Hey, hey, hey. This is Lisa A. And you're listening to Who's That Star? On LCC Connect at Lansa Community College. Who's that Star Is a behind the scenes show where I sit down and talk with the employees at the college. This is an inside look at LCC where you will have a chance to learn about their passions, projects, what inspires them both at work and in their personal lives. I'm your host, Lisa Alexander. I'm so excited to get a chance to talk to all the people who make LCC great. This show is for you to get to know the people that work at Lansing Community College a little bit more and see what makes them tick. Are you ready? Okay. Let's go see who's today's Star. Our guest today on Who's That Star? Grew up in Shepherd, Michigan. She earned a bachelor's degree in math at msu, moved to New York City right after graduating and getting married. She lived across the street from the stock exchange and attended graduate school at nyu. She tutored in Bushwick in Brooklyn and after two semesters she returned to Michigan. She worked at Auto Owners Insurance as a COBO programmer for a year and a half. She returned to New Jersey City, New Jersey and she and her husband went back to graduate school at nyu. She got a job at James Madison High School in Brooklyn where she had to do a two hour a day commute each way every day using three to four types of public transportation from Jersey City to Brighton Beach. I wouldn't have been there that long. This high school was very large with thousands of students. The school has many famous graduates including Carole King and Chris Rock to name a few. After earning their degrees, they moved back to Michigan in 2004. This star became an adjunct in the math skills department. She taught for six years as an adjunct. She became full time faculty member in the math department. Around 2010. She served as a member of the MAHE bargaining team for contract negotiations. She was asked to be the interim associate dean for science and math. Once the position was posted, she applied and was offered the regular position. In 2017, she was asked to be the interim Dean of Arts and Science. She again applied for that and accepted the regular position of Dean. She also returned to school to earn another master's degree in mathematics from U of M Flint while having a full time job and raising two children. Are you ready to learn who today's star is? We're gonna need the drum roll. Today's star is Andrea Hoagland. Welcome and we're so glad to have you here on Who's That Star?

Thanks for having me, Lisa. I'm really excited to do this.

I'm excited, too, because I learned a lot about you. You know, just reading your bio and, you know, stuff that I didn't know. So I want to ask you about it, so I'm ready to dive in. So our first question is, can you tell me about your work at LCC and, like, what are your roles?

So I started out as a faculty member, and that's still a really important role to me, being a teacher. Even though I don't get to go into the classroom, I still feel like a lot of the things that I learned about teaching help me every day in my work as an administrator. Just understanding what has to happen in the classroom and also just in my interactions with students and faculty, thinking like a teacher. And so right now, I'm the dean of Arts and Sciences, and so that.

And that's a big job, isn't it?

Yes.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you're over a lot of programs, aren't you?

Yes, off the top of my head, I don't even know the number, but there are several of them, and some of them are very large programs, and some of them are very small programs. And so it's. A very large portion of the students at the college are taking the courses in our programs, which is wonderful.

Yeah. Because you have a lot of the general education courses that students need to transfer or just meet the core. So you get to touch a lot of students in your area.

Yes, absolutely. And so I supervise all of the administrators that supervise the faculty in all of those programs. And then I also have a few other administrators and staff that help with all the work that the division does as a team.

Do you decide the direction of the division, or is that somebody above you? Do you make the decisions on how we're gonna proceed?

So there's a little bit of both. Right. Cause I work with several levels of teams. I have the executive leadership team that I work with, and then that leads the whole college. The college as a whole. Right. And then I also work with the provost cabinet team, because I report to the provost. Sally. Wel. And so I work as a team with the other deans, and we talk about the things that we're gonna do the same and the things that we're gonna do different. And then at the division level, I also work with my leadership team of the division.

Wow. Okay.

Right. And so I lead them, but we really work as a team. You know, we Talk about how we wanna approach things as a team. What are the things that we need to do the same? What are the things that it's okay if people do differently. And so we meet every week to talk about those things.

That's interesting. I never really knew the hierarchy. Like I was like, well, who tells the dean what to do? And so now I see like there are levels and so you have to decipher through all the different meetings and different requests on how to present that to your staff and get it implemented.

Right? Yeah. And it really, the information flows in both directions. It goes up and down because really a lot of times when I'm meeting with levels of the executive leadership team or the provost cabinet, I might be bringing information from the division level. Right. To give input into decisions. And then same thing, when I meet with my division team, I'm telling them about what I've learned in the executive leadership team and in provost cabinet.

Yeah. It seems like you're in a unique position because you were an instructor. So you know, the trials and tribulations of an instructor, you know, adjunct and full time. But then as administrator, you get to see, see like the behind the scenes stuff that sometimes that we don't always know. So how do you, how do you navigate that? Like knowing that how as an instructor, but also now your new role, how that seems like that might be difficult.

I think I try to use it to my advantage, you know, trying to know a little bit in the weeds about what's happening, but also trying to keep the big picture in mind. And I feel like the, the fact that I know a lot about teaching and a lot about our systems really helps me when I'm working alongside my colleagues to support what they're trying to do. You know, so when they bring a problem to me and say, here's what I'm trying to address, I feel like my knowledge set of administrating and teaching really helps me when I'm trying to help people problem solve.

That's good. Yeah, I definitely, I think it would be difficult to not have that teaching experience and come in to be a dean. And that's just me. But it's like not really understanding some of the problems that the people that work under you would have. I think your experience is definitely great. I wanted to ask you about, you know, you're in the math field, right. And you chose everybody I know, not everybody, but a lot of people do not like math. What drew you to math?

So, you know, when I went to begin my undergrad at msu. I was planning to be a veterinarian.

Oh, okay.

I had even worked in a vet's office when I was a high school student. And so I. I got kind of intimidated by the courses I would need to take and the time I would need to be in school, which is kind of ironic now because I was in school plenty along. And so I got kind of scared of it. And I thought, you know, maybe. I don't know that that's what I want to do, and I'm just going to take some courses and see where it leads me. And I was also part of the Lyman Briggs College at msu, which is a residential science college. And so you get a lot of really interesting experiences taking their science courses and labs and things, and their writing courses are really helpful and help you explore the kinds of things you might want to do with your life. And so I found that the math courses were the courses that I was doing the best in.

Wow.

And I was actually in this amazing program that I didn't even seek it out. They looked at students with certain scores. I think if you came from certain size of high school or either a small rural high school or an inner city high school, they looked at you to see, you know, if you had higher test scores. But they see that the students who come from your high school aren't as successful as other students.

Right.

So they would invite us to be part of this program, which was called Emerging Scholarship. And it was. We met three times a week for two hours at a time and just did math problems, if you can imagine.

And you enjoyed it?

I did. And they were much. Sometimes they were much more difficult math problems than what we were doing in our math courses. So this wasn't even our math course.

This is challenging, just fun.

Yep. From three to five, three days a week, we. Even though we were all in calculus.

Right.

We'd come back and do math problems together.

Yeah. See, that's a different type of life. I never. I was running for math.

It made such a difference because I had a group of students who were in my math classes, you know, and so if somebody didn't come to class one day or something, or somebody was struggling, we all helped each other out.

Yeah. I love that. I think that that's. Working in a group can be so beneficial. It keeps you engaged, I think. And then the help, you know, a peer to peer help is great. And so. Were you the only lady female, you know?

Nope. It was a good mix of people, really. It was a really good mixture of people. That might not have sought each other out.

Right.

You know, if we hadn't been put together.

Oh, that's cool though.

And they were a group that I worked with. Even one summer, Emerging Scholars was done. You know, I kept in touch in courses with them, you know, and. And then I started to realize that I was good at math. And I was like, well, maybe this is what I should do.

When you, when you found that out, did you have a career in mind that you were thinking you were going to do with the math?

No, I just knew I wasn't going to be a teacher.

That's funny, isn't it? Funny how you know what you're not going to do and then what you end up doing. That's hilarious. How do you find your passion and the advocacy playing a role in your position here at LCC?

So I'm actually. So I'm very passionate about math, very passionate about teaching, very passionate about helping people. You know, I think it's really important to me that our students have a good experience when they come to LCC. And also the, the employees that work here have a good experience working here. I'm really passionate about that. I'm also very passionate about the lives of kids in the Lansing area. And I feel like the way that I can help the most is by helping their parents connect to careers and transfer opportunities. But I also like to help at my son's school and just get involved in ways that I can to help kids.

Now, do they have you helping at your son's school with any tutoring or anything?

No, we haven't. I say, you know, right now it's hard to find the time other than, you know, maybe going for one day once in a while. But so I try to help out in other ways. I try to, you know, be the parent contact person when I can or, you know, things that I can do in the evening.

Now, your children good at math? Yes. Okay. Phi. Yeah. That's pressure. But you know, it's not as good. You got your mom have all these degrees in math. You should be able to get through math. I think I'm gonna send Mikayla. I didn't know. I should have sent Mikayla over there a while ago.

You know, it's funny because having the degrees in math doesn't mean my kids think I know what I'm talking about sometimes.

Oh, no. So yeah, that's interesting. Are there any programs that you are proud of that happen through arts and science that you'd like to talk about?

I mean, I'm really proud of what we're doing in a lot of our programs. You know, I'm really proud of all the things we're doing in math to support students. A lot of them happened after I was a faculty, and not while I was a faculty, but, you know, just the work we're doing with the co recs and the refreshers and, you know, working with the learning commons and just, you know, our faculty work really hard.

Yeah, no, I definitely agree. And there's so much that is required, you know, of faculty and you as a dean. It's just, I think it's good work. I think that you wanting to serve the parents of the community, to help the children is a good thing because if they have a living wage, that's definitely going to help them. So I like that. Well, now I'm going to ask you. Tell me some stuff about your personal life. Are you married? I know you are, but let's talk about your partner.

Yeah. So I've been married for 22 years.

Okay.

And so my husband is a software tester at TechSmith, which is a really amazing company that now is located just outside of MSU's campus. They just moved and so he's been there for 14 years. And it's just. It's a really neat company. And I think, you know, I enjoy hearing about what he's doing at work and all the interesting technology they're making.

I bet you guys have some good conversations talking about, you know, the.

That.

Well, definitely, like you're teaching, you know, math well, other. Along with other subjects. But how those subjects that students learn here, you know, how does it transfer over into the workplace? Right. So you'll get to talk to your husband about, like, these are things that I'm seeing or just learning. I think that's a good conversation. What do you really like the most about your job?

The interactions with people.

Okay.

You know, in my bio, you mentioned that I spent a little time as a COBOL programmer.

Yeah. What is that?

It's just a programming language. It's a little bit dated at this point. It was a little dated back when I learned it, but much more so now as I was doing that as a programmer, I did fine. I wasn't very passionate about it, but I remember one time I had to do a presentation to show a group of people how I was doing something, and people were surprised that a programmer could get up and talk in front of a group and explain things.

Oh, really?

And I overheard one of them say to somebody else, well, she's supposed to be a teacher. And I was like, yeah.

And that came up again, huh?

Yeah, it always kept coming up.

And then you eventually succumbed to it because when you came here, you weren't teaching right at first in the math lab work.

Yeah, I worked in the math lab and I taught classes as an adjunct.

Okay, great. Yeah. So what are some of your hobbies that you like to do outside of work?

So I love to read.

Okay.

And I really like to. I enjoy reading physical books, and I also really like to listen to books.

Oh, yeah.

And so I'll take a lot of walks, especially very early in the morning, and listen to books for exercise.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Yeah, it's really nice because I look forward to getting up and, you know, hearing the next chapter of my book.

And you got to do that with walking. Now, are you doing that on campus or around your neighborhood?

I just do it around my neighborhood. Yep.

That's. I know winter's coming now, so. Yeah, that's gonna have to.

Oh, I bundle up, cut down.

So who do you admire most in the world?

My mom.

Oh. Why is that?

You know, I. I've. So. I've always admired her because of the way she treats people and. And, you know, she's. She's a peacemaker in all situations. You know, with. At work or with family, everybody. That's always her role, and I admire that. And she's just. She's very loving, but she's also very smart. You know, she. She's very quick to say, well, this is. Something is broken in the house. I'm going to get out the directions and see if I can just fix it myself.

Oh, yes. You could go get her.

Yes.

Hey, that's a. Yeah, that's not me. But I think. I think that's a good thing to admire in someone. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Well, I'll have a high school graduate by then.

Yes.

So who knows? You know, I imagine that I will still be the Dean of Arts and sciences, you know.

So you're not looking to go anywhere? No. Okay, good.

You know, the one thing I would like to add if I had more time would be to teach some, you know, either here or somewhere else. Just maybe a course once a year would be really nice to be in the classroom teaching. I think I'd really enjoy that.

I think that's what I hear most from administrators that left the classroom is that they miss the student interaction and having that opportunity. You still get to interact with, you know, your peers and the people that work for you, but just some of that genuine, like, conversation interaction that you get from students is definitely something that you would miss. But what does your day look like as a dean? Like, what are you doing? What does that look like?

So a lot of days it looks like a lot of meetings, one after another. But if I do have a break, I usually will check in with my staff and see how people are doing. I do have a lot of one on ones with the other administrators, so that's, you know, I'm usually checking in with each of them once a week.

As well, trying to keep. Make sure everything is going on the plan that you want to do.

Yeah, yeah. Usually they come with a list of things and I come with a list of things and we, and we talk about what we need to talk about. And there's a lot of things I have to approve, like tech requests and different things like that. And when we're in late ad season.

Oh, yeah.

That keeps me pretty busy, I bet. Although it's a little better now. And, you know, mostly just a lot of conversations with people, you know, because a lot of meetings, if I'm in it, it might be because I called the meeting. So I'm running the meeting.

Right.

And we're starting to have a few of those in person, which is nice.

Yes.

But still a lot of time on webex.

Got you. How did you transition when we had the pandemic? How did that go for you? Like, what was that like for you to be the leader of the arts and science, you know, to get those classes online? Like, what was that like?

It was pretty incredible because, you know, when we had talked hypothetically before the pandemic ever was here, we had talked about in our emergency planning, we were like, what would happen if we had to move everything online.

And.

And we got a lot of responses from across the team. That's impossible for certain courses and things. And I'm not saying it was perfect.

No.

But people did an incredible job.

Yeah, they did.

It was amazing. And, you know, we just spent all of our time talking, talking to faculty, talking to administrators, talking to students, just trying to make sure that everybody knew what was happening and trying to problem solve as we went. Like, you know, students don't have this. Can we mail it to them? Students need that, instructor needs this. How can we get it to them? What does that look like with everybody remote?

So you're a supply chain manager now too, huh?

Yes.

You know how to get stuff to where it needs to be?

Yeah. You know, making sure. Because, you know, in the past, we had offered laptops and things like that to most of our adjuncts, but not all of them. And we needed to make sure that everybody had a laptop if they needed one, and just a lot of cross the division things that we had to take care of. So it was. It was a lot. And we just spent a lot of time talking, you know, and planning.

But it worked. You know, that's the thing about it. It worked, and it was done well. And, like, I'm proud of the whole college for that, because I was one of those people, it'll never work. We'll never be able to, you know, do that, but you can never say never. And I thought we did an excellent job. And I would say that our instructors and our administrators done a great job, too. So I was proud of that. And I just wondered how it felt for you to really have to lead that, you know, that march to get it going. And so communication was definitely big.

And trying to make sure that we didn't miss out on the human interaction part of our day, you know, so trying to take time in meetings to talk about other stuff for a minute.

Right, yeah.

You know, so it wasn't just constant meeting, meeting, meeting, and no human.

You know, and I'm glad that you said that, because I think that's. In management or as an administrator, you always have to keep that human element in. You know what I mean? And everybody was going through, you know, it was just turbulence for everybody. And so to be able to have a leader that realizes that is important, but I knew you were that kind of leader anyway. But I just. I think you have to showcase yourself, and you do. You're. You're a person that I didn't know that you had just kind of. We were doing adjunct when I had started, like, I had seen you, but you made, like, a really big rise quickly. How did you. And it seemed like you kind of got thrown into those things. Like, were you nervous when they asked you to be interim for science and math and then to be the dean?

Yes, both times, very nervous. You know, I think in both cases, I needed a lot of reassurance of, you know, well, here's your team and. And here's who you're gonna work with. And it was like, okay, well, if I'm working with these people, then I'm gonna be all right. I'm gonna try my best.

And I think, to me, like, interim gives you a time. Like, you know, I'm gonna do the best that I can not that you, you know. But then you got a chance to test it out, right? Yeah. Is this really what I wanna do? Do. I really like that. So I thought that was cool. And you've been successful and you've done a great job. So I wanted to ask you, too, especially since you went to both schools, are you Spartan or Wolverine?

I don't. I think I'm both.

Well, you are. You attended both for sure.

I'm laughing because, I mean, when my co workers start talking about sports, I'm like, I'm not even sure what sport we're talking about. And so I. Yeah. You know, so somebody will say they're talking about basketball or they're. And I'm like, oh, thank you.

Well, see, if you don't have to know the sport, you just gotta identify the team. And. Because I guess with Michigan State and Michigan play, you just sitting there, not saying too much. Oh, you're not watching sports at all.

I'm not watching sports at all. I don't have anything against sports.

Right, but that's not. That's not what you're doing on your time off, right?

Yes.

Yes, I definitely understand that. Well, Andrea, I'm so glad to have you Come on who's at Star. I think that this was a great opportunity to people to get an idea, a glimpse of what the life is like of a dean. You know what I mean? And what you do to help all the students. And I think that's great. Is there anything you'd like to leave us with?

I just. I'm. I'm so. I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to do this job and to work with the people that I work with at LCC, because I do really enjoy it, and especially the people.

Yeah. And I think they like having you. I've heard definitely good things, and my interactions with you have been great. You've been a good leader. You listen and, you know, you try to help the students and the staff. So that's all we can really ask for somebody. You know what I mean? And you got this beautiful smile, and that's what I love seeing, because you always smiling and you're always positive. And so that's wonderful. And I thank you today for being on Who's That Star?

Thank you, Lisa.

All right, everybody, I will be back again soon. And you've been listening to Who's That Star? You've been listening to Who's That Star? I'm Lisa A. and you can listen to this episode of Who's That Star? And other shows from LCC Connect anytime online at LCCconnect.org. Thank you for listening. Catch me next time to find out Who's That Star.