Yesterday’s naming ceremony for the Compton Success Center gave me a chance to pause and think about what this space represents.
Of course, it’s a building. But it also reflects something I believe strongly about our students and our responsibility to them. We should never let one grade, one test score, or one difficult semester define what a student is capable of becoming.
I know what it feels like when someone does.
When I took my high school entrance exam, an administrator sat my parents down and recommended that I repeat the eighth grade because of my math score. My parents pushed back immediately. They weren’t going to let one test score define my future or limit what they believed I could do.
But the doubt stayed with me. “Math Mountain,” as I came to think of it, followed me all the way to college.
As an undergraduate, I dreaded walking into required math or statistics courses. The equations felt disconnected from anything I cared about. I couldn’t see the people or the purpose behind the formulas, and every low grade seemed to confirm the fear I’d been carrying since that eighth-grade meeting.
Then I took sociology statistics.
For the first time, the numbers connected to something real. They helped me understand human behavior, inequality, communities, and people’s lived experiences. I could see what the data was telling us and, just as important, what questions we needed to ask next. Once I understood the why behind the math, I could work with it. I could question it. I could use it to solve real problems.
There’s some irony in where that journey took me. Today, I’m known as a data-driven leader. My teams and I track retention and persistence across student cohorts because the numbers help us see where we’re helping students and where we need to do better.
But the numbers are never the point. The students are.
Too much of higher education has been built around sorting students out. An eighteen-year-old struggles in calculus or general chemistry, and we start questioning whether they belong. I reject that thinking.
When a scholar stumbles, our first question shouldn’t be “What’s wrong with the student?” We should ask “What could we have done differently?”
Where did we leave a gap? Did we send the student to a website when they needed a person? Did we give them information when they needed someone who knew their name, recognized their strengths, and helped them figure out what to do next?
That’s part of why yesterday felt so personal to me.
When John and Cindy Compton chose to invest in the Compton Success Center, they helped us create a place where students don’t have to figure everything out on their own. They can walk through the doors and find people who are ready to listen, help, and remind them of what they’re capable of when they’re having trouble seeing it for themselves.
I tell people all the time that we didn’t bring our scholars here just to be freshmen. We brought them here to walk across the commencement stage as graduates, begin meaningful careers, and return one day as proud alumni.
Yesterday, we put a name on this building. What happens inside it will be shaped by the students who walk through its doors and the people who believe in them, especially when the path gets hard.
John and Cindy, thank you for believing in our students, including those who may not yet see in themselves everything that you already see in them. You’ve helped us create a place that says something important to every scholar who walks through the door.
You don’t have to figure this out alone. We’re here, and we’ll help you keep going.
