except when we don’t want to depend on research and data, right? Because, “Oh, I might get an answer that is going to make me change this thing that I want to do?” I think all of that really comes down, though, to good leadership. So, if you have courageous leaders on your campus, they will foster that and they will allow you to do things that are, kind of, against the status quo or against conventional wisdom, because, hey, we have evidence here to show that this is a reasonable thing to try to do.

But I think, unfortunately, in higher education, we have… there are some places that lack courageous leadership. And it sounds counterintuitive, right? Like, it sounds completely counterintuitive to say that it’s cowardly to not follow the data and to go with your gut decision. But it’s because it’s that’s so reliant on past experience, right, and what has worked in the past. And so, that just becomes the, like, standard approach or the standard thing to do.

So, I think that, for us to do that… but I also think good leadership is grounded in humanity. So, you’re not going to… if you have good leadership, you are not going to lose the humanity of your work because, by definition, good leadership honor humanity, in my book.

[00:29:11] Gil: Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting about the whole, it’s interesting about the whole not wanting to do the research piece because any good marketer will say, you never ask a question you don’t want the answer to, right? If you don’t want to find out, you don’t ask, right? And so, I think there’s a certain level of, you, kind of, know the answer, and so you don’t want to substantiate that, right? And that’s a change to take on, right?

And so, I appreciate that perspective. And I also think that Nashville hot was a letdown, as far as the, as far as the temperature goes.

[00:29:43] Beth: Yeah.

[00:29:43] Gil: Nashville’s not hot, apparently.

[00:29:45] Beth: It, it really wasn’t. I’m going to, I’m going to actually polish that one off with a little dab of ranch.

[00:29:50] Gil: There you go. Do it up. And then, need you to hop backwards into a mango habanero for our last question, because on the theme of going back, I’m going to have my mango habanero. You’re going to have your mango habanero. Oh, drink your milk.

[00:30:06] Beth: It’s not… I’m telling you, it’s helping. My husband is not going to believe that I made it through this without weeping.

[00:30:13] Gil: So, take three mango habaneros.

[00:30:16] Beth: I left the rest of them in the office.

[00:30:17] Gil: I think that’s the one that, that’s the one that at least delivers a little bit on the heat, for the most part. Shouldn’t have gone easy on you, is the lesson that I’m learning. Speaking of going back to the mango habaneros, what keeps you coming back, what keeps you going day to day in your role and staying in this crazy world of higher education?

[00:30:34] Beth: Oh.

[00:30:35] Gil: And you got to do it, you got to do it without drinking milk or orange juice. You just got to go.

[00:30:39] Beth: Oh, man. Ooh, okay. Ooh, okay. Yeah. This one, this one’s getting me. This one’s getting me. Okay, what keeps me coming back every day, other than I have bills to pay? No, I… it’s so funny. I was having this conversation earlier this week. Nobody grows up saying, “I would like to work in college admissions,” right? That is not something that anybody dreams of being when they grow up.

And I had such an unusual path into where I am now. So, I was not… I wasn’t a campus tour guide when I was a student. My career started in K-12 education, and I happened to find myself in higher ed. And then, I just happened to… the institution had a director of recruitment position open, and I said, “I think I can do that.” And so, I applied for it.

And then, this 17 years later, here I am, vice president of enrollment management. And, you know, I, kind of, like, sometimes, how really did that happen? It’s just bizarre, if you draw it out on a map. But I really, really love what I do. And I think, because it is… I mean, there are a lot of things that I love about it, but I think one of the things is that, in my introduction I said I used to teach English and chemistry, which is a really weird combination. But I feel like that’s enrollment management, because you have to have that analytical data side, like, my chemistry brain, but you have to have that humanity side, which is my English brain.

And so, getting to do both of those things regularly and not having to live solely in one area or the other is something that I really enjoy. And then, I think, ultimately, I think about when we have commencement and I’m standing in the wings, pointing students where to go, you know, like, “You come this way. You go that way.” And then, there’s always that one that stops to give me a hug and say, you know, “Thank you for that thing that you did,” whatever it was. And honestly, if that never even… if it never happened to me again, the times that it has happened have made it worth it.

[00:32:47] Gil: We will leave it there. And now is when I break it to you that the recording actually stopped. We have to do this all over again.

Beth, we appreciate you taking the time and putting your body through the ringer, having come back from a college fair circuit, eating a bunch of bad food, to now eating a bunch of probably even worse food. We appreciate your time.

Before I say goodbye and close us out, are there, you know, parting words and your thoughts for people in the industry? And also, how can people get in touch and stay in touch with you after they listen to this episode on their favorite podcasting platform?

[00:33:28] Beth: Sure. My piece of advice, really, and this is, no matter what they do is, be true to yourself and be who you are and don’t be afraid of being that person. It’s not for everybody, and that’s okay, because not everybody likes the hottest wings that there are, but some people do.

And so, just, I joke a lot about how I’m, kind of, like, a very specific bourbon, and not everybody likes bourbon. And some people find me, I don’t know, just challenging, I guess, in some ways. But those aren’t my people, and that’s okay. So, just be true to yourself and don’t be afraid to be you. And if you want to get in touch with me on X, I am, I don’t know, @Beth_Wolfe, I think. On Instagram. I’m @bdubs. Ironic, right?

[00:34:18] Gil: Ironic. @bdubs?

[00:34:20] Beth: Yeah. And my email address is elizabethwolfe (all one word, “e” on the end of “wolf”) @ucwv.edu.[00:34:28] Gil: Awesome. And for our podcast listeners, we’ll put all those channels of connecting with Beth in our episode notes, make it very easy for you. So, Beth, we appreciate your time, and again, your stomach. And we will see everyone next time on FYI.

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