Interview with Amarillo College President, Russell Lowery-Hart

Today we’re talking with Amarillo College President, Russell Lowery-Hart.  He touches on the hardships caused by Covid, including experiencing depression for the first time.  He says there are no right answers when it comes to dealing with Covid, just a sea of wrong answers to choose from.  On the other hand, President Lowery-Hart says they’re doing better work than they ever have before.  People have truly been stepping up to the plate, but they’re exhausted.  He says it’s important to acknowledge that we’re experiencing a hard time and to admit when you don’t have the answers.  Covid has created an environment where people crave authenticity.  President Lowery-Hart says they were approaching Fall semester as a move back to normal, but it’s been anything but.  He says students are scared to come back, but are also scared to not come back.  People seem to be more worried about the present day and week over the future, making it harder to sell a long-term degree.  They’ve had to rethink entire degree programs, and that’s been hard to embrace because of burnout.

Amarillo College was one of the recipients of the Mackenzie Scott award.  President Lowery-Hart says the initial email was so cryptic that he didn’t think it was real and almost didn’t follow through.  He went ahead and scheduled the phone call and was told that they knew what the college had accomplished and believed they would know best how to help their community.  Within a week, Amarillo College had a $15 million gift wired into their account.  President Lowery-Hart was speechless and emotional as he knew what this gift would mean for their community.  The plan is to use a small portion to immediately benefit the community and will put the rest in an endowment and spend the next year planning long-term plans to combat poverty in the community.  One thing President Lowery-Hart did was to talk to past recipients of the award to find out what they had learned in applying the funds.

When asked for the best advice he’s ever received, President Lowery-Hart remembers his late boss, who told him to never bring up a problem that you don’t already have a solution for.  On the other hand, the advice he would give is to be your authentic self and to say yes as often as you can.