Fired for Success: Dr. Jennifer Frey Breaks Her Silence

On this episode of Anchored, Dr. Jennifer Frey shares the story behind her recently published New York Times op-ed, "This is Who's Really Driving the Decline in Interest in Liberal Arts Education." Frey reflects on her abrupt dismissal as Dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa—despite building a demonstrably successful program. She reflects on the tension between student's intellectual needs and college administrators' own view of "success." Dr. Frey emphasizes the need for reform in higher education and the importance of authentic liberal education for a thriving democracy.

Transcript

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:01)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast. This morning we have a special episode for you, Breaking News of sorts. This episode is being recorded around 5 a.m. Eastern time, ⁓ just around the same time as what I would consider one of the most explosive articles of the last few years on higher education will drop. The New York Times, both in print and online, will publish an article by none other than our CLT Academic Board member, Dr. Jennifer Frey. Jen is a philosopher.

former tenured professor at the University of South Carolina. And she was the Dean of the University of Tulsa's Honors College until June. Dr. Frey, we're so honored that you are taking time out of your, I'm sure, increasingly getting busier and busier morning as the news will release to be on the Anchored Podcast with us.

Jen Frey (00:46)
Well, I'm very pleased to be here. Thank you for having me.

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:50)
Thanks for getting up early, but I know you're at 5 a.m. or anyway, so I don't think this... I am too, so... Between recording at midnight and 5 a.m., I will always choose the 5 a.m. ⁓ So let's start here. Just a little over two weeks ago, you took to social media to share some personal news and news about your work at Tulsa's Honors College, which left all of us...

Jen Frey (00:53)
I'm an early riser, so that's good. Usually I don't have anyone to talk to.

Exit.

Soren Schwab - CLT (01:15)
shocked all of us at CLT I think in the the what we consider kind of the liberal arts classical movement can't even imagine the families and students felt. For those of you who have not heard you want to kind of share with us what transpired the last few weeks.

Jen Frey (01:28)
Sure, I'm happy to. So I was fired. I was the inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. I came in May of 2023. I moved my family halfway across the country to Oklahoma to do that.

Even prior to moving, I had been building this college for about a year and a half prior to moving. I was just a paid consultant for the University of Tulsa. So was the sixth college at the University of Tulsa. And Brad Carson had brought me there to take the honors program, which had begun in 1978, which is the year I was born.

and bake it into an honors college. And I was very excited about that opportunity because unlike most honors colleges, it was going to be a great books curriculum. ⁓ And the university president at the time, Brad Carson, he's since resigned from the University of Tulsa, ⁓ he was very bought into the specific vision that we had.

Soren Schwab - CLT (02:41)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (02:45)
which is pretty simple. The vision is that if we are going to have a liberal education and education for free human being and citizen, then it must include character education. So cultivating those excellent habits of thinking, reasoning, reflecting and speaking, but also those ⁓ habits of the heart, right? So gratitude,

⁓ humility, sort of patience, ⁓ what Aquinas would call studio sitas, right? Love of the truth, correctly ordered. ⁓ It was a kind of character education and then also a kind of civic education, right? So these three things are often held apart in higher ed. There's liberal education, there's character education, there's civic education. I think they're all the same thing. So that was sort of

Soren Schwab - CLT (03:37)
That's right.

Jen Frey (03:43)
my proposal. And anyway, so I came to Tulsa and honestly, we were very successful. So we grew enrollment by over 500%. We raised retention rates and honors to almost 90%. We created a wonderful great books curriculum that I'm really proud of from Homer to Hannah Wren. It was a four course sequence. We completely revitalized the study of Latin and Greek at the University of Tulsa.

Soren Schwab - CLT (03:50)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (04:12)
We created a civic engagement requirement with over 100 community partners so that we could work on civic, yeah, so it's kind of civic training in a really practical way. We created three new study abroad programs because we had a $1 million gift to subsidize that for our students. And really, I think the thing that I'm most proud of

in the Honors College is that we created a really vibrant kind of community of young people with really strong viewpoint diversity where they were reading thousands of pages every semester and coming to class and talking about them and then they're going back in the dorm and they're continuing the conversations late into the night, ⁓ hosting their own symposia.

Soren Schwab - CLT (04:48)
Community.

You

Jen Frey (05:09)
just really into it. So I'm enormously proud of what we did. ⁓ And I was pretty shocked when I was fired because, you know, everything was going well. Yeah, based on every single metric you could possibly have to measure a brand new college, ⁓ we were doing really great, especially with fundraising and bringing money in ⁓ and with student success.

Soren Schwab - CLT (05:23)
Based on all the metrics, you did well.

Jen Frey (05:39)
And ⁓ so I was very surprised. I was told it was to save money. I don't believe that any money was saved. ⁓ And, you know, so I don't have any affiliation ⁓ with what I

⁓ I'm a professor of philosophy now. So I decided to just say this.

⁓ on social media because my university had released a statement saying that I had resigned. I didn't resign. So, and I needed my students to know that, ⁓ that it's not like I was just tired or something or bored or just had other things going on. ⁓ And I really needed ⁓ prospective students ⁓ to know.

Soren Schwab - CLT (06:12)
the Yeah. Yeah.

Thank

Yeah. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (06:32)
you know, what's really going on at the University of Tulsa. ⁓ And then much to my surprise, that social media post, ⁓ you know, what am I? It definitely went viral because it went past containment, right? Like it went way beyond my original post to millions of views. And ⁓ that was surprising. I certainly didn't expect that or intend that.

Soren Schwab - CLT (06:42)
I think we can say it went viral. I think we can use that word, right? It went viral.

Right.

Hmm

Jen Frey (07:00)
And I've thought a lot about like, why did it go viral? And I honestly think we know that people have lost trust in higher education. ⁓ Less than 30 % of Americans think highly of our institutions of higher education or trust them, which is a catastrophe for these institutions. And ⁓ I just think...

Soren Schwab - CLT (07:21)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (07:27)
My story is an example of just larger trends that people are sick to death of. ⁓ And so the New York Times reached out to me about six hours after I posted that, they were like, Hey, do you want to write about this in the Times? And I said, yes, if, if I can write about our success, you know, because that to me, that's why I took the job, right?

Soren Schwab - CLT (07:34)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (07:54)
⁓ I took the job because I believed that authentic liberal learning would work. I wanted it to be proof of concept. It did work. ⁓ And now we can see the real reason why it failed. And it wasn't because of lack of student interest, which is like the standard story that we hear. Students vote with their feet. Students don't want this. Students voted with their feet and no one cared.

Soren Schwab - CLT (08:22)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Jen Frey (08:23)
That's kind of

the dark reality that we're dealing with. And I think that it's really important for people to realize that.

Soren Schwab - CLT (08:34)
I want to actually, that's a perfect segue. ⁓ Let me read just a few sentences from your article ⁓ that really made me pause. ⁓ Because you're right, it's all students just and even in high school, don't go into these majors. No one actually wants that. You're a philosopher. What are you going to do with that? Liberal arts are dead. There's really no going to IT, go into all these things. But it's usually there's a

a lack of funding because there's a lack of interest. And then in the article you write, an unpleasant truth has emerged in Tulsa over the years. It's not that traditional learning is out of step with student demand. Instead, it's out of step with the priorities, values, and desires of a powerful board of trustees with no apparent commitment to liberal education and an administrative class that won't fight for the liberal arts, even when it attracts both students and major financial gifts.

The tragedy of the contemporary academy is that even when traditional liberal learning clearly wins with students and donors, it loses with those in power. ⁓

That's a powerful statement, Jen. But the Honors College is proof, right?

Jen Frey (09:45)
Well,

it's a hard reality to live for me personally. ⁓ But I think it's true, which is why I wrote it. And, ⁓ you know, yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (09:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

guess what people could think, you know, and maybe they're not too involved. I mean, I've seen over the last few years, ⁓ schools, families, students talk about the University of Tulsa. I've been doing this for a while. I'm sorry, like no one has really ever talked about the University of Tulsa, especially as a destination for out of staters, right, to move to and go to. And then I've talked to students who have attended.

Jen Frey (10:16)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:29)
your classes, right, have attended Tulsa and the way they speak about the Honors College. And quite frankly, Jen, and I think that's where some of our listeners, maybe mine's will go. ⁓ Those families and those schools were not all Trumpers. They were not all conservative. They were not all, you know, all we care about is this. So I think I want you to have an opportunity to speak to this because ⁓

Jen Frey (10:33)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:53)
you know, when we talk about, you know, classical liberal arts in today's setting, right? And, you know, reading from the Western tradition, I think there is a tendency to think, ⁓ that's just as conservative or even Republican thing. That's not at all what you've built. That's a community you've created. And I want you to be able to speak to that.

Jen Frey (11:11)
Yeah, I mean, it's ridiculous to think that the classical view, right, the view that you find in Plato and Aristotle and St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and Cicero, the idea that that tracks contemporary American partisan politics is absurd. It does not. It transcends all of that. I am

Soren Schwab - CLT (11:33)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (11:41)
in no way being cheeky when I say what we offer is an education for a free human being and citizen. Right? That's what we are. And I could say that and we might live in a different form of government than we do. Right? So I mean, it completely transcends me, American partisan politics. ⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (11:49)
That's it.

Jen Frey (12:09)
This is much bigger than any of that. And I truly believe that that's why students respond. Because young people, you know, if we're talking 17 to 23, somewhere in that range. And this is the demographic that I spent my entire adult life dedicated to, right? Young people are very aware.

of when you're trying to in any way sort of indoctrinate them or sell them something. Like these are people who don't like snake oil salesmen. And they think that you are trying to tell them what to think. And it really doesn't matter if you're coming from the left or the right or whatever. ⁓ They don't like it.

Soren Schwab - CLT (12:44)
You

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (13:05)
and they don't respond to it. And ⁓ what they really want and crave is to wrestle with this themselves and to try to think for themselves. That's what they want. ⁓ And that makes sense because they're human, right? This is like a really fundamental human need and desire to make sense of yourself. ⁓ And only you can do that. You should do it with other people, right?

⁓ but at the end of the day, has to be you like wrestling with these things and frankly wrestling with yourself. And so, no, it has nothing to do with partisan politics. I think you could say that it's kind of small C generic conservative because it's, it's a tradition, right? it's a tradition of thought. ⁓ and so some people on the left will just.

I don't think that's conservative in the sense that people might be worried that it's conservative.

Soren Schwab - CLT (14:10)
Awesome. Well, Jen, think the opening of your article is interesting too, because I think both, you just touched on the, this is not partisan, right? This is human. And both left and right, both would be considered, you

maybe more liberal universities or colleges, in a way they want the same thing and they point to the same problems and you address those problems, right? Emaciated attention spans of students. can't read longer texts anymore or they don't want to. Mental health crisis, everyone is talking about this, right? ⁓ Students can't speak in their minds or feeling ⁓ afraid to speak their minds or pressed in that. ⁓ And so all these things,

are pointed to as there's issues at our universities. And then here comes you and the amazing team that you've built and you create this honors college and you're addressing all of these things. And I'm not saying you're solving everything, right? ⁓ But all the things that are considered, right? The issues with higher ed, you solve. so, I mean, obviously they didn't give you...

Jen Frey (15:09)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (15:22)
all the reasons as to why they pointed at money. what is your best sense as to why you were let go and why they're going quote in a different direction when by all metrics, financially, right, success, even your reviews, I guess, where you did an excellent job, right? ⁓ What do you think is the is the deeper and just just for you alluded to that, Brad Carson hired you, he resigned provost.

also gone. New provost coming in and that provost fired you. Is that accurate?

Jen Frey (15:56)
Yes,

yes, totally new upper administration, new president, new interim president, new provost, the interim president.

Soren Schwab - CLT (16:00)
So what, Interim President, so what do you think is like the

underlying, if it's not as you alluded to, money or the cost here.

Jen Frey (16:12)
Let me just sort of address the first part of that question, ⁓ which is sort of, you know, all the problems ⁓ and how it is that we address those problems. So something that I became convinced of during the pandemic, ⁓ it was during the pandemic that I really started writing and tweeting a lot about higher ed and the crisis of the humanities, let's call it. ⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (16:15)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Jen Frey (16:42)
And I became convinced that all of those problems that I outline at the beginning of the article are problems that we have because we no longer offer a liberal education to our students. So, you know, I mean, just take like the mental health crisis. know, the number one problem there by a long shot is anxiety. So like, why do we have

these kids who are so anxious and they're so anxious at like our best institutions. In fact, it seems to be that the more elite and more wealthy an institution is, the more anxious these college students are, which is interesting, right? Because they're the most likely to succeed materially speaking. ⁓ And I think the issue is that material success, while

Soren Schwab - CLT (17:28)
Yeah.

Jen Frey (17:38)
it's important, it's certainly not even close to the most important thing for having a flourishing life. And there is this giant vacuum or hole, right, in the university and therefore in these young people's lives where an education that addresses the whole might be.

Right, so when we have our orientation and we welcome an incoming class, which will be about 200 students, I always say to them, look, you guys are honors students, right? I was an honors students, you're strivers, you're overachievers, you've always gotten gold stars, you've probably never gotten a B, right? I'm like, I understand you and your psychology, like you're ambitious. And I'm like,

But what's your striving for? What's your ambition for? What is all of this for? Are you just on a hamster wheel? And you don't really know where you're going. And one day, you're just existentially exhausted with it all. Because you don't know who you are, and you don't know where you're going. And I'm like, it's called a midlife crisis. ⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (18:57)
you

Jen Frey (18:59)
And so I just, you know, I just ask them like, what's it for? You know, and has anybody ever asked you that? And the answer by and large is no, no one's ever asked them this, right? And they don't know what it's for. And that to me is the root of the anxiety is the lack of ultimate purpose or vision. And so the goal was, you know, let's address that. So if you look at our curriculum, you know, it's

canonical, but it's canonical in a very specific way. We basically have two criteria for choosing books. know, was it massively influential in the tradition? Important. But just as important is the second criteria, which is does reflecting on this text really help you to think about what it means to be a good human being and citizen? And so it turns out that if you do that in a community, ⁓

in a sustained way for two years, there is a kind of deep formation that happens there. It starts to happen pretty early on actually. And that to me is really the missing piece. ⁓ There's nothing kind of mystical about the specific curriculum that we chose. ⁓ I think that you could have swapped in different books and it would be, know, just, you know, Delgarit, Plato or Aristotle.

Soren Schwab - CLT (20:27)
You're

Jen Frey (20:27)
But ⁓ beyond that, it's quite flexible. But I mean, I really think that the secret sauce is one, the small Socratic seminar, right? So we don't lecture, we don't teach from a place of expertise. We are there as a guide to a conversation that ideally should be led by students. ⁓ And then they all, they're all reading the same text, they're in the dorms together. You can go back to your dorm.

and talk to anybody about Plato's Symposium because everybody's read it. so that I think is really the secret sauce is sort of the dialectical nature of the education. Everything grows out of that. And I'm very sad to tell you that that was the first thing to go in the Honors College. ⁓ There aren't seminars anymore. It is just a regular class that would be way too big to have.

a Socratic seminar. And I told the provost, I was like, if you do that, you'll ruin the whole thing.

Soren Schwab - CLT (21:22)
Thank

Jen Frey (21:27)
No response. So part of your question is why, you know, yeah, kind of why I get rid of me.

Soren Schwab - CLT (21:29)
So more students come in, yeah.

I mean Jen, what

you're saying is what every parent would want for their child. And yet, so yes, of course, why if it's not money, and I don't think, and I don't know the provost, but I'm sure she doesn't want just miserable kids, right? So there's, there's, we want to be right. So why, why?

Jen Frey (21:43)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I

can't really, you know, my university would have to answer that question. I mean, in the Times piece, my university says that the student experience and the academics will remain the same. I hope that's true, but I'm deeply skeptical because one, we don't have seminars anymore. So the student experience will not remain the same. It just simply will not. ⁓ But also all the staff.

Soren Schwab - CLT (22:19)
be very different.

Jen Frey (22:26)
and the structure that I built is gone. It's gone, right? ⁓ All that's left of the Honors College is an as of yet unnamed director and two faculty, both of whom are on one year contracts. That's it, right? So ⁓ we don't have a full-time service learning coordinator and that truly was a full-time job. ⁓

We no longer have a program officer, which was a very demanding full-time job running events. know, putting on and running events for 500 students is a full-time job. So if you expect one person to do the work of an entire college, okay.

But really, I think the main thing is the loss of the seminars because everything grew out of that. ⁓ And also all the money that I brought in is gone. you know, maybe they're going to save money by redirecting that money elsewhere. I don't know. I'm not an accountant. Maybe that is saving money. ⁓ But it doesn't look like it to me.

Soren Schwab - CLT (23:43)
No. And I think your article and your tweet and LinkedIn post, you don't follow Jen, make sure you read that original post as well. ⁓ You were being very gracious and not once did you make it about yourself, even though, mean, friends, Jen left a tenured position at the University of South Carolina in philosophy just to

Jen Frey (24:10)
And endowed.

Soren Schwab - CLT (24:10)
Just an endowed, ⁓ in

Jen Frey (24:10)
⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (24:14)
higher ed terms is you made it and just don't do anything stupid to potentially lose that, right? Because you can't lose it otherwise. And you left that. I you uprooted your family. ⁓ And I've seen you over the last two years work harder than anyone I've ever met.

building this, not just building this. mean, you were everything. You were the builder. You were the event coordinator. You were the salesperson. You were at all the events. I mean, I think I'm traveling a lot. You were everywhere. ⁓ And I know you did it not for your own glorification. You did it for those families and those students. And I think I'm mostly sad for those students whose lives in those two years have been transformed and for students that I know. And if you read the comments on your tweet,

the number of families that have committed to attending this honors college that will now not be the same. So I want to give you an opportunity to of to speak to the students, to the families, because I know they're the ones that they're the reason why you put your heart into this.

Jen Frey (25:18)
Yeah, so my wonderful assistant dean, Matt Post, ⁓ and I have been dealing with a lot of very upset and frankly sort of scared students. ⁓ And then I've been dealing with a lot of very upset parents. ⁓ I think, know, what I tell them, well, what I tell the students is, ⁓ obviously I share your grief. ⁓

But all of this was for you, for the students. And it is up to you now, ⁓ because I'm taking myself out of it completely. It's really up to you to show people the fruits of this education. They are in you. And they are expressed in your thoughts, actions, and feelings. That's how character works.

And you know, it's time for you to find that courage, right? You know, we've been teaching you why courage is so necessary for the life of the mind. You got to find it now.

And you also have to find that wisdom and figure out how you as students want to go from here. Because I do believe that ⁓ even though you were in no way consulted in this decision, if you organize and present your case, that you have a fair chance of being heard at the very least.

Soren Schwab - CLT (26:59)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (27:00)
And then, you know, with families, I have just, you know, said, I'm so sorry because I feel your pain. I really do. I know I have two kids.

who are old enough, one is in college and one is right now applying to college. And I know how existentially fraught and difficult the choice is of where to go and to have the whole thing change without your consultation. And at a point where it's really kind of too late to do anything about it, I'm like, that's awful. I mean, I've had parents write me and say, we turned down at MIT for this. And I'm just like, man, that's a bummer.

Soren Schwab - CLT (27:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (27:48)
That's terrible. ⁓ Yeah, my heart really goes out to those people. ⁓ And I just say, look, I'm going to give you facts. I'm going to tell you what I know. And I'm going to give you emails of those people in power and you just get answers. ⁓ You know, because what else can you say? There's been an enormous amount of collateral damage. ⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (27:49)
See ya.

Jen Frey (28:18)
to my family, ⁓ obviously. ⁓ But to the students, I think ⁓ it's, I don't know, it again, you know, the real reason I couldn't possibly speculate. It doesn't really matter anyway, the decision's been done and it can't be undone. And, ⁓ you know, but I think it's worth talking about. And it's so much bigger than me. It's really not.

Soren Schwab - CLT (28:46)
That's

right. Yeah.

Jen Frey (28:47)
I was saying this the other day, like it's really not about me at all. I I think it's really about kind of these larger trends in higher education and just why is it that the Contemporary Academy is the place where authentic liberal education is the least likely to thrive? That is really the national conversation we need to have. And my story is like a tiny grain of sand.

Soren Schwab - CLT (28:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jen Frey (29:16)
you know, in this kind of larger phenomenon. And, you know, that's sort of what I want people to see. ⁓ And because we really need to reform our institutions of higher education, we can't just give up and walk away from them. I can't do that personally.

but also like we can't do that as a society because the thing that's at stake is the most important thing, especially since we are a liberal democracy. We are a system of government that depends on individual self-government, right? And liberal learning turns out to be incredibly important to that.

⁓ And so there's just a lot at stake here. ⁓ And I really hope that if some small good comes out of this, it's that we start having that conversation in a serious way. Like let's have it in a serious way. ⁓ Because I think the conversation is often unserious, right? You have sort of... ⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (30:21)
Hmm.

Jen Frey (30:34)
the wrong targets. You know, you're not looking at the real structural impediments and in particular the ways that liberal learning is pushed out and marginalized and actively suppressed in the academy by a variety of actors. And the fact that so many stakeholders just aren't even consulted in these decisions. They're just unilaterally made. ⁓

and the reasons why I often don't track anything.

Soren Schwab - CLT (31:07)
Well, Jen, you are a woman of courage. I'm in awe by that. think moving your family, giving up that endowed position, that took a lot of courage, right? And a lot of faith in yourself, but also in what you're building. But now taking to social media, talking to the New York Times takes a lot of courage. some people might think, well, she's just writing an article. Those powers that you were alluding to, I mean, they are...

They're out there. And I mean, you are putting your reputation, your career potentially on the line by speaking out.

Jen Frey (31:43)
Yeah. Yes. mean, the

standard, the standard advice, you know, especially if you're an administrator in higher ed is just, you know, accept the narrative that you resigned and, know, quietly explained to the search firms what happened, just move on. And I understand the appeal of that. I really do. Um, but for me,

I have no interest in being an administrator for its own sake. It's not an end in itself for me at all. In fact, the decision to become an administrator was pretty existentially fraught for me. I had a lot of my career was going gray. I had so many intellectual projects that I was super passionate about that I was in the middle of. It was a big deal for me to put those on a shelf to build a college. ⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (32:24)
Yeah.

Jen Frey (32:38)
But I did it because I believed at the time that it was an unrepeatable opportunity to reform higher education. ⁓ And in particular, to recenter liberal learning and to show that it would succeed with students and donors. And we did that. ⁓ So I think for me, ⁓ I just want, I mean, frankly,

I just want philosophy to thrive in the academy and it's not. And, you know, that's why I do this stuff. And it's an enormous sacrifice. And it also has involved enormous personal risk for me. But I think I just go back to the thought that

It's so much bigger than me personally. And I think all the time about the world that we're leaving for our kids, ⁓ especially with respect to education. And I'm not happy with the world that we have now. And I want it to be better for my kids and my grandkids. And that's why, that's why I do it.

Soren Schwab - CLT (33:53)
Jen, what a wonderful conversation. I know this is difficult, but I really appreciate you joining us. Again, for everyone, Dr. Jen Fray was the Dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. It probably still stings to hear, like, she was, no longer is. It's only been a few weeks. ⁓ The former, the... Of course.

Jen Frey (34:11)
Yeah. Yeah, I, ⁓ it's funny. Can I just tell you one small thing? So

I have a book that like I literally just got in the mail yesterday. It's my latest book and I was so excited because it's pretty. Isn't it pretty? And so I opened, yes, it's yes, my husband and I, it's a, it's a fruit of our marriage. And ⁓

Soren Schwab - CLT (34:28)
it's beautiful. Is it with your husband? Did your husband call? Nice. amazing.

Jen Frey (34:40)
Do I open it? I'm so excited. I open it and it says Jennifer A. Frey is inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. And I was like, I'm not.

⁓ So yeah, what can you do? That's life, you're up, you're down.

Soren Schwab - CLT (34:51)
Bummer.

Well, by the time this episode releases,

the New York Times will have ⁓ published, get the paper copy, ⁓ read the article, follow Jen, and be not discouraged by how it ended, but hopefully be encouraged by what Jen built and look at the data, look at the facts, look at the metrics, and know that what she did was good and that it's worth doing. And we're so grateful to you, Jen, and we appreciate you coming on this morning.

Jen Frey (35:23)
I am so grateful for CLT. Thank you for having me.