Oral History Program Jan Winniford Interviewed by Lauren Mason 17 March 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jan Winniford Interviewed by Lauren Mason 17 March 2017 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Jan Winniford, an oral history by Lauren Mason, 17 March 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Jan Winniford Circa 2016 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Dr. Jan Winniford who serves as the Vice President for Student Affairs at Weber State University. It was conducted March 17, 2017 and concerns her recollections and experiences with university leadership. The interviewer is Lauren Mason. LM: This is Lauren Mason. I am interviewing Dr. Jan Winniford. It is March 17, 2017. I am interviewing her in her office in the Miller Administration building at Weber State University. To start off, start off by telling us about your background. You can include anything from your childhood, teen years, or growing up, family values, and then maybe your educational background. JW: This is one of those where it could take the entire time. So I’ll try to be brief. I do have a somewhat unique background in the fact that my dad was a rancher when I was young. So I grew up not having much money at all. I was born on a ranch in New Mexico, then we had a ranch in Montana, and relocated to Texas when I was in junior high school. I think that is important because I came from fairly humble beginnings. Didn’t have a lot of things in our lives. When we moved to Texas we moved into a home that had been vacated by my great grandparents. And my dad was always this outdoor oriented, not materialistic, kind of person. But we moved to an area of Dallas that was fairly affluent and then rented a house from my grandparents. I think that has always grounded me in the approach to life that it is more about giving back and what you do that's meaningful in life than making money for money’s sake. I think that influenced perhaps going into education and it’s not a place you end up making a lot of money. 1 I graduated from high school in Dallas and went to the University of Texas at Austin. I was one of probably 50,000 students. I really meandered along, never had really any good career advice or mentoring. I majored in psychology because I had more hours in psychology than anything else. The reason that is important is because it influenced where I ended up, and my role in Student Affairs working in a higher education setting. When I graduated I really had no clue what I wanted to do with my life with a psychology degree. So I wandered in the dean of student’s office on the campus. Somebody said, “Oh go see the dean of students, they may be able to help you.” And they told me about the profession of Student Affairs, that they need strong individuals, people-oriented individuals that really want to give back and help shape the future generations of our society. So I applied to Ohio State University to get my master’s in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Ed, Education Leadership and Policy. It goes by different names. I ended up going to Ohio State to do my master’s degree, another large, multi-faceted research focused university. I had a great experience there. One of the areas I was most interested in exploring related to career planning placement was career advising because I had none when I was an undergrad. So that was again paying it forward, wanting to make a difference in people’s lives. So I graduated from Ohio State and ended up ironically going back Texas. I didn’t intend to go back there, but I got the best job I that I could find at Texas A&M University. Again, another large research university. Ended up doing most 2 of my professional career at that university, up until about 11 years ago when I decided I was an Associate Vice President when I left Texas A&M, and I began to think about what my next step would be. I got a doctorate along the way. I got a PhD in Higher Education Administration. I just decided that I couldn’t be content being in that associate role the rest of my career. I ended up deciding to spread my wings, applied for the position of Vice President here at Weber State and ended up coming here. I think there are several things from my past that influence that decision. One is being in Utah. You’re surrounded by the beauty of the mountains and the outdoors. Having grown up in that outdoor environment, it really shaped how I spent vacation time from there forth. I ended up going to most of my vacations, leaving Texas and going to the mountains in Colorado or North West. So anyway, that is a little bit about my past, and I think how I ended up where I am. LM: That’s perfect. And how long have you been at Weber now? JW: I’ve been here for 11 years. LM: 11 years, that’s right. Awesome, well we are happy you’re here. JW: Thank you, it has been great to be here. LM: I like what you said. I went to the UWHEN panel, and you said you felt comfortable as a Vice President here at Weber State. It kind of fit your needs. JW: Yes, exactly. The reason I mentioned the nature of those other institutions is because I only knew large institutions of 40,000 plus. When I came to Weber State it was a niche that fit my interests in really being in an institution where student success was first and foremost part of the mission, as opposed to the 3 large research focus. That’s important, but that’s not for me. I did it for many years, but I love the ability to have my values sync more with the work that I do and the impact that I can have. LM: Great. So what experiences did you have maybe in your younger years, childhood, teen or adult years that lead you to believe you were or could be a leader? JW: This was an interesting question because I didn’t ever see myself when I was younger as this person that could be a leader. Part of that I think is because I always valued being part of a team. I always would much prefer to be in a group setting doing something. When I was in school growing up, Women's sports were not as much in the forefront as they are now. So I didn’t have leadership, like I think Brenda was talking about at the panel leadership through sports. I really never pursued or sought out leadership roles. I think I was always a shy person growing up, and I always compared myself to other people. Oh I could never be like them! I would compare myself to someone who was more outgoing, more gregarious, more upfront, more of this “traditional” leader. I finally began to realize when I was surrounding myself with other people who saw potential in me and who encouraged me, that you don’t have to be that take charge, out front, outgoing, gregarious person to be a leader. You can just as effectively be a leader by being an effective member of a team, empowering other people to achieve their goals. And so I now see myself more as a servant leader, someone who is empowering of others. I facilitate success, as opposed to leading success. 4 I never really saw in that outgoing, upfront leader, but leadership comes in all forms. LM: You talked a little bit about this, but what are your core values and how have they influenced your leadership either experiences or abilities as a leader? JW: It’s interesting. I don’t know that many of our organizations have core values and you can list them off. I think for most of us as individuals, I don’t know that we have a list of personal core values, but I think we all do. We just may not overtly name them. So I think some of the things that drive me and influenced my leadership -- one of the things that has always been important to me, after I came to terms with being comfortable in my own skin with who I am and my style and my strengths, is this notion of authenticity or being genuine and being who you are. And I think if you can show up in settings where you are your authentic self, then it takes you so far because we’re all unique and we all have a way of living in the world that provides a gift I think, but we have to acknowledge that, embrace that, and not try to be other people, not try to be somebody else. So I think that's one. I've mentioned collaboration. That's being a part of the team, looking out for the interests of those around us, and recognizing that none of us do things and accomplish things by ourselves. It’s always a part of a team and this sense of community that is so important, so I valued that collaboration, that sense of community, but I also value within that community individuality, and in Student Affairs, we talk a lot about how every person is unique and every person comes into a college setting is a life bringing their own sets of things with them, their gifts but their baggage and their challenges. And so we need to, in higher 5 education and the work that we do, recognize that each individual is unique and deserving of dignity and respect, but to put that into context of a community. So those are a few of the things, I could probably keep talking again, but yeah. LM: No, that’s great. So, thinking back, name a person that has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader. Maybe it’s a mentor or someone outside of a mentorship. Why and how did this person impact your life generally and your leadership abilities specifically? JW: As I think back to people who have influenced me in my career, I don’t know that there’s any one individual. There's a couple. But I don't know that I’ve ever even called them mentors. Probably the first person that comes to mind is when I was first hired out of my graduate program, a woman named Glenna Witt was my supervisor, and because I think I was still trying to fit into that professional context, I had all this theoretical knowledge that I had learned in my graduate program and I was trying to fit it into this real world context and setting and she just had a way of helping me reflect on some of that. There’s tensions that existed between what the books would say and what the theory would say and what you’re facing in real life. So she was able to help me process and reflect and grapple with that, and so she was the sounding board for me and then she was affirming. Somebody that could help really me, like I said earlier, grapple with the “I’m not good enough,” that comparison piece, and so she was very influential. And then probably a second person would be my former Vice President that I worked under at Texas A&M, again just sort of let me go, just let me spread my wings, take on new responsibilities, new challenges, and always 6 pushing me to do something more and I think that's how I was. When I never really knew, yes, this is the career trajectory that I would be one day, I took advantage of new things, new ways of growing and learning and advancing as a professional so that when the door did open I was ready to walk through it. And so he just really supported that and just gave me those opportunities. Those are a couple of people. LM: Ok, those are perfect examples. This is what I'm really interested in. What are the biggest challenges of being a woman leader in Northern Utah, and if you do see challenges, what do you do to overcome them? JW: It's interesting that I haven’t had too many challenges since I’ve been here. When I was hired, Anne Millner hired me, so a woman president. And she was just fabulous in supporting me, so I have never in my professional career, even at Texas A&M University, it’s not in Northern Utah, but I was surrounded by, it was a fairly male-oriented culture. It was, grew up as an all-male military institution, and so I would notice, there is probably some here. Perhaps it is probably more of a patriarchal because of I think the influence of the LDS church, it's more of the male dominating, the men of certain status and women have different roles. So I think it's maybe a challenge of helping those that do come from more of that perspective where there’s defined roles for men and women. It's respecting those perspectives, but also, again, being comfortable with who you are and being authentic and then proving that there shouldn't be, or there's not really these defined boundaries, in the work that we do, in the way we influence and so I have just been really fortunate. There have been times in having male colleagues 7 around to support that. When I was in Texas A&M, when I got my doctorate, I'd be in a group of students, or student leaders and they would be addressing, “Well Doctor Sutherland,” and “Well Doctor Kibbler,” “Oh, and Jan,” and it was a very overt, even though we all had the same degrees. This happened even years after I got mine, but my male colleagues would always say, “Well, Doctor Winniford,” or make sure to never chastise them, but just modeling the fact that we’re all equal here. So I have not seen a lot of challenges being here. I think we do have some of the same issues maybe that young women are dealing with, that I dealt with, that I think in our society are still there. The research affirms that young women fairly quickly into grade school they start thinking that they're not as smart as the boys in their class, or they start lowering their career ambitions because they don't speak out as much in class, they don't think they're as good at math and science. So I think there's something still going on that is limiting our own potential as women, and I think we’ve got to just continue to talk about that. And I think the work that Utah Women in Higher Education, that work, the workshops, Susan Madsen’s work, I think that the conversation just needs to continue, that again, just lifts everybody up and helps people have confidence that they can do whatever they set their minds and hearts to. LM: That’s great. So, what other insights can you share about being a women leader in Northern Utah, if there’s anything else you'd like to cover? JW: One thing I will say about being in Northern Utah, or being in Utah: I think I have valued the fact that there is I think an awareness of the importance of life balance. There seems to be a recognition of the importance of family. I think 8 that's a challenge that many women face, as you advance into organizational roles, is that juggling of those “I can't do it all, can I have a family? Can I have a career, and can I have life balance?” I think that perhaps there's more recognition here that is important. And it’s kind of a contradictory thing, though on the other hand, sometimes family values can get in the way of women's career success because “Oh, well, you should be focusing more on family than career,” but I think that you can juggle and balance. And that’s another one of my values, is that's so important that we not just have this unidimensional focus to our careers, that having that balance is important. LM: So what advice would you give to emerging young women like us, in order to be successful as a leader? JW: Well, I've talked about some of the things. I think that there's a few things that again, we all learn from experience. But just taking advantage of opportunities. This is a great opportunity that you have to take a class where you're actually exploring some of those questions about women's roles in society and how to advance and grow and take on leadership roles, so taking advantage of those opportunities and walking through the doors when you can. And I think just being true to yourself and recognizing that we’re all different. And knowing your strengths, trying to capitalize on them instead of thinking about what we’re not as good at. I did that for so many years. It's like, “Well, I need to work on this, I need to work on that,” instead of just saying, “Hey, this is really who I am and what I'm good at,” and then building on that. I think another thing is just that Covey principle, of seek first to understand. When I think of challenges I've had as a 9 leader, it’s when I haven't followed that advice and I have maybe jumped to conclusions or I've had an opinion that I've rushed to judgement on, as opposed to just really listening and understanding and sort of putting ourselves secondary to whatever the issue or problem is and trying to solve that. So, I think the importance of reflection is really important, knowing where you are and where you're headed and how you want to get there. Those are kind of the main things. I think making sure we’re remembering and keeping in touch with the big picture and the context. It's sometimes easy to get mired in the details of the work that we do and getting sucked into the little issue of the day, as opposed to seeing the relevance and seeing how it fits into the big picture of whatever we’re working on. Those are a few things. LM: Those are great. Well, thank you for sharing your memories. We appreciate you taking your time out of your day. 10