(upbeat music) - We now welcome Dr.

Joseph Youngblood, Chancellor of Kean USA Regional Campuses and Strategic Global Initiatives.

Good to see you, Dr.

Youngblood.

- Good to see you as well, Steve.

Always a pleasure to be on the show.

- You got it.

Kean University, one of our higher ed partners.

Also, check out the interview we did with Kean Jersey City University President, Dr.

Lamont Repollet.

We just did that interview.

It'll be really important, check it out.

Dr.

Youngblood, talk to us about this.

We're gonna talk about urban matters.

We're doing a series, "Urban Matters," in cooperation with Kean and your institute, the John S. Watson Urban Research Institute.

What is the connection between Kean University and Bermuda College, and what does that have to do with urban matters?

- Thank you, Steve.

There are actually very interesting historical ties.

We were mining data, really trying to assess pockets of alumni around the world so that we could reengage and develop partnerships, and identified that there was a longstanding history of students from Bermuda who were coming to Kean University.

So a really fascinating piece for us that led to a couple of intentional conversations about how we could bolster a partnership in the context of everything that Kean is doing with the social impact and work around the world.

So we were clear that Bermuda was globally connected.

The island, ironically, has about 65,000 citizens.

So you put that in the context of a lot of the mid-size cities that we work with here in New Jersey.

I mean, that puts Bermuda in the space of East Orange, Union Township, in fact, our neighboring community.

And we thought it really set the context for a perfect relationship that would allow us to leverage our identity as an urban research university to support and advance the issues that are impacting that urban island nation.

And Bermuda College, as a two-year college there, was very interested in creating an articulation agreement with Kean University so that students from the island could complete their two years there and then come to the U.S., come to Kean, and complete their studies here as they have done for decades.

- Doctor, let me ask you this.

Why is it so important?

Because Kean University, again, one of our longtime higher ed partners, has either campuses or affiliations with universities in China, Canada, Britain, and obviously, the Caribbean.

Question: how important is that?

And we talked to Dr.

Repollet about this as well.

How important is that to a thriving, successful, financially stable university?

- It's mission critical for us, Steve.

One, it exposes our students, our faculty, and our staff such that they become world citizens and a part of a global environment and context to really sustain and impact change around the world.

What that represents for our students when you see them on these campuses around the globe is nothing short of amazing.

I was just in China a couple of months ago and had the opportunity to meet with some of our students who were there.

A young man from Passaic who has just had a phenomenal, eye-opening experience because he had the opportunity to have that kind of cultural and educational exchange.

And so that's always been a critical part of Kean's global identity.

But what has enhanced our presence internationally now is what we bring as an urban research university, leveraging our resources, the tremendous intellectual property that we have, our faculty and our students to be a part of these global solutions in the same way we have been an anchor institution here in the U.S.

- Tell folks what it means to be an urban research institution, because Kean is, in fact, New Jersey's official urban research institution of higher education.

Explain to folks what that means from a practical point of view.

- Absolutely, Steve.

I've spent approximately 30 years working across education and public education.

And what I believe inherently, that's a part of the vision that Dr.

Repollet brought to Kean University, is that as a public university, we have an inherent responsibility to solve problems alongside with average citizens, government, school districts, et cetera, that we just can't educate in isolation.

So what our urban research identity does for us, it allows us to leverage those resources to be a part of the solutions to some of the most challenging issues in New Jersey and now around the world.

So it positions us, again, to not just be a player on the world stage, but to be a critical thought partner in shaping those issues that we know are plaguing societies around the world.

What we're doing in these cities in New Jersey, we're now replicating all around the world.

And that is so exciting for our students, faculty, and everyone in the Kean community.

- Dr.

Youngblood, let me ask you this.

For students in Bermuda or Bermudan students, do they face any unique or different challenges than all the many challenges students currently face who happen to be American citizens, U.S.

citizens?

Are they different?

- Yeah, issues are the same, ironically, which is another reason why the Bermudian context was so exciting for us.

Everything that we experience here in terms of access, in terms of the cost of a higher education degree.

But what they don't have is a four-year public university to support their transition from the two-year environment that they have at Bermuda College.

So we close, I think, a critical gap for those students in terms of access, the two-plus-two pathway model that we're creating in Bermuda.

- What's that mean, two-plus-two?

- Two-plus-two is basically a pathway arrangement that is, in many ways, simple yet so effective because it allows students to complete their first two years at home on the island via Bermuda College, close to home at a lower cost, and then to transition seamlessly to Kean University.

It's something, again, that is not new, that is not new to Kean University.

So, for example, we have had a partnership at Kean Ocean for approximately 18 years, where we have a partnership with Ocean County College.

We are physically co-located there.

Those students, when they enter OCC, they know that they're coming directly through on a two-plus-two pathway to Kean University.

And we've been able to deliver that level of access in a region of the state that, ironically, like Bermuda College, does not have a public four-year institution.

So this is not new to us.

It is now just taking it to scale and applying almost two decades of lessons learned to be able to have this kind of impact, not just in New Jersey but around the world.

- Let me follow up on this.

At a very critically important, challenging time for higher education, what gives you reason, or what is the primary reason why you are optimistic in these incredibly challenging, fiscally difficult times where often some folks anecdotally or otherwise question the value of higher education?

What do you say to those folks?

A and B, why are you bullish?

Got a minute left.

- Absolutely.

I think that what we understand here at Kean is that no margin, no mission.

So the business model and the business infrastructure is a critical aspect of us making sure that we are positioned to be solvent and to be able to provide these opportunities.

What I say to students, what I say to families, is that a bachelor's degree and that aspect of an undergraduate education is still the most central factor in social mobility.

So we are also understanding of the fact that accessibility is an issue, cost is an issue.

So we wanna create programs that are flexible, that are affordable, but that have the same quality that allow these students to obtain what we know to be the gold standard in our education.

- Dr.

Joseph Youngblood is Chancellor of Kean USA Regional Campuses and Strategic Global Initiatives again at Kean University.

Kean University, Jersey City, I'm gonna get it right.

- It's gonna be Kean Jersey City, which is gonna be our Jersey City campus.

- That'll work, and by the way, check out the interview with the president, Dr.

Lamont Repollet, who talks about that merger and that collaboration.

Thank you, doctor, we appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve, always a pleasure.

- I'm Steve Adubato, that's Dr.

Youngblood.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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