Fond du Lac Higher Education with Marian University's Aaron Sadoff

Introduction

Adam: Becca, what did you think of the
Aaron Sadoff WiLL Cast?

Becca: I knew he would be a lot of fun
to have in the studio. He’s got a lot of energy. It was a really great kickoff
to the WiLL Cast again. I think as we kick the WiLL Cast off in the next phase,
we’ll have more educators and people in the community in the education
business. He was a really good perspective on college and universities. They
seem to be a pretty innovative bunch over there. It was really refreshing. We
talk about the stigmas — how you had to go four-year, and now we see a swing
where the tech schools get pushed a lot. It was great to see the collegiate
perspective where they, as a private liberal arts university, are trying to
better meet the needs of Fond du Lac employers and industry. They’re trying to
meet them halfway and really help educate kids the way that actually benefits
them and future employers.

Adam: Their partnership in the
community with Moraine Park, getting to know employers better — they have a
really diverse student body from around the world. Their sports program is
great. They do have some really high-quality facilities here in town that get cross-utilized
— partnerships with the Northwoods League for summer collegiate ball. What was
also cool was hearing him talk about how they’re trying to better the Fond du
Lac community and expose the great things going on here to students and their
families. And I think some of the positives coming out of budget constraints in
education is it’s forcing people with facilities to share them.

Athletics: Bowling, Hockey & International Athletes

Adam: Sports is a big part of Marian.
What sports do you guys cover?

Aaron: We have probably 24 NCAA
Division III sports along with some club sports. Everything from — we actually
have four hockey teams. One female Division III, then three males: one Division
III NCAA and two ACHA. Our ACHA Division II, which is a club team, is like
number 15 or 16 in the country.

Aaron: And then we have bowling. We’re
a bowling school. Big time. We’re in a conference called the CCIW. The guys go
out to Allentown, Pennsylvania, they’ll go to Chicago, all over. The women are
NCAA — there’s only one division — and our women’s team has been in the Sweet
16 the past two years. Jason Spanbarger was actually the national champion two
years ago.

Adam: I know Jason. He’s a local guy.

Aaron: He’s a sophomore now. His
sister’s actually Kylen Schwarz. He qualified for the national tournament, I
think it was in Louisville. Got on a roll, literally and figuratively, and
ended up beating two guys from Wichita State in the semi-finals and finals. The
guy from Wichita State he beat in the finals, his dad was like a legend in
bowling. So we have a national champion in Jason Spanbarger.

Aaron: Field hockey — we finished
third in our conference. We’re the farthest northwest women’s Division III
field hockey team in the country. On our field hockey team, I’d say there’s 24
women and 12 of them are from out of the country. We’ve got five from the
Netherlands. I was in my office yesterday talking to field hockey players — one
from Spain, Bernardita from Argentina, Charlotte from the Netherlands, Amelia
from Germany, and then me, the American. That’s Marian University.

Aaron: Our men’s volleyball team — I
think we have three guys from Oahu, Honolulu. Little frozen aloha.

Seeing Fond du Lac Through New Eyes

Aaron: I was born in ’71 up in St.
Peter, graduated from Goodhue in ’90. We just take for granted what Fond du Lac
is. But when you start seeing Fond du Lac through the eyes of these amazing
people — from Southern California on our women’s soccer team, I think 14 of
them are from California. A couple of their families actually moved here. We
don’t have earthquakes, wildfires. Cost of living’s a little different. What
I’m really excited about is letting people dial it back and start to see this
community in a way that’s different from how we sometimes get benign and worn
down.

Adam: It almost seems like you view
college as an experience beyond academics. You’ve got the sports element, the
mix of cultures and backgrounds.

Aaron: At the university or secondary
level, we are a liberal arts school. Every school’s got a business department,
nursing, exercise sport science, criminal justice. We have some niche ones like
construction management, forensic science. But why Marian? We’re this Catholic,
religious liberal arts school. When I talk Catholic — I was Catholic in name
till about 18 months ago when I met the Sisters of St. Agnes. Faith is
different than religion. At Marian, anybody’s welcome. You don’t need to be
Catholic. We’re just saying come on in, get some great education, and just
don’t be a jerk. We also have completion degrees, adult online programs. We
have associate degrees at the tech colleges where people can get their nursing
degree in two years. With us it’s four — but then you get a bachelor’s degree
and more opportunities for leadership.

Thanatology: The Study of End of Life

Aaron: We’re one of two schools with a
graduate degree program in thanatology in the whole world. Us and Edgewood.
Thanatology is the study of end of life. If you look at teachers, doctors,
nurses — there’s even death doulas now, just like birth doulas. We have a
graduate program, 30 credits. We’re launching an undergrad program. We’re also
looking at certificates — maybe you want to learn about thanatology but don’t
want to pay for a 30-credit, 10-course program. So we’re saying, here are three
credits, get them done within 14 to 21 weeks and you’ll have a certificate.

Aaron: That’s what we’re finding more
and more — people want hands-on or mentally applied types of things. So we’re
doing certificates too. At Marian, we try to meet and be nimble with what we
need. We can’t fully charge what it costs us to do traditional education. So we
need to supplement that with other education which other people need.

Engineering in Fond du Lac County

Aaron: I believe Fond du Lac County is
like number two in engineers per capita in the whole country. I think Palo
Alto, California has a slight edge. And the Sixth Congressional District — from
the Dells to Oshkosh, Manitowoc, down to West Bend — is the number one per
capita manufacturing congressional district in the country. When we talk
manufacturing, that doesn’t mean soot on your face. With AI and automation,
those lower-level entry jobs are getting taken care of. Now manufacturing is
engineering, human resources, industrial psychology, organizational things,
business, supply chain management.

Aaron: We’re looking at how we can
start an engineering program. It’s still really early. Jeff Quass from Excel
actually came and talked to me. We’re looking at how we can start the process.
From the lens of Marian University, it’s not just that you design and make
things — you do them to make the world better. I really do believe we can do
something a lot faster than what we think. If we could get an engineering
program in Fond du Lac, I think employers would embrace it even on steroids,
just like they embraced construction management.

Adam: A lot of our engineers —
one-third have a four-year degree, one-third have a tech degree, and one-third
have no degree. I think the kids that could be really well served are the
hands-on, the mechanics, the construction kids. They need to learn drafting,
some basic circuit design, and professional experiences. There’s a way to do it
without a full-fledged engineering program, but getting local employers
involved could be really cool.

Aaron: I’m really excited about
working with MPTC too. Bonnie’s a really good friend of mine. Their number one
job at the technical college is workforce training. I think we could get a
think tank together — MPTC, Marian — and talk about the vertical from certificates
to undergraduate to graduate programs. We could do completion programs for
people with associates degrees. And then what about a master’s course here in
engineering? It could be hands-on, applied, and not just all theoretical —
meeting the needs of Excel, Mercury Marine, Wells, everyone.

Summer Engineering Internship Pipeline

Aaron: Here’s another idea. We might
not have an engineering degree currently, but I can find a lot of friends from
across the country that have colleges with engineering degrees. How much would
they like to send their students to do an internship in Fond du Lac? We’ll open
up dorms. Then we come to all the different firms here and say, we’ve got 40
students from 20 different universities and they want to do internships. Would
you be interested in hiring them?

Adam: Does that happen often?

Aaron: I think it’s a concept that
we’re talking about probably for the first time ever. Our goal is not at the
deficit or the loss of anyone. We’re better together. Even if we don’t have
those programs, how great would it be for Marian University to say to engineering
schools across the country: we are here to house your students over the summer.

Adam: There’s a lot of resources
locally. Envision Greater Fond du Lac has a really great support system for
summer interns. They’re trying to sell them on Fond du Lac for the long term. I
think this is a tangible thing we can do right now.

Aaron: Engineer Fond du Lac. I can
definitely call out-of-state colleges right now and say, are you looking for
high-quality internship opportunities for your engineering students? There is
no other place like Fond du Lac that has this diversity of employers. You’re
not just learning engineering — you’re learning business, culture. And then if
you like golf, racing, the outdoors, fishing and hunting — we’ve got all of
that.

High School Partnerships & Early College Credits

Aaron: With Fond du Lac High School,
the referendum didn’t pass. They were scrambling to find teachers for
higher-level education. There’s something called Early College Credits, or
ECCP. We worked with Fondy High — we have 20 students coming at 7:40 every morning
to Marian University Monday through Thursday, taking anatomy and physiology
with Marian students. We’re going to have more of that in the spring and fall.
That’s a collaboration where before we didn’t have that because public schools
are budget constrained. If those resources and facilities are there, why not
share them?

Aaron: Within the next two to three
years, I can see WLA, St. Mary’s Springs, Fondy High — I could probably see
100–150 students that come to Marian and do a college schedule. They graduate
with 24 credits. They still go to their school for music and art and play on
athletic teams, but they come to Marian for academics. And they get to meet
other people from around the world because they’re integrated.

Associate Degrees & Nimble Innovation

Aaron: We’re actually going to be
offering associate degrees. We’re waiting for accreditation on that. If a
freshman comes in and says, I just can’t do this, too much — hey, stick around
one more year. We’ll get your associate’s degree in business or psychology or
general studies. You’ve got that degree, and then you can stack and come back
two years later, or take it to another university.

Aaron: Another great thing — we have a
lot of students in the past decade that left Marian early. Lost money, death in
the family, hardship, dropped out. I’m thinking, how great would it be once we
get the associate degree accredited to go back to some of those students and
say, hey, you’ve qualified for this associate’s degree. We’d love to have you
come back for graduation. If they would have enrolled for an associate’s at the
tech college, they would have gotten it. They did that work.

Becca: It kind of sounds like you’re
just trying to be human. Life happens, things come up. Maybe you should still
get credit for the work you actually did.

Aaron: That’s the sisters. We’re all
about our mission of helping people be best for the world. Everybody makes
mistakes, everybody has hardships. As long as you don’t do things maliciously,
you’re good. And we can help you.

How Marian Started: The Sisters of St. Agnes

Aaron: The sisters started St. Agnes
and nursing — built the hospital in the late 1800s, early 1900s. They were also
teachers. They’re not nuns. The difference between a nun and a sister is a nun
lives in the convent and stays local. Sisters — we’ve got sisters in Nicaragua,
New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi. They go where they’re supposed to go. Mother
Agnes was 17 when she became Mother Superior in the late 1800s. Fond du Lac was
like the second-largest town in the state. She would take these young women and
put them on the train — you’re going to Texas, you’re going to New York, to go
help.

Aaron: They got to the ’30s and said,
we really want to get accredited as teachers. They asked if they could go to
UW–Oshkosh. But the state said, you can’t come to public schools wearing your
habits. So the sisters said, that’s fine, we’ll just start our own education
college and call it Marian College. That’s how Marian started in 1936.

Adam: Sounds like us.

Aaron: But that’s Fond du Lac. That’s
the sisters. That’s Mercury Marine. That’s the culture. You tell me no, then
I’ll figure it out on my own. Let’s go. We’re not suffering. From there, Marian
built its campus in the late ’60s. And we’re now a university with about 50
different undergraduate and graduate degrees. We became a university in the
early 2000s.

Adam: Why are some places universities
and some colleges?

Aaron: To be a university, you have to
have a terminal degree — a PhD, an EdD, or something like that. That’s why
Ripon College is still a college — they have one graduate degree but no
terminal degree.

Aaron’s Background: Madison, Teaching & North Fond du Lac

Adam: Where’d you go to college?

Aaron: I did my undergrad at Madison.
I always wanted to play Division I football, but my size, speed, quickness,
jumping — I’m what you’d call high motor. So if I couldn’t play football, I
figured I’d wash your clothes. I was an equipment manager. I’m good at taking
whites and reds and not getting pink, packing semis, and setting up locker
rooms. I got my undergrad in broad-field social studies and history. Then I
actually went to Marian to get my master’s degree in educational leadership
while I was teaching in Manitowoc. Then I became superintendent at North Fond
du Lac. I came back to Marian, got in a PhD program, got my license. I was a
couple classes and a dissertation short. Had three kids. Didn’t quite finish my
dissertation.

Adam: But you wrote a book.

Mindcraft: The Book

Aaron: I always wanted to write a
book. I do a lot of professional development speaking. My friends said, Aaron,
you need a book to leave behind. I’m a huge positive psychology person. In
North Fond du Lac, the way we worked together to take enrollment from losing 45
students and $250,000 in 2006 to currently a plus-250 students — we worked on
culture. If people want to know how North Fond du Lac got where it is, it’s
people and culture. And that culture was focusing on positive psychology.

Aaron: I’m self-published through a
company called Manuscripts.com. A big shout-out to my friend Harlon Schwarz,
who’s in prison right now. He really helped me understand something. He said
the most important predictor of future behaviors is what you’re doing right
now. Not what you’ve done in the past. That changed everything for me. The
whole book — Mindcraft — is really about mindsets that can help us not suffer.
Your mindset can change right away. I wrote like 130,000 words. The book’s
34,000 words. It brought together positive psychology, how your mind works, and
the idea that what matters is right now.

Aaron: I found this group through a
guy named Eric Koester at Georgetown. Every Monday I’d have classes on how to
write stories. I worked with a creative editor, a developing editor, a copy
editor. I paid upfront through Manuscripts.com. I own everything. It’s also an
audiobook on Audible and Apple Books — three and a half hours. If you read it
and like it, go on Amazon and give me a review. If you don’t like it, don’t go
on Amazon and don’t give me a review.

Becca: Can I point out the irony? You
didn’t do your dissertation but you did all of that.

Aaron: The diabolical plan is, if I
can do a good enough job, when I retire, maybe in 10 or 15 years, they’ll give
me an honorary PhD. And then I could give myself my own degree.

Adam: That sounds like a lot more work
than doing a dissertation.

Aaron: Smarter, not harder.

Closing

Adam: Very much appreciated, man. You
guys are doing cool stuff. I think we’ve got some ideas, some things to work
on.

Aaron: There’s never a shortage of
ideas around here. And Marian University is an idea fulfillment factory.

Adam: A manufacturing analogy. Love
it.