Akil and Hong welcome Superintendent/President Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D. to the show to talk about her path in higher education and her path (and return) to SBCC. From there, the trio do a DEEP dive into Erika's Thanksgiving meal planning, and then segue into a discussion of food writing and cookbooks as a way to peer into one's personality.
Mentioned in this episode:
SBCC President’s Office - https://www.sbcc.edu/presidentsoffice/
Semper Gumby - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper_Gumby
SBCC Board of Trustees - https://www.sbcc.edu/boardoftrustees/
Jim Collins - Good to Great - https://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html
Asilomar Leadership Skills Seminar - https://ccleague.org/event-calendar/2024-asilomar-leadership-skills-seminar
California Community Colleges Association for Occupational Education - https://cccaoe.org/
Professor Tom Mahoney - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89V6lK96ZHM
Turkey Brine - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021473-turkey-brine
Spatchcock Turkey - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/543-roast-spatchcock-turkey
Deep-Fried Turkey - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/dining/deep-fried-thanksgiving-turkey.html
Butternut Squash Casserole - https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/22936/butternut-squash-casserole/
Cranberry Apple Salad - https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/creamy-cranberry-apple-salad/
Chocolate Pie - https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a11850/chocolate-pie/
Pumpkin Pie - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015622-pumpkin-pie
Seven Minute Frosting - https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/seven-minute-frosting-recipe
Pumpkin Rolls - https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/pumpkin-rolls/
Waldorf Salad - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018585-the-original-waldorf-salad
Green Bean Casserole - https://www.campbells.com/recipes/green-bean-casserole/
Cream Cheese Corn - https://www.food.com/recipe/cream-cheese-corn-47054
Mise en Place - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place
Dog Team Sticky Buns - https://www.food.com/recipe/dog-team-sticky-buns-138400
Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/210646/save-me-the-plums-by-ruth-reichl/
Julia Child Papers - https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/9746
What She Ate by Laura Shapiro - https://laurashapirowriter.com/what-she-ate/
The Betty Crocker Cookbook - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Crocker_Cookbook
Joy of Cooking - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_of_Cooking
L.A. Son by Roy Choi - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/723516/la-son-by-roy-choi-with-tien-nguyen-and-natasha-phan/
Fannie Farmer Cookbook - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Farmer
Joystix - https://joystix.band/
Captions provided by Zoom
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Hong Lieu: Hello and welcome to another episode of SBCC Vaquero Voices - a podcast highlighting the unique voices that comprise our campus culture, and how we're all working together to serve our students and the community at large. As usual, I'm joined by co-host Akil Hill, and today we are honored to welcome Doctor Erika Endrijonas to the show. Welcome, Erika.
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Hong Lieu: So you you are the superintendent, President, and we kind of have a good idea of what that you know. The ultimate decision, maker work with the board, etc., etc. But on a day to day basis, I'm curious like.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: is there like us any sort of schedule, or is it just kind of you have to be so dynamic, and everything comes and go. You just kind of have to go with the flow, or is it in between? I mean, what is that? Even, you know, I don't know. Yeah, it's a little bit of everything thrown at you. And it's probably one of the reasons why I really like it. Because no day is ever the same, you know. And a lot of times I come here thinking I'm gonna do A, and then something
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: else happens. And I wind up doing B and you know, during the pandemic my catchphrase was semper gumby always.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And but I was doing that before the pandemic, because, you know, you just you just have to deal with it.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I think the other thing is, sometimes people don't understand what a superintendent President is, and why I have 2 titles.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and it's because I actually am the president of the college and the superintendent of the district. So the college piece I work with all of you and the superintendent piece. I work with the trustees and the analogy I like to give on that is, I'm like the filling in an oreo cookie.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: cause you know you don't actually bite into an oreo cookie. You twist it apart, and sometimes the cream comes out on this side. So it's something I'm working on the call with the college on, and sometimes the cream is on this side, and it's something I'm working with the board on. And my
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: job really is to be able to bring that cookie together. So if the Board has something that's important to them, I need to figure out how to communicate that to the college and vice versa.
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Hong Lieu: So I mean, it's such. It's like everything, you know, it's based. How do you, I mean is, I guess you don't really can't, really, I guess. How do you prepare? Or is there someone that's more suited? The task is you really have to do everything? So there's gonna be, you know, strong strong suits for every every person week week. You know things that you can improve on, but you really have to be pretty good at everything. So how do you kind of
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Hong Lieu: reconcile that with your strengths and weaknesses. How do you feel? I mean, II guess you lean on everyone else. I but at the same time it's gotta feel it's pretty daunting, right? Does it feel like a lot, or is it okay when it feels really daunting, you know, back when I got my first Presidency at La Valley College. The process
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: it did not involve being on the college campus at all, you know. The first interview was at a hotel, and the second interview was in the district office, or the second 2 interviews, or in the district office. I never went to the college, so then I get the call. I get the job. And
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: that weekend, my partner and daughter. And I thought, Well, hey, maybe we should go check out the campus that I'm gonna be president of. And so we're driving there. And my partner, Martha, turns to me and says.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: so like, what do you do when you go there as the President, and I was like, I have no earthly idea. I am just gonna show up and unpack my boxes and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: the post script to. That is. So I get to the campus on August first, 2,014, you know. Somebody's told me where I'm supposed to park. I get my stuff out of the car. I go in and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and they're about 20 min, and the Chancellor calls Francisco Rodriguez, and he calls, and he's like, you know. Welcome to the La Ccd. So happy to have you. I'm on vacation for the next 2 weeks. So my cell phone, you know. Good luck and enjoy.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: That was my orientation to the La Community College district. Yeah, I mean, just figure it out. So so that's kind of what it is. I think. I think part of it, too, is
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I am not a micromanager like I have 0 interest in being a micro manager, partially because it's not my style, but also because
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: there aren't enough hours in the day for me to be a micromanageers like. So what I need is, you know, under like Jim Collins. Good to great kind of ideas. You have to have the right people on the bus, because I need to know, like that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Brian is doing what Brian needs to do, Maria, you know who everybody, Paloma. Everybody's doing what they need to do. And I'm here to problem solve. You know, I'm kind of a professional problem solver. That's what I do. I'm here to deal with good things. I'm de here to deal with difficult things,
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and you. And so I think in getting to the answer of your to your question. Number one.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I have to be able to stand up and walk away from my desk every night like I will never get everything done that needs to get done, and you just have to accept that.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then you adopt the approach of kill one fire at a time. So is this more important, or is this more important, you know, is this, is this person's hair on fire, or is this person's hair on fire and go from there? But it's also I have to say it's an inexact science, you know, like, sometimes you just make a mistake, and you're like, I'm sorry. Made a mistake here. How can we go forward? So I think it's it's all of those things.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And also I've been in the system, you know. I'm in my 20 fourth year in the system. So I've I've done a lot of things. I've seen a lot of things, and I really draw on that experience every single day.
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Akil Hill: At what point did you?
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Akil Hill: Did you have aspirations to becoming a president. I mean, was that like your initial? II know that you were a Dean once. Here, I I'm kind of curious to hear at what point. You're like, you know what?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So it was when I was a dean here, and it was because it was in 2,002. Peter Mcdougall sent me to the Women's Leadership Conference that happens every February. In fact, I just got an invitation to present there once again. And and what it is is. It's
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: 3 days with women who are Presidents, chancellors, trustees, you know. They're people who have done this work as women.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and it wasn't until I went to that where I you know, I thought maybe I would be a vice president. But as I worked my way through the week, I'm like, Well, wait a minute.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I can do that, you know. II believe in the mission of the community colleges, and you know I've got a lot of the strengths. I've got a lot of the leadership that they're talking about. I can do that.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But what I also recognized was that there were certain things I didn't know there were certain things I didn't have.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And so I set out at that point to identify. What do I need to do to get to the next level, which is being a vice President.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And then, once I'm a vice President, what do I need to do to get to being a President and I spent 9 years here. So I spent another 7 years here, partially because I had a child. So that's not the time to go off and become a vice President. But also because I was getting some really valuable experience both within the college
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: as well as doing State wide work in the California Community College Association of Occupational Educators. I was a the secretary of that organization for 4 years, and then I was the regional vice President for
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: that. So I did. A lot of state. Wide things gave me opportunities to meet people, and that made a huge difference. So then, by the time I became an executive Vice President Oxnard College.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: When I went to my first chief instructional Officers Conference I knew half of the people in the room.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then I did things there like I was on the Chief Instructional Officers Board. I was president of the Chief Student Services Officers
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: organization for a year. and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I was on accreditation committees and you know. So I just I gradually figured it out. Now I was fortunate there to have a President who is very, very invested in professional development
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and after the first couple of years that I was there.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: he said, Okay, and I wasn't his choice. By the way, the Chancellor chose me.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But we got along great. And after the first couple of years he said, Okay, now it's time to make you into a President, and he really mentored me and said, You know, and help me along the process of getting to be a President.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and he was really happy when I got the job at Pasadena because he had tried to be a superintendent president here in California, and it didn't work out. He wound up, moving back to his hometown in Pueblo, Colorado, to do some really important work with a local district that serves indigenous people. And and so it was really fulfilling for him. But he was really happy that I had made it to the superintendent. Present
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: President role, which is.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know, people talk about. Oh, you know, the Chancellor's are at the top of the system. I'm a Chancellor and a President.
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Hong Lieu: I'm the crazy one. I mean. You said a lot of things that really kind of warm my heart in terms of Number One. You were talking about
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Hong Lieu: how you have to be willing to make mistakes, and on own up to them I feel like that's an issue with a lot of folks. I feel like the the ability to delegate. I feel like some folks have a problem, understanding that there, there's not enough time in the day. I that's like that's difficult thing for folks at all levels to understand even myself. Sometimes I'm like I can just cram that little bit in there, and it's really difficult to to leave with unfinished things on my desk. That is the number one thing. Things hanging over my head is like my number.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: like, just ambient stress. Yeah, you get a lot of practice in that. When you write a dissertation. But you have this like.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: hanging over your head. So I had practice. I have like, 4 years of practice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotta do that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But you know, too, is like, last night I was trying to get a whole bunch of stuff done. You know our daughters coming home today. It's Thanksgiving putting out Christmas stuff and holiday stuff in general.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And I thought, you know, I'm just gonna go sit down and write the Thanksgiving email to the campus because it was kind of like, oh, I need to do that. I really want to give people the heads up. I wanna do all of this. So it's like, you know what? Just go sit down, write the damn email, you know. Just write it to you for that, because we everyone's always
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Akil Hill: I've I've been here for almost 20 years. It seems like every day before the Thanksgiving, or Hol, or any other holiday people are piece of queues. What time are we leaving leaving? So I just wanna say big shop to you for that? And then also one of the things that I really like hearing you say was, I think you know, sometimes at Sbcc we have this culture of
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Akil Hill: always gotta be getting it done all the time all the time all the time, and then just listening to you, make that point about like, look! There's not enough hours a day for me to get it done. And so I really believe, like
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Akil Hill: the things that the more that people can navigate the space of like, okay, I have to walk away, because I will be more productive when when I have a fresh.
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Akil Hill: a set of eyes, and I'm not fatigued, I think is a real thing around here. So hopefully, people, the listeners, you know, can listen to this and say, you know what like.
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Akil Hill: there's gonna be a point where I just have to stop for the day, and then frustrated and feels like things are getting added. And
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know I don't have a solution right now. I think that's true. I also think that it has evolved over time, you know, both due to leadership changeover and different different perspectives on how work should get done, and then you add to that a pandemic.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And then, you know, like you, you add all of these things. And so we're in a really unique place right now. And II know that we need to do something different. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like. And
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and and it's interesting because I really do believe in transparency. And and the Ebor, you know, made some points about well, it would have been interest, you know, would have been good to know this, or it would have been good to know that. And they're right, you know, transparency is really important.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: it's also challenging, not because I don't philosophically agree with it. But it's because you gotta get the timing right.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So, for example, when I was so when January sixth happened
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I didn't make a statement right away to the campus at Pasadena.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I took a lot of heat for not making a statement.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: but I didn't make a statement until the day after the Presidential inauguration. And as part of my response, you know part of the statement I made, I said, I know some people were really upset that I didn't say something on January Sixth
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: said, you know, first of all, I'm a historian, not a journalist, and you know you can take the historian out of the classroom, but you can't take the historian out of me, and for me, I understand everything in context, and I don't. I did not believe on January sixth that the story was over
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: until that inauguration took place
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: in my mind. All bets were off, because I couldn't believe what I saw on January sixth, you know it's one of those. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe that just happened. You know. What could possibly go wrong.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Yeah. But so from a transparency perspective.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know, that's something that's hard to explain in the moment, like you don't wanna send out a message saying, I'm not sending out a message, because I'm you know, eating popcorn on the sidelines trying to figure out what's happening.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But then the problem is that in the meantime people
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: jump to the wrong conclusion that you don't care, or that you are purposefully hiding information. And so I'm in the trying to find the sweet spot, and every college is different. Every culture is different. So I'm trying to find the sweet spot right now, and I'm not 100, and getting it right. But that's you know.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Yeah, that's what you do next. Is that okay? It didn't work here. Now let's figure out how it can work.
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Akil Hill: I think that's such a brilliant point, because
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Akil Hill: for me, I feel like just how you alluded to earlier, that you're not a micro manager. I think, as an employee. And we look at our president superintendent, and we have to be able to kind of
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Akil Hill: look at them with the same sort of lens where you're gonna be like, okay, I know they're, gonna I trust to know to get it right. And I gotta give them the grace to navigate the space based upon what what they do. I think we're so quick to say. Oh, they didn't put out a statement fast enough, or the statements wrong, or that. So we're trying to micro manage
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Akil Hill: the President superintendent. But then we don't want to be micro manager ourselves, you know. So we see right? II really believe that we have to be able to.
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Akil Hill: you know. Give our President superintendent that time need to make the decisions and and like we are alluded to, hey? Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I don't get it wrong, and
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Akil Hill: I don't know about can't speak wrong, but that's the type of person I want to roll with, you know.
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Hong Lieu: and it's interesting. You made 2 very salient points. I'd love to blame this. This desire for instant reaction on social media. But it's something that feels like it's just time immemorial, even even when you get out on a telegram. They'd want the telegram, you know.
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Hong Lieu: out instantly. But it's it's nice to II mean, we don't give people that space, you know, cause providing context and and waiting for information to come in, I mean reacting to something
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: in real time is is a skill as well. But allowing something to to fully contextualize within the framework of whatever timeframe you're dealing with. I mean, that's also a skill. So we need. We need to respect both sides of that, you know. Equally, I mean, that's why I give you a lot of credit for for taking that stand in that position at that time, and you know, if I were in a public event, and I were asked to question, I could certainly respond in that moment in
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: time, you know, like II don't
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I understand that one of my roles is to be able to respond in time. Right? So that would be fine. But when you take the time to sit down and formulate a message, and you want to convey something, and it's like a pretty big topic.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: That's not something you want to do on the fly.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know, and so it has to be different.
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Hong Lieu: and you can't assume everybody knows everything about everything. I mean, sometimes I feel like we do that where it's like, oh, you don't have a take on this. Why not? It's like I don't know much about that, you know just one of those things, you know. And and I guess the second point that you brought up. I don't wonder to really shine. A line on is transparency. We we always ask for it. We always desire it, but we don't sometimes realize the extra workload it provides, because, you know, in order to be transparent, you not only have to have.
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Hong Lieu: you know pieces in place to get that information out, you know, quickly and transparently. But you also have to have app, you know, pieces in place to deal with the responses that come back as a result of that. So folks a lot of times it it's not. They're they're not. They're not only not transparent because they don't want information to get out. They also are not maybe
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Hong Lieu: willing or able to deal with the the the roiling boil. That kind of simmers up after anything is released. So there's there's pieces there that we, you know we have to give folks, you know. Keel talked about giving folks Grace. I mean, we have to give the apparatus or the the workflow grace as well, because it's something where, if if you haven't, if if the institution hasn't had in the past, or we're building up to something. It takes time to work up to that level of competence competencies that you would like
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: for something, cause it's it's it's a massive undertaking. It's very difficult to change a mindset and have pieces in place that satisfy a community kind of sort of engagement level. So, yeah, well, I think that's why, at in service I was trying to focus on, I mean, I spelled out. I use pneumonic device of grace.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But really, for me
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: it's not only grace, but being provided or recorded, the assumption that my intention is good and that yes, mistakes are gonna happen. But they didn't happen because I came to something with a negative intention. And I think that that's the piece that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I find the most challenging. I know. It's easy to jump to that, especially in our, you know, 24 h news cycle, you know. Negative perspectives on everything. I get it. It's human nature. It's it's our culture right now in general.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and in that context I still have to be able to do things and sometimes people just have a hard time, especially with the leadership turnover and everything, not viewing it through a negative lens, but that. But again, that takes time.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Culture. Culture really takes a long time, and you have to be patient.
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Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: But I guess my, my follow up question to all this, you know, like you, you talked about your process to what made you want to become a president and kind of networking, and I'm or what keeps you wanting to be President, I mean, you know the path you achieved it. And now what keeps it going? Because at every at every level, I'm sure you hit some kind of robot we're like.
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Hong Lieu: This doesn't have to be this way. Why is it this way and just frustrated, you know. Like III mean II can't speak for it, because I never I never been on that path. But I can just imagine, you know, frustrations. You've hit barriers. You've hit roadblocks.
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Hong Lieu: And so what keeps you driving past the idea that you're not gonna be able to fix everything and get it exactly how you want it. What keeps you going in that respect?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So I think it's a couple of things. Number one. Everything begins and ends with the students. You know the thing that attracted me the most to even getting to this point was fundamentally believing in our mission as a California community college believing in the the equalization that equalizing power that education provides. So I fundamentally believe in what we're doing.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I have, you know. I'd say maybe 5 and a half or 6 years till I retire. I'll have 30 years in the system, you know. I'll be in my mid-sixties, so that would be good.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So there are things I want to do before then. I will say, though, that if I were 40 years old
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: staring down 20 plus years doing this job.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I'm not sure I would have 20 years in me.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and the reason is that the demands of our jobs have grown exponentially over the last 25 years. My presidency
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: is not Peter Mcdougall's presidency. I'm going to tell you the things
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: the expanding vision. you know, just moving away from accesses. Everything
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: towards access is important.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But so is success
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: changing that focus, changing that to be dual lens
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: completely change the landscape of what it is to be
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: a precedent, I mean, when I was at Valley College.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: You know, I worked really closely with our local legislators. Our La City councilman was Paul Krakorian.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and every city councilman have been basically told, or council person have been told you need to find some way to address some homelessness in your district.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So Kricorian's office, came to me and said.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: You know we're really interested in working with you on the idea that homeless students might be able to stay in their cars at night and on your campus.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I was also working with a partnership at with some architecture faculty at Usc. For these, like single person pods and trying to figure out, how could we create some temporary housing that doesn't have to go through the Department of State Architect.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Okay, that was 2016,
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: but then and on that, if that college I also had a family resource center, the first in the State that focused on families, a a on students, as student parents. And you know, the focus is if you're if you help them, as both a student and a parent.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Both the child, you know, their children will be better off and in. And all this statistics showed that they had 10 more chance. They're gonna graduate. And all these other things. We had
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: a pantry before anybody was talking about having pantries like
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And now, you know, we've got all of that.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and working with another population really important, formerly incarcerated. There wasn't that much conversation about the formerly incarcerated 7 years ago. Now there is, you know.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So fill in all the blanks that has made the scope
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: like this. And you know the student housing issue I have. II have very mixed feelings about. Because, on the one hand.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: yeah, it would be great, except that the people who need housing the most. our students with kids.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And so we shouldn't be talking about a hundred bed.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know, building, we should be thinking about what is family housing look like. But if you have family housing, then you can't have the single students there, right? Because we don't want like 18 year olds.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: maybe wandering around with a 3 year old, you know. I mean. So it's very complex. And
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: lastly, whether you went one direction or the other direction. If you're in a college with 12,000 students, you're emptying the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon.
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Akil Hill: Hmm.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and that's what we're asked to do on a daily basis.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So the focus on student success, totally the right right focus.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But it's not properly funded, and it's expanding the scope.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So my job's hard. But the job 15 years from now is, gonna be even harder, and I will not fail. Retirement.
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Akil Hill: Hey? There's a reason. II completely believe you on that. I know you're not failure. I know it. I know there'll be a concert to go to, or
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: we'll get there. And and and those those points you raise. It's really a great. You did a great job in capturing the issue, because it really makes it easier for me to understand
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Hong Lieu: that, like the You access, I mean becoming experts and access, and then translate that success to the II mean, translate that to success. It's a whole different slate of problems, a whole different slate of resources required and the networking required, because now you're leaning on county programs. You say you're leaning on Usc, because the resources within your, you know organization
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Hong Lieu: just are not built. I mean, no single entities built to handle these kind, I mean a A as the whole. Right now we are probably failing these problems, you know, as a state, as a country, as so in terms of measuring the success on an on an individual institutional level. I mean, yeah, it's just
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Hong Lieu: you, you definitely, you definitely may easily understand that. So thank you for that. That's amazing. Yeah, I don't know what that are saying does for me. But yes, thank you very much. And that point we will segue to our next segment. What brought you to Sbcc? You've detached
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Hong Lieu: briefly on your path to to the present, to a superintendent Presidency, but in terms of your as you've made you know mentioned of in the past. This is your second stint at Sbcc. You were here before, so what was, what was the path like to get there, you know, the first time
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I ran I was the Dean and professor of the La campus of the Union Institute
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: back from 1999 98 to 2,000,
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and the Union Institute was
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: They had a more of a tutorial model, and it was for adults going back to college. And actually 40 of our students in that center were from Lapd.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and so sometimes I would go meet with students, you know down at Parker Center, or you know, we'd meet at a coffee shop in downtown. La but anyway, one of the faculty there was Tom Mahoney
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and Tom. Had. He and I had a really great relationship, and he applied for the Aj position here at Santa Barbara City College, and came, you know, left there, and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: after about 6 months, he said, you know, you really should think about applying here. I think you'd like it.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And the other thing. So there were a couple of things. Number one, he thought. I would like it, and a
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: the Union Institute have been thrown into chaos because they had had a President there for 17 years, who
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: ruled with an iron fist. you know, just built that place
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: dropped out of a heart attack, 0 succession planning.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I mean, the whole thing functioned through
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: his mind. And it. It turned the place into chaos. And there was a change in leadership. And basically the person who came in who later on got I had person who came in said, Oh, gee! I hope you'll stay through at least the next academic year, which is code, for I don't really want to. So I started applying, and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I actually applied for a couple of positions. Here. I applied for the Dean of Social Sciences, but that went to Jack Allen, who was an internal candidate, and I applied for the Assistant Dean Career Tech, that went to Diane Holland because she, as an insight candidate.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But Gail Baker, who was the Dean of career and technical and education, had written a grant to introduce this new thing called work based learning, and she had been part of my interviews before she wrote the Grant Director as an assistant dean, and out of the blue. In August of 2,000 I got a call from her and said, so. I wrote a grant.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I wrote the director in as an assistant Dean and I double-checked with Hr. Because you just applied for the other assistant Dean and didn't get it. We don't have to do a search projects process. So do you want the at that position like?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Yes.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: My partner was on a flight back to California from Vermont, and I found her in the
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Pittsburgh airport, I said. By the way, we're moving to Santa Barbara. So that's that's basically how I got here the first time.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Then I left. So we know that we had a difficult president come in after John Romo and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: At the time Jack Friedlander was applying for Presidencies. He was a finalist at Saddleback. He was a finals for some positions. and so I was meeting with the then President. And I said, You know. Just so, you know, if Jack.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: if Jack gets one of these positions, I'd be very interested in potentially the executive Vice President's job because I'm I'm hoping to be a President.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I was told, well, I can't promise you anything.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Totally understand that? Not asking for a promise, I mean had to have that conversation for about 5 min. And then, basically, I was told I had no future at the college.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So I knew at that point.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: okay, it's time to go find a Vice Presidency. So that's I got hired at Oxnard. And then, as I said, you know.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So then, what happened was
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: about a year and a half into me being at Oxnard. Suddenly this position was open, and many people reached out and said, Please apply, please apply, please apply, which I did.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I knew full well, I would not get an interview, and I shouldn't have gotten an interview because I wasn't qualified for this job. It's huge. I'd only been a vice President, an executive vice President for a year and a half.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So you know, I just kind of kept my eye on the position, and when it opened up a couple of other times for the permanent position I had just started at Valley College, and I had just started at Pasadena City College.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So For the first time it finally worked out because things had really shifted at Pasadena.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And it was clear I couldn't stay there. So it was actually the the timing was perfect.
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Hong Lieu: So I guess a a follow up question. There is a now that you're on the other side of this
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: is, I mean when you say you weren't ready because you only had this position for X amount of time. Is that really the case? Was there a skill you really were missing that you had to learn? Or were you actually ready? And you just need that kind of like little validation of time? Because, I mean, is there a an actual skill that you think you got that made it better at the job? Okay, so number one experience.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I had been through trials and tribulations as an executive vice President. as a President Valley College. The amount of things you learn
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: because you experience them, you know, when I was at Valley College, for example, we were hit with the Ransomware attack.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and we paid the ransom and got our stuff back. But I'll tell you it was quite a journey to get through that whole process.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: one thing that was really interesting is that when I was here before.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: the a lot of people didn't know anything about the Ia. At the time. It was the Instructors Association didn't know anything about the Ia contract. You know. They knew there was a contract.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: If they could have found that contract I'd be shocked. You know, that just wasn't what people talked about.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Never heard the term 10 plus one.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: On my first day in the ox in the Ventura district at Oxnard. It was the day before classes started. It was their in service day.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I had an adjunct in my office, saying, I have this class taken away, but if you look at the contract, article
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: 5, subsection C sub point 4, this is why I get, and I was
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: blown away.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I had no idea what the guy was talking about. I had never interacted with a faculty member who could quote a contract.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I learned so much about collective bargaining over those jobs I would have been so
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: unprepared to deal with that I would have been unprepared to deal with that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I would have been unprepared to deal with the Board.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: so much
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I probably could have stumbled through, but I would not have been a good President, I really wouldn't. I didn't know anything. I'm telling you I knew how to be a dean. I kinda knew how to be a vice president, I would never have been able to do it.
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Akil Hill: I appreciate the honesty there, because, you know, I mean, I think there's so many lessons, if you want from that this into your journey, because sometimes you know you, a position opens up and you just automatically think that you should be the one that gets it on the position that you're in. Right? So that's like the next step up. And sometimes that's just not meant for you. And sometimes, you know, I also feel that
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Akil Hill: like what you're saying. What you're saying is about by getting seasoned.
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Akil Hill: you know and really mastering your craft. That's gonna put you in a position or a place that you know that you can handle when you when you cross that bridge. III just think that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: sometimes, you know, like not getting the job is the best thing for you in that moment.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I understand my lane, and I understand which Lane I'm supposed to be in, at which time, so I was in a situation the other day where somebody suggested, oh, well, we could just collectively bargain this, and I said no.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and they were shocked that I said, no. They said, Well, why not? I said, because it's not subject to collective bargaining. We're not going to introduce a process that this doesn't apply to.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: but if you don't know right, if you don't, if you've never had to deal with
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: really the administration of collective bargaining contracts.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and in the Lecc there are 6 unions, including the Deans, the Deans, or teamsters.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know you have 6 unions, and you have to like, understand? Who are you in the room with. and what is their expectation, and what is their job, or serving on
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: negotiating teams like I was on several negotiating teams in the in the La Ccd. And until you've been in that you don't realize that if you're talking about something happening here with this bargaining unit.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: You have to think more than oh, we're just looking at this contract, because, for example.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: when I was there, the Custodial staff are Represented by Sci-u-
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: but the ClErikal, Technical folks, are represented By A Aft 1521, A so They're like this A decision, was made about pay rates
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: for these people which threw the bottom positions right here out of whack. So an entering custodian suddenly came in higher than somebody here. But if you looked at what the minimum qualifications were, if you looked at all of that, it didn't make any sense.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But if you haven't seen that. if you haven't had to put all those pieces together. It's very hard to do my job
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Hong Lieu: and it and it's a good expansion of the idea of of knowing, you know, quote knowing, because you can have the theory and the reasoning, and everything very sound without those reps, without that practice of actually doing. You know calpo alumnus over here learn by doing is the mantra of the school. And it is really important because it's just that that processing, that reaction.
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Hong Lieu: the making those decisions. It is. It is kind of something that you get better with with reps, and it's the kind of thing where you always you may always have the right idea. But if you if you don't, I mean especially the the idea of you mentioned knowing your lane, because going back to your earlier point of you, don't you? You can't be everything at once. You can't get everything done. You have to know when you can dip in, get some things done, get something's done just to move.
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Hong Lieu: keep things moving a little bit, and that's and it. That is something that's very important. I think it would do you bring it back to a sports analogy? You mentioned football on your thanks to email Trey Lance for drafted by the 40 Niners. He was, you know our number 3 overall pick he if you lot watch his tape, it's excellent. But he didn't have the reps. He didn't play enough college football. He didn't have enough experience up
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: processing in the moment of just letting that ball rip. And and our, you know, our coach, Cal Shanahan. He loves someone that can really process and is not afraid to let it rip. And in the preseason that was his biggest issue was that he was. There were windows where the throws were there, but by the time he got the processing doesn't make that throw, the window had closed, and that's something where I can see where it makes a lot of sense. Now, where the the seasoning you got the the reps you got, the practice you got just makes it so aware
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: where you see those windows, and you're actually able to let it rip when those windows are open in your decision-making process, you know. So. But here's the thing along the way you have to accept the fact that you're not going to make everybody happy.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and in some cases the decisions that you make or the actions you take
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: get misinterpreted, get miscommunicated all kinds of things, and that's where I think it takes a lot of strength because you have to accept the fact that people are going to sometimes misrepresent a decision you made. Why, you made it, how you made it.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you can never call someone out especially, anybody? Really? You can't call them out in public
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: like you know. There was. There were some challenges that Pcc. Around. Having
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: the faculty come back to campus.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: which was a board, you know, boarded my decision together. It was a joint decision. and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: the there were some folks out there who were not exactly communicating the truth about what was expected, and all of this stuff, and and several of my board members said to me, Well, you need to get ahead of the narrative, you need to get ahead of the narrative, and what I kept saying to them was, the problem is the only way for me to do that is to publicly say that somebody's not telling the truth.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I can't do that, and I will never do that like.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So I. So I took a lot of hits on that, and you know we had local press that was much more interested in what
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: they were being told by some folks versus what we were saying. And so it was. It was. It's tough because you do. And then and then because of like open
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: public comment. You know, sometimes you have to sit there during a board meeting and just be like.
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Akil Hill: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: ow, that I mean, you talk about how difficult you talk about how difficult the job has become. That just makes the job in my mind about 8 million times more difficult that you can't tell anyone how it is, I mean.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: can you even practice? Is that something that can be practiced? How do you? How? How do you develop that that level of skin thickness, because it's something that during Covid, when we all have masks on, you could keep your poker phase a little better. Yeah, it's well, many years ago, when I was at the Union Institute. We used to have these like just awful national meetings in Cincinnati.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I had one of the Vice Presidents come over to me 1 point and said, You're not gonna get far in your career if you don't control your eye rolling. And so that made me very cognizant. Now I don't always get it right, and you know there have been a couple of instances where it was not my finest day as a President, and I can say it wasn't my finest day, you know.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: a couple of years ago, or a year and a half ago I did get into a public Stat with one of the new Board members that Pcc. And you know that's one of those. If I could take it back, I would. I wish I had handled that differently. Not my finest hours of President, but I think it's also part of that. You have to try to be self reflective
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: about how you might do things differently. But there is.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: There is another piece to it, and that's gender.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: because the things that are expected of me when we were bringing folks back to campus at Pcc. I was literally getting emails from people
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: asking me how I could not care about them or how. Why wasn't I taking care of them? And like it was all about having created me as a mom figure.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and that was the rhetoric was, you know. But you're supposed to take care of us, and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: from my perspective, we have put all of these precautions in place more than any other institution in Southern California, and so I felt like I had taken care of people, but they really didn't. And I think back to who my predecessor was, and I just don't believe he would have gotten the same emails. I just don't.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: You know. I know people were frustrated. But there's one thing about being angry and frustrated. There's another about expecting and actually articulating that it was my job to take care of them personally.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: as the president of a 2,000 employee institution that was just not going to happen.
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Akil Hill: Yeah.
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Akil Hill: the intersection. I'm I'm glad you spoke to the intersectionality of that, because that is definitely real in people's jobs.
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Hong Lieu: And I'll and I will say, as as you know, you've mentioned, you can't please everybody. There's a small contingent of folks like me that do appreciate the eye rolling and barbs. So if you do ever feel like you need to send, send a stray shot down the line, and hey, there's there's some folks that will be like, Go you go. You gotta. You gotta humanize that. That's tough. That is really tough. I don't doubt it
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Hong Lieu: for a second. So but yes, moving right along to our next section. Good eaten. This is this is the one I've been waiting for, especially after that Thanksgiving email. Email. Because
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Thanksgiving is my, I mean, this, this episode will air after Thanksgiving, but I feel like we do need to have this conversation, because I have so many questions. I love Thanksgiving deeply, deeply to the core of my being. And so just in that email, like.
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Hong Lieu: I have a lot of questions. But I'm also like mad props, because that sounds like a a enormous undertaking.
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Akil Hill: II didn't mean to. Sorry. Catch up. I had a preferences that you know. Dr. I and I had this conversation around Thanksgiving. When we were. We attended the conference in Vegas. So
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Akil Hill: II kind of have a the cheat code a little bit. So I'm just gonna sit back and and kind of listen to it definitely good.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So you are doing 2 turkeys for sure. 2 turkeys. So Wednesday I will cook a 17 pound turkey, and I will stuff it. I'll stuff it with black olives.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I'll click that cool it, and then, you know, take it apart so that it's already that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: on Thursday, after Thanksgiving dinner, when folks are planning to go home, I take that turkey out, and I
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: distribute it to folks. You know II
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: make little care packages that have some turkey, some stuffing. And and I actually and I asked people. So what do you? What do you want? You know?
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Hong Lieu: Yes. So 17 pounds on Wednesday, 22 pounds on, wow. Okay. Okay. Cause. Okay. Number one. The bigger the turkey, the more difficult it is to really nail it. And to me 17 pounds is big, I mean, that's big enough. But if you cross the 20 pound threshold. I mean
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Hong Lieu: number one Matt props to you and your oven cause you need an oven as well. But I mean, I, are we doing like? Are this a no, Brian spat cocking? Are there any kind of
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Hong Lieu: like leverage that you pull to make the process easier, or you just like die hard, because I mean, talk about talk about a vote of confidence in terms of taking on difficult tasks. Turkeys, the biggest it can be is about 15 pounds because of oil
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: displacement. The other pieces II prefer to do deep fried turkey at Easter, because the temperature is more likely to be temperate, because, you know, when you put the bird in, obviously it cools the oil down. But if there's a lot of wind, or if it's not that warm that makes deep frying.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So here's what I do so like, I said, for the one that's just lunch meat, or whatever stuff it with black olives, salt and pepper, you know. Butter on the outside. Throw it in the oven.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: The other thing I'm gonna do on on Wednesday is I'm gonna roast Anaheim chilies.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I'm gonna take those Anaheim chilies on Thursday morning and separate out the skin from the meat and tuck the roasted chilies into the
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: into the between. So you don't need a Brian, because you got all that, you know stuff going in there.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And then, as I said, I stuff the body of it the cavity, but both the front and the back I have. And jalapenos I put in the yeah. The extra chilies I put in the in the bottom of the pan. Because that's you know. That's I make my own gravy from that.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: From that, you know, I usually use a lot. I use Turkey stock
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: then to make the stuffing.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I cut up an onion and Habanero, and at least one Jalapeno and I saute those. Altogether
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I use traditional stuff, you know, though I like corn bread stuffing, but nobody else.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And I get, and I have 2 Mrs. Covers in traditional
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I oh, and I also roast red peppers for that when I roast the Anaheim chilies. So that's what goes in there. So it's stuffing the onions. Jalapeno and Habanero. Roast a red pepper, basil.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: a little bit of time.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and red pepper flakes.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then as much
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: liquid, you know, usually like 3 sticks of butter melted.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: either chicken broth or no chicken stock or turkey stock. and I get it so it's a little bit on the wet side more than you would think, but I put it in a glass pan
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: because the glass pan is gonna make it all crispy throughout.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I put that into the oven while the turkey's resting, and while the turkey is resting I cook the the stuffing
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: in the in the same oven. The other thing is.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I cook my turkey at 400 degrees.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Now I know a lot of people believe in low and slow. I do not believe in, low and slow, because low and slow, does not work with the turkey the size of the bird.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: No. and I have one of those things where
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you put the stake through and the rack, so you just pick it up. Put it on the cutting board, pull out that, and the rack comes out.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then it rests. The resting is really important. But I use so, and if it's 22 pounds, or if it's 17 pounds, it's automatically 15 min a pound. The other thing is, I take my turkey out 2 to 3 h. So it's 100% at room temperature before it goes in the oven.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: That's the other piece people forget. They take their turkey right out of the cold refrigerator into the oven. Well, it's gonna take it an extra 30 to 40 min to
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: come to where it can really cook
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Akil Hill: Thanksgiving og, she knows, and she knows.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I mean, I'm trying to think the logistics are just making my head spin, I mean, do you have like 3 ovens and like 2 fridges, I mean, what do we? You don't have to go, do you? Don't go. You go as in depth as you'd like. I just this is a ballpark idea, like one turkey goes out. You have multiple cast roles you're playing with here. So casserole goes in. 2 casseroles go in at the same time, I'm guessing.
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Hong Lieu: And then I mean, it's just like all these moving pieces. And and I mean Thanksgiving as as just a guest is stressful to me. I love the meal. I love the holiday. I can't imagine the the yeah husband always come for Thanksgiving
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and, Betty, it's really funny. She'll you know. It'll be like the last 30 min. And Betty will say you're so calm. It's like, alright here. Okay. So Wednesday, here's Wednesday.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I make the turkey. So I cook that at some point in the day
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I make the squash casserole
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and the squash casserole is butternut squash. You cook it and put it into, and I buy it already chopped up into cube, so I don't have to chop it up myself.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: so you boil it until it's soft. Put it into a cuisinart, or actually in the kitchen aid with milk, sugar, eggs. It becomes like kind of almost like a a squash souffle, and that can sit in the refrigerator overnight.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And when so you bake that I usually bake that I have a baking drawer.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: in the last 10 min of baking that you spread on top a combination of brown sugar, butter, coconut
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and any can and any selection of nuts
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and pulverized Nila wafers
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: that's done.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: There's also something I forgot to add in. And it's a cranberry apple salad, and what you do with that is on Wednesday. Take a bag of cranberries, put it in the cuisinart, break them up, put it in a bowl with
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: miniature marshmallows and sugar. and that sits overnight. You don't do anything with it. It just sits overnight.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then I make a chocolate pie with chocolate crust on it. I make that the day before, and then I make a pie crust that I'm gonna use cause I will only serve a pumpkin pie that I've made the day of thanksgiving, but I make the crust the day before, and put that in the refrigerator.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: See what else?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Oh, and then I cook the onion rings that will go on top of the on top of the green bean casserole. So I do all of that.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Oh, and this time, because we have a family member who has a birthday. I'll make the chocolate chip cake itself and wrap it up really tightly.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: because the next day is when you make the filling and the and the 7 min icing.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then I'll also make peanut butter fudge. So that's all done on Wednesday. Then you got a full day.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I'm making a 22 pound turkey. So if you do the math, that's 5 and a half hours, plus, you need a half an hour to rest or so. So basically, I have to have it in the oven by 8 am.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So what I'll do is I'll get up
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I will make I'm gonna get a very early because the squash those pumpkin rolls I make our yeast rolls
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: that are made with pumpkin in them.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And it takes me about 15 min to put together a batch, and I'll make 2 of them together. They rise for an hour and a half. Then you need them for 7 min. Cut them up into rolls, and then you put butter and poppy seeds on them, and then they rest for another 30 min, and then they bake for 12 min. So I'm gonna make 2 batches of those
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: in succession before I actually put that turkey in the oven.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then I'll also bake the pump while those are rising. For the first one I'll make the pumpkin pie, and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: that'll be in the oven so the oven will be in use starting at like 4 in the morning. So that'll be that.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Then with the and then I'll finish off that cranberry salad, which you add, chop up 2 apples.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: broken walnuts, and a cup of cool whip.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and you mix that all together with a little bit of salt. and that's the cranberry salad
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: kinda like a Waldorf salad in some kind of like a Waldorf salad, but with grammars thrown in.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then green bean casserole, and then the oh, and then here's what I do with the mashed potatoes. Here's the trick about mashed potatoes
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you make them.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then you can put them in a crock pot, and they can sit in the crock pot like you've totally make them, so I'll make them about 45 min before dinner is ready I will have mash them, and they'll stay warm in a crock pot. And that way you're not doing that last minute thing when you're trying to make gravy.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But that's the hard part is, you know, you take the turkey out, and instantly you use the gravy sick separator to, you know, make the gravy.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then the other thing. Oh, and then I'll make the stuffing while the turkeys in the oven and get that already. That'll be in the refrigerator until the turkey comes out, and then the stuffing goes in there and then the cream cheese corn is really easy, and then you, in fact, I already had 2 people ask me for the recipe, so here it is.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: one block of 8 ounces of cream cheese, one block of one stick of butter, and 2 to 3 cans of corn, however creamy you want it.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: put it in a pan, salt, pepper, and on the stove. Just mix it until everything melts together, and you can add more corn or more cream, cheese or more butter depending on what you like. That's cream, cheese, corn.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then I'll make the whipped cream. I'll actually make the whipped cream on Wednesday. So that's all done whenever it's time for pie.
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Hong Lieu: Go ahead and kill Giovanni.
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Hong Lieu: One question, because, do you have like calendar reminders to remind you this is there alarms on your phone or this? Are you like Jay Z in the Booth just like Freestyle.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Last year I got Covid the day before Thanksgiving.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: but we already had house guests, so the majority of our people didn't come. But the people who are there like, Hey, we're already here. So I did the entire thing I just described wearing a mask and wearing gloves. I served them dinner at 20'clock, put it on the table, I got my plate, went into the living room, finally was able to take off my mask
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and watch football
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Hong Lieu: boom. Boom!
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I didn't do that would drive me crazy. Ready ready made me up to go. Boom, Covid, let's do it.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I'm starting to think that the President, superintendent Job has nothing on the talk about what? What do you, what skills? You know, what skills you develop to help you? I mean time management, making sure your prep is on point, because if you, if your in start ready to go and go and go, then then that sequence of events, that order of operations
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: will not work. No, and it's it's all about, as they say in the culinary world, mizon plus, I mean, I know exactly what needs to be cut up when it needs to be cut up.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And I mean, I've got it. It's all right here. Yeah.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: really, I like it. II have a kitchen. It's not a huge kitchen, so a lot of times the orders are kind of sitting out on the counter, and people are just talking and I like to drink champagne when I cook, and so Betty passes. Husband is very nice, Phil. He always brings me a beautiful bottle of champagne and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then whiskey happens afterwards, just saying, and you mentioned you're a cowboys, Fan. The cowboys are usually always playing in that early morning game. I mean, they're playing while you're cooking. Are you able to? Okay, I'm just making sure that you're being taken care of. Sometimes, I guess, lost in the shuffle you're I mean, you're obviously going 80 miles an hour at all times during the during the Wednesday and Thursday. So as long as you
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Hong Lieu: in the moment. And that's another skill in the moment finding those pieces of decompression, those points of like, okay, let's breathe. Okay, we're back. Wow.
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Hong Lieu: yeah, unbelievable.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, III fried a turkey here and there. I've made turkeys, and I you know I've I've done one on the grill I've done. But just that hearing that, as I mean.
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Hong Lieu: I summoned. I came with things even late, live for Thanksgiving dinner was like 6, 16, or 17, and I've loved it ever since, and just that is probably the pinnacle like that. Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: we can't follow that up. We're we're that was good evening, folks. To have our little Christmas together on Friday morning. So I'm actually making
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: what are called dog team sticky buns that I have to make the dough for on Thursday night cause they it rises in the refrigerator overnight, so I'll finish. I'll finish all of that.
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Hong Lieu: I will watch some football, and then I'll make do so. I can make yeast roles, for as part of our breakfast you just had a rate. Keep raising that bar. Keep that. Keep that clock, keep that motor running. Unbelievable, incredible.
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Hong Lieu: Thank you so much. That was absolutely good evening transition. Taking it home. Higher learning. PE as many pieces of cultures you'd like to share book, movie, music, TV, video game, anything you'd like that have either moved you in the moment now or in the in the past, you know.
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Hong Lieu: Kick us off.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Oh, wow! You know, I think
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know, I really I don't I? It's so. It's so interesting because a lot of things I like to read are like about cooking. There's a book that came out not that long ago called Save the Save me the plums.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and it's all about the woman who was in charge of Gourmet Magazine as it was going out. And it's a great leadership book because she comes into this very troubled organization. But throughout it she's also talking about food and interacting with food. And it's just it's such a great way for people to come together. That.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And people people just hearing people's food traditions, I think, has been significant
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and even my own interactions. And I think I've told the story in some context. But you know, when I was here as the Dean of the school culinary arts, I mean.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I have a history. Phd, right? But my dissertation was a cultural history of cookbooks from 1945 to 1960, and so I spent many years reading cookbooks. Now I was reading them from the perspective, and that being prescriptive literature for women and men in the home from 1945 to 1960. But there's so many great food traditions in there and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I just II
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I don't know. I've always used food analogies. and it's just been powerful for me. So when I was here as the Dean.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: There were several several times where the final pastry finals for the class.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I would get invited to come and taste the pastries along with Julia, child.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and so she walk, or you know, we would make our way around the room, and we would taste things. And well, I did my dissertation at the Susenger Library at Radcliffe. Now Harvard and her papers are there
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and so I brought. I had. I had my dissertation bound really nicely, and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I brought my dissertation and asked her she would sign it. I said, You know I read your papers, and she looked up at me. She said you did. I said, yes, I read them. I said you came after my dissertation period, but I was where your papers were. So I looked at boxes and boxes and boxes and red letters and all, and that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: was really significant to her. And she wrote, you know, Erika Bonapat, Julia, in my dissertation. And so it was like a full circle moment, you know, in this amazing way, because.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know, no, the food network didn't exist when I started my dissertation. And so people were really coming into food. As I was finishing my dissertation, and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and so more and more books that were coming out talking about food and how impactful it is to people. So that's a long way of saying, I read a lot of books that are about
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: people, their food traditions. There's even a book that talked about, and the name is escaping me, but talked about the food traditions of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun and you know, like the role that food played which was kind of weird. But it's in the same volume of a book about Eleanor Roosevelt, and how she was a terrible cook
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and that the food was like the worst it has ever been in the White House cause she insisted on. You know, a a cook, not a chef.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and the cook was all about. You know we will make really healthy foods, and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: there are some people who think she did it on purpose, because she knew. You know, her husband wasn't exactly being true. But it's really interesting. And in at Valley College the husband of the woman who ran the family resource center happens to be Eleanor Roosevelt's grandson.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and so I was able to ask her, you know. Ask him questions about you know. Do you remember eating food? And do you remember all this?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: So it's those those kinds of of opportunities? And
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I don't know it's
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Hong Lieu: and and that book saved me the plums, Ruth Frey. I've never even pronounced Ruth Reichle Ruth right, and she is such a a heavyweight in, you know California cuisine, but I mean go, you know, cuisine in general. But she her. She came up in California, you know, at at a restaurant in Berkeley in early years I mean the contemporary of Jonathan Gold, I mean. II know her from Jonathan Gold, because they were peers, and he really he really admired her work, and there was something that.
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Hong Lieu: knowing about John and gold led me to her, and just the depth and breadth of her love of food, and just the the way she wrote about food. I mean, I haven't read. I haven't read, but I know I know Ruth from Gourmet. I know Ruth from when she was food critic at la times, you know I if and when she would use in New York for a little while as well, and just the appearance that she's made over the years, you know, Pbs and various various other places. She's just. She's just a a true like first ballot hall of Famer. And and
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Hong Lieu: it's it's nice that you gave her a shout out and a nicely gave you a new appreciation of cookbooks, as you know, with this post food network era. It's it. There's a lot more shine on them. But I mean, back in the day it was like you might have had a Betty Cracker Cookbook. You had the joy of cooking, and that was it. But now the with with there's a such a newfound appreciation of
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Hong Lieu: of both modern recipes and the really classic recipes. There's so so much like Tiktok content. You can look up about people that make old Sandwich the guy that makes old sandwiches, cause he looks up recipes from like old books. But just that, and and how that has informed the newer cookbooks coming out, I think, of, like Roy Roy choice la son, where he has stories about his upbringing along with the recipes where they're really allowing the food to just be that, like holistic representation of upbringing in life.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: whereas it was like kind of intrinsic before. Now, let's just allow to be out there because we all understand how important food and that that aspect is to our lives. Yeah, well, I would take it one step further, and I've actually given talks on this that the structure of recipes also.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Indicates kind of how you view the world and and your leadership style. So when I was writing my dissertation, I was at when I, when I was writing it we were living in Vermont, and so a lot of writing and this is back in the mid nineties was
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: print out a copy of a chapter, send it in a priority mail envelope, and then have it get sent back, and all of that. And I have a faculty member who'd actually written an article back in the 19 seventies about why women were not chefs, and it's cause the job wasn't available to them. It wasn't that they couldn't cook. It's just they weren't allowed to
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: But so, but throughout writing my dissertation she was not the easiest person, I'll tell you, and she was very critical of things like I would, you know, get back these chapters, and they were just practically dripping in red ink, and I would, you know, turn the page, and it would say, Oh, finally, a good point.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: you know, wherever. So we get to the. So I get to my dissertation defense. And now, suddenly, she's like, Oh, your dissertation! It's cutting like a whatever, I said. You know I figured out what the issue is between the 2 of us when it comes to cooking. And she said what I said.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I am a Fanny farmer, cookbook person, and you are the joy of cooking, I said. Those are 2 very different ways of looking at the world. So getting back to how? How can I do a Thanksgiving like this in 2 days? It's because I am Fannie Farmer. If you look at the Fannie Farmer, Boston cooking Boston Cooking book, right?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: What happened? What you see are all of the ingredients.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and then the directions
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and the directions start with, you know, preheat the oven to 3 50. That
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: joy of cooking is done completely different. It's a couple of ingredients, then instruction a couple of ingredients, then instruction.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: I don't function that way. Hmm!
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And so it's it's interesting, because a lot of times I can actually have that conversation with someone and say.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: so, tell me, like, if you were, gonna make it
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: a casserole describe. or if you are, gonna make cookies
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: describe your process, because usually I can diagnose like, why, we might be having an issue just based on how you might put cookies together. If that makes sense
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Hong Lieu: absolutely and 100%. Because that's exactly the point of kind of higher learning to learn more about people through the pieces of culture that really resonate with them. And in terms of you asking someone, how do they would make something? You can get a lot in terms of a methodology, how folks really, how how much folks want to prepare beforehand, if they do or they don't, how much folks are comfortable. Kind of
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: pinch of this dash of that versus. I need exactly a third of a teaspoon. You're not really measuring out a third of a teaspoon, just say 3 pinches and be done with it. Here's the thing. Baking is chemistry. And so I've had people say to me, you know, I tried to make that caricate recipe you gave me, and you know the frosty didn't turn out. Well, I said, Really, can you talk?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: You know. What did you do? Well, I use, you know. Fat free cream cheese. I'm like I'm gonna stop you right there. Of course it didn't turn out well or yeah, I did it. But I use skim milk
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: baking as chemistry. You have no fat, of course, fell apart, you know, and and just, you know, trying to help people understand that
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: doing, you know when you make those kinds of changes you're like. Oh, I feel so proud of myself. I'm so happy except that it's healthy. It may. It's probably not as healthy as you think it is, and it's not going to cook right?
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: And and and things like that are meant. Yeah.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Umhm, absolutely. I see one where you're coming from. And then from a music perspective, I have a really wide palette for music, and I appreciate all different kinds. You know, folk music, pop music. You know, some rap, some country wide range. And it's funny at this. At the see, the Cclc. This last week
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: they had a great band from Citrus College. They're like a wedding band, they were so good, and they were playing great songs, and you know I was out there on the dance floor, and and
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: singing all the songs. And Cornelia, who you know our Union leader, comes by. She's like, How do you know all the songs. How do you know them? I love music
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Hong Lieu: gotta put in that time. You gotta make the time. That's the thing it's like folks like to like, minimize the impact of some of these things like, Oh, you know, yeah, you you can't learn a lot about music. You can't learn a lot about cooking. You can't learn a lot about these things without putting in that time. So a lot of this higher learning stuff that we talk about, it's it's what folks are spending their time doing, and and how it enriches them because it can. It can come from anywhere. And it should be, you know different things for different people, and it's just always invigorating and illuminating, and so enriching
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Hong Lieu: to see what Fe folks are spending their time doing, and how much. It impacts them and benefits them as people and and a and how that affects the community at large. Because, absolutely, yeah, you got you had to put in that time, and how how it is enriched your life like, oh, yeah, you can. You have to. I don't know if you had a conversation with Kerry Hutchinson. But she's in in a band that place. Yeah, she plays. She's like lead singer of
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Hong Lieu: it's joysticks called joysticks.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: In the 19 eighties, early, late seventies and eighties actually is late seventies, when I was learning guitar. I you know.
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Hong Lieu: in my day, if you could play stairway to heaven, you were all that. That's the highest bar does that you could play? You could do the thermal. You got the. You can play stairway to heaven on guitar that I mean that that's the bar. That's not like a nice thing. That is the song. I mean that free bird, I guess.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: Yeah, exactly. So I understand they don't do that anymore. Yeah, I think that's one of that's one of my longer term goals. We do need to get those kinds of traditions back. I think it's really important. I remember going to that every year. You know, when John Romo was President, you had to bring a book
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: and I, I'm all about that. I think we need to get back to that. So yeah, it's on my radar, and we have no doubt, no knowing how you hold it down for Thanksgiving, and how you hold it down. So far. We have no doubt that that if you, if it's on your mind, you will make it happen. Thank you so much.
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Hong Lieu: Dr. Yi, in the in the boot today
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Hong Lieu: any final words before we say goodbye.
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: You know, I this is where I got my start in Community college, and I so appreciate, you know, the the various ways that people on this campus
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Erika Endrijonas, Ph.D.: really shine through and just the fact that you have this, podcast and you invite a wide range of people to come here and you ask these great questions. Just thank you. I really, I really appreciate it. And these are the kinds of things that make college special. And you've made it special. So thank you.
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Hong Lieu: We can do without amazing guests like yourself. Thank you so much. It was an honor to have you, and I know you know. Thank you for your time, you know. Important your time is, and we know how much you're maximizing your time. No, you can't throw any wrinkles in here. The the time is, you know.
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Hong Lieu: Take care!