Conversation with President Carlisle’ s Chief of Staff Kathleen Arakaki( continued)
That’ s all the politics you really need, honestly, to tell you the truth.
You played a very significant role for President Carlisle during the presentation of his COVID-19 series of messages to the community that was fantastic. So how was his team able to strike the appropriate tone, deliver a message of grace, hope and reassurance, particularly at the time when there were so many unknowns?
It really took a team, but number one, it took a great leader and Dr. Carlisle is that person. He has the whole package. He has the medical background, he’ s a people person and he knows how to communicate. COVID presented a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear and a lot of misinformation. Dr. Carlisle was the best person to represent CDU and to assist the community in better understanding what COVID was, help dispel myths, and to communicate facts. He helped many people feel at ease with the situation. I’ d also be remiss if I did not acknowledge Dr. Carlisle’ s Executive Leadership Team including Angela Minniefield, Carl McLaney, Elizabeth Baskerville, John Patton, Sylvia Drew Ivie, and Campus Nursing Officer, Dr. Delia Santana. Each were solid advisors and really drove and supported CDU during this novel, uncertain time.
Dr. Carlisle’ s Executive Team was incredible. They met constantly, at least once a day to talk about what has changed, what we need to be prepared for, how to respond to things that happened the day before, and to anticipate what we think might be happening down the way. The Office of the President was busier than ever. Dr. Carlisle participated in well over 100 media related events from video interviews, radio interviews, panels and podcasts. He was interviewed by journalists, both publishing and media, podcasters, educator, community leaders, spiritual leaders, concerned parents etc. Every single day there were multiple folks wanting his time and his expertise to help answer the questions that we were all asking and, if not having the answers, to at least help us feel better about the situation and not be fearful.
Regarding Boards of Trustees during Dr. Carlisle’ s tenure, CDU has been fortunate to have so many impressive leaders directing the university’ s fortunes. What role in your judgment does a trustee or the Trustee Chair play in advancing a University like CDU’ s mission?
That’ s a very important question. The role of our Trustees is to uphold the University above all else. They keep us on the straight and narrow. Their duty is to make sure that the best interest of the University is served at all times no matter what. I encourage everyone to engaged with the activities of our Trustees so as to appreciate how important they are towards our achieving our mission and goals.
Our Trustees essentially help us stick to what we do best, which is educating students and being student-centered focused, and bring their various educational expertise, their experiences, their network of knowledge, and help us do our jobs better. We don’ t have to be leaders of industries to get us to where we need and want to be. The trustees help us do that.
I also want to add that the Trustees are all extremely busy individuals. For example, our current Board Chair, John Baackes, leads the largest health care system in California, maybe the nation, yet he carves out time in his busy schedule to focus on CDU and help us fulfill our mission. And I could say that every single one of our Trustees, and all of our past trustees, believed in us so much that they to carved out their personal time without pay, and in fact, they essentially pay us to be trustees because they personally donating to us every year! We are so very lucky to have the leadership and expertise of our Board.
Tiffany Grajeda was Dr. Carlisle’ s Executive Assistant at the time and she and I were a team. We managed his schedule, which was unbelievably difficult. Jonathan Zaleski was a very effective communications director. Between the three of us, almost around the clock, we’ re dealing with the community and journalists and people just wanting time with Dr. Carlisle. We worked around the clock for basically a whole year. It was very stressful!
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 24