Welcome to Coffee with COJO. My name is Demetria Gilkey, and I am your host. I'm so excited to welcome someone who is a familiar face on our campus, a very successful woman, none other than Dean Lynn Sergeant. Welcome to our show. Well, thank you for having me. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you originally from? I was born in Minnesota and most of my family is originally from Minnesota. But my parents moved to North Dakota when I was a baby.
So I grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota, and my dad is still there and my brother and one of my two nieces. So I've got a lot of family in the Dakotas and Minnesota. May I ask is do you have any family in the Fargo area? I have a couple cousins over there. I visited Fargo years ago when I was in training and development, and it was so cold. I'll never forget that cold, bitter air. Oh, my goodness. My dad describes Brookings as the banana belt. Oh, why that?
Well, that's an old joke about warm areas in South America where they grow bananas and it is warmer down here in Brookings than it is up in Jamestown. So whenever I complain about the winter, he gives me a hard time about living in the banana belt. I have never heard that. I love that, though. You take us on your educational journey. Tell us what schools and majors you studied and went to. I'd love to learn. We would love to learn more about your educational journey.
Sure. So I have never been one who does things necessarily in the most straightforward way possible. My journey was a pretty winding one, so I went to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities for my initial undergraduate degree, and I was a music major and actually a music education major and finished my degree there.
Really loved my time at the University of Minnesota, loved the big city, and thought I was going to either be an orchestral musician or be a band director for the rest of my life, but actually ended up with an injury that put an end to those dreams and decided I needed to do something else. So I went back to school. I went moved to Seattle because I really liked Seattle and wanted to live there.
And I got a second undergraduate degree in international studies from the University of Washington in Seattle. And then from there, that was my initial training in Russian, and I applied to graduate schools and I went to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, majored in Russian history and got my master's degree and my Ph.D. from Indiana. So going back, did you play a specific instrument or were you more into the directing type role?
So I played French horn, and French horn is wonderful instruments. My joke is always that history and studying history is the only thing as hard as playing the French horn. They both require a lot of flexibility. But I also then was middle school and high school band director. So do you play the French horn anymore Just for fun? Unfortunately, I can't. One of the reasons I had to change careers is because I had an injury to my jaw that prevents me from performing anymore.
The good thing is you didn't allow that to keep you down and you move forward and you kept learning and you kept growing. And you're inspiring me as I'm sitting here talking to you. Did you always desire to work in education? Because tell us your current role right now. So right now I'm the dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. And, you know, I didn't always think about higher education, but I have a lot of family who are teachers.
And I thought in that direction. But I actually found as I was teaching middle school and high school that it was maybe not the right level for me. I was more interested in working with adults, and I also was developing new interests of my own new intellectual interests that led me to pursue the idea of becoming a professor, pursuing the master's, then the Ph.D., going in a different direction. And that was that was really exciting. A little scary, but really exciting.
What's your favorite aspect of working in higher education? That's an interesting question. Can I have three? Sure. So as a professor, my two favorite things. One was working with my students and sort of watching them grow over a couple of years. They might come in as either new freshmen or new transfer students, and they don't really know what they're getting. Into and just helping them find their feet and then launching them into their own careers and seeing how that develops.
The second one is I really love doing research. Spent a lot of time in the archives in Russia and Ukraine and writing articles and wrote a book. And that is really fun. You're creating new knowledge, you're discovering things, looking at documents that nobody's looked at for a hundred years or 200 years and everyone had forgotten about. And so it's kind of like being a detective as the dean. What I like most actually, is trying to help others achieve their goals.
As a dean, it's no longer about your own work. It's about other people's work and helping them, you know, achieve milestones in their career or be a better teacher or be a better professor. Get tenure and promotion, get a big grant, do the kind of work that they really want to do. And if I can make that happen or make that a little easier for them, well, that's a pretty good day. What does your day, your typical day or week as a Dean look like?
What are you, you know, elbows deep in and you're constantly doing or what do you do a lot during the week? So we do a lot of meetings, a lot of emails, but these are all hundreds and hundreds of emails and a week and sometimes six or seven meetings in a day. But mostly what you're trying to do is make good decisions, take the information you have, work with your colleagues, work with your faculty, and make good decisions strategically and tactically for the college.
You know, essentially at the Dean level, you're working in the best interests of the college as a whole and all the people who work in it students, faculty, staff. But you're also working with the provost and the president to do the best you can on behalf of the university as a whole. And it's daunting sometimes. You know, there's a lot of evenings and weekends and meeting with donors and meeting with folks from industry and friends of the college.
But it's really exciting when it all comes together and you actually achieve something. It's a lot of work and it is fun. I think the high points are things like, Well, honestly, this this is really fun to know that, you know, students working on a really great project and getting to know you and kind of supporting the work that Cojo does. I sometimes joke that I'm not supposed to have favorites, but Cojo is kind of my favorite.
So last Friday, we were hosting some donors for a show that the La Boheme opera that was performed as part of Woodbine Productions, and there were 30 students who are part of that show. They were in the chorus, and that was just super exciting to see. And they were so thrilled to be in that role. And it's really just a wonderful thing when we can make those opportunities happen. What is an important lesson that you've learned throughout your career and or in your life?
I think the biggest thing I've learned is life. And your career is not a straight line, that there's going to be a lot of twists and turns and you don't always know what's coming around the bend. But being able to, you know, be a little bit flexible, be willing to make changes. Sometimes if you get a real curve ball, things go very wrong and that can be really emotionally challenging.
But kind of picking yourself up and saying, all right, let's reset and let's keep going, you know, to the destination I want. Again, it goes back to not being afraid. I think it's probably the underlying thing. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to try something different if what you're doing is not working and just in general, don't be afraid. My dad used to keep when he was working an excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt's famous essay, The Man in the Arena.
And that is something basically says that if you're the person in the arena, the one working so hard, people will say all sorts of things about what you're doing and have a lot of opinions, but that none of that really matters because you're the one who is fighting hard and you're the one who will triumph if you succeed. But even if you fail, you'll fail. Having tried, I think a lot of people give the word or concept of failure a negative connotation or negative reputation because people think,
Oh my gosh, I failed. People are going to talk about me or I never want to do this. And it's just so much it goes with that word. But, you know, I feel like you can fail your way forward, too. And there are people that have been that are super successful. Oprah was fired. And Michael Jordan, if I'm not mistaken, he was not picked at one point for like a basketball team or something along those. But they kept going and they didn't allow that to stop them.
Achieve whatever dream it is that they had. And anybody who's listening to this, I think it's important to take note that it's okay to fail. You're still back. Just keep moving forward and you'll get there wherever you want to go. Absolutely. I mean, failure in some ways is a gift. You learn more from failure than you do from easy success.
And, you know, one of the things I don't know where it came from, but it's this idea that if you never fail, if you never, ever fail, you probably aren't trying hard enough. You're probably playing it too safe. Other than what we just talked about, what other advice would you give students who are getting ready to graduate and enter the career field? You know, I think the advice I'd give there is actually one that I've learned from some of our alumni as well as from my own experience,
which is it's not the cliché. Do what you love and the money will follow, but it is follow your passion and your your interest. The thing that you want to know more about you want to do more of. Because the students from our college, they don't necessarily go into a job that's called what their major is, but they have a lot of flexibility. And if they follow their interests or their passions, it's going to take them as far as they want to go.
And having the confidence on that, being confident that they can pursue those goals, you know, you got to pay your dues and all that. But if you persist, if you learn what you need to, which sometimes is in a classroom and then sometime is from, you know, the custodian who's cleaning your building, who might have some life wisdom to share that will get you where you want to go as long as you have the courage of their convictions.
Earlier, you mentioned the man in the arena. Is there a book that you would also recommend for students to help inspire educate them? Yes, and it's actually one that I've also recommended to President Dunne and I've carried a copy of actually, it's a collection of essays and one particular essay by Henry David Thoreau. And I've carried it around since high school. And the essay is called Life Without Principle.
What Thoreau talks about is that you need to focus on living and loving, not just on working. His example as moving rocks from one pile to another and back. You may have put in a long, hard day's work, but did it have any purpose? If you don't have an understanding of what your principles are, what your purpose is, then your work may be meaningless. And that just had so much power for me when I was in high school that I've really literally carried that around ever since.
Dolly Parton used to always say, Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. Exactly. Because family, you know, at end of the day, I think they should be your priority, taking care of yourself and still, you know, living your dreams and your passion, but making sure you have that balance is super important. It is. You know, And so my mom passed away a year ago, and that was really hard.
But I'm also so thankful, even for the last nine months when she was in the nursing home. And, you know, we started counting not in years or months, then it was weeks and then it was days, and then it was just moments of connection and grace. And you can live a lot of living in in a few minutes of conversation if you if you approach it the right way. We are winding down already. I feel like we just got back, but we are winding down our interview.
So is there anything that you like to do in your free time while you're not being a dean full time? I yes. And in fact, this past may, I finally bought myself a camper. I've been wanting one for a long time, so I bought an absolutely adorable teardrop camper. And I like to go camping and I'm learning to do all those kind of things by myself that I've never had to do before. Hitch the camper up and learn how to make everything work.
And it's a really a fun hobby. And I just enjoy getting out into the woods around the prairie and spending a little time away from home. And it's it's really fun. My brother also likes to go camping, so we spent some time in my dad's backyard this summer trying to figure out how to do everything on our trailers. I read the directions several times. My brother just pushed. Buttons and stuff like guys sometimes do. And then when they didn't have any hot water. But.
But it's really relaxing. I really enjoy it. Do you have any pets that you take with you? I don't. I used to have a cat. She was quite elderly and she passed a couple of years ago. I have a bachelors in marketing that I was going to go to law school. Didn't get in. That's a whole nother can worms. A master's in theology and biblical studies, which I do use in ministry. And then this will be my second master's mass communication.
So and I'm also a licensed hairstylist, so I'm all over the board, but I guess it makes me well-rounded. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think it not only makes you well-rounded, it also allows you to see the world from the perspectives of people who are in other situations, and I think that's just a tremendous advantage and gift. You know, I think sometimes when all we do is kind of go a straight line, it limits our thinking.
But what you've done is, you know, you've got a lot of perspectives, people who are not necessarily going to interact with each other that much in a hair salon or in a faith based setting versus as a marketing firm or something like that. You know, that's pretty exciting. I'm gonna hire you. So there you go. Well, thank you. Well, Dean, I'm so happy that I had this opportunity to speak with you. And I'm sure the listeners are going to be thrilled to know that you are our next guest.
And we're going to have so many people excited to hear your story. Thank you so much again for agreeing to speak with us on Coffee with Kojo. My name is Dmitri Gilkey and we are signing off. Have a fabulous week. And thank you again. This podcast is the property of the School of Communication and Journalism at South Dakota State University, which reserves all rights to its use. Music by Cody M Johnson and Tyler Addison. James is licensed through AP Music.