Finding Your People: The Power of Belonging at LCU

Dr. David Fraze: If you don't show up, you actually invalidate what we're trying to validate, and we take away the authenticity.
How many ever heard that guilt trip that I put you on?
Raise your hand.
Because we believe in it.
Some of these professors, and some of them come different days, they have classes on either side.
They will put everything aside to come here because we actually believe this stuff.
Now, you get a chance this time of the year to feedback very specifically.
You're going to have a chapel survey worth credits.
You're going to get to evaluate your professors.
And professors, if you're someone that gives a grade because of your teacher performance,
I'm calling you out in front of Dr. G.
Byron, is that why you've survived so long?
Byron gives chocolate, I think.
I don't know.
Dr. Patty, is that the secret?
Yeah.
He's like, yeah.
We really want to know.
This is hot.
We love feedback.
We love data.
We're a university.
We want to know what works and doesn't work.
As a faculty, we do great colleges.
We do things that have to do with our academics,
things that have to do with the social life.
All of us look at data.
This is different if you haven't noticed by now.
This is real life.
I don't know what's going to happen.
But this is going to be a check of our vitals.
Fair enough?
So how many of y'all are ready to see the results?
You've already done the survey.
All right. I haven't seen these. This is going to be exciting. And again, we like it. Some of
these may be low. It just lets us know that we got some work to do, but it's going to be enough
for all of us. We're not perfect. I know that's a shock. We're not, but we're going to check our
vitals in a very authentic way. You ready? All right. Let's go to that first slide. That's what
we have. I feel like I belong at LCU. We even added some smiley faces. Now I look at that
and we have 39%. That feels good. But out of the 100% of you, for me, I'm like, okay,
I'm not sure that I like that. It looks like we're progressing in a good direction, but
we would love for that to be higher. That kind of hurts my heart a little bit. Not in a bad way,
but in a way to say, okay, we need to work. We need to work so you feel more belonging. Fair
enough? Okay, next one. I feel like I have found my people at LCU. Nine of you are like, nope.
11 like, man, I don't think so.
Again, like 38, 39%.
You're like, yeah, that's 181 people.
That's not bad.
But there's some there that's like, I'm not so sure I found my people yet.
We put that on purpose.
Some of you will find your people through your athletic team.
Some of you will find your people on eSports or something of that nature.
Some of you are going to find through social clubs.
Some of you are going to find just through your colleges.
But I realize some of you may be here going, I'm a commuter student.
I show up.
I go to class.
I want to get to know people.
But, you know, it feels like a transaction right now.
We want to work on that because we want you to find your people.
We want you to find someone that when you're our age, you could say, Byron.
We've been doing that a long time.
It's kind of odd.
It's real life.
Keith, is this real life?
You shush.
true life story last week i saw byron at a distance in the united parking lot
he had not seen me yet and i'm like i'm gonna try this theory out i'm gonna see if he's my people
we are two rolls away if you don't know i'm kind of loud
they went byron without even thinking he's like dave and we found each other
don't awe that that's strange so um we want you to have your people we want you to be able to have
those moments and those those conversations that you're going to have years from now you're like
remember that time where you did something yes let's not talk about it we want you to carry
nuclear briefcases on each other so that if you start exploding things we're going to explode
each other and everybody's career would be over that's awesome but you got to find your people
and it looks like we're, you know, pretty good trajectory.
But I'd rather everybody be there.
That would be the optimum.
But that's just honest numbers.
Next one.
I feel like I've grown as a person at LCU.
That's purposeful.
Sometimes, can I just say this about,
I mean, you know I'm a sociologist, ethnography type person and study your generation.
It's kind of what I do.
The latest report is you get fired after you go to your first job very quickly.
Because you haven't gone through really difficult things.
I told you at the very beginning, we love you enough to fail you.
But we don't leave you there.
You will go through some hard things.
With student life, with your professors, with your peers, with your social club.
And if you grow as a person, we're fine with that.
And what's so funny, if you feel like you belong and you have your people, you can hear the tough things.
I always make jokes about this and I bring it up every year.
Doc Williams is the person who gave me my first zero.
Yeah, Don Williams, the nice guy who has an auditorium named after him.
All I did was skip his test.
I mean I had other things to do right
son
Walk with me now when he says that it's either really good or bad or walk
I'm gonna have to give you a zero. That's an unexcused absence, but dog and he goes zero
One of the greatest things ever happened in my life
Because I grew as a person that's cool 43
I'm, still glad that we're on this side more sunshiny, but there's a lot of us that are just kind of not so sure yet
That's alright. You don't have to have everything figured out.
But we want you to grow
and that's kind of encouraging.
Next one.
I feel
like I am walked with
at LCU. That's the best grammar I could use.
Our brand promises we walk with you.
32%.
Like I think so.
I still hate those numbers
down there and if that's you, we sure are going to do better.
I don't even know who you are. We don't know. It's totally anonymous, but right down there,
I hate that we have people on the other side. We're not perfect, but on behalf of faculty and
staff, we're going to do our best to try to be above reproach. But sometimes we have bad days.
Sometimes you have bad days. That's what's so cool about our community because we'll share
those together. Our commitment is to walk with you and we want you to be able to feel that.
And I'm glad, again, it looks like there's more smiley faces than sad faces.
But that kind of lets us know where we are.
Thank you for your honesty.
Because we do want to walk with you.
This last one.
I feel like I have given effort in connecting with the LCU community.
When I see results like that, I'm thinking it's like kind of a three.
you know kind of like I'm just kind of stuck in the middle effort is very subjective
and as I reminded a group of students last night as we were doing a small group it's hard
to sit down and say tell me your story because I'm listening to your story and I'm really trying
to be present with Byron then that means he's looking at me and that's that's tough
do you realize some of you know this that lcu is not second high school
and no one cares if you were popular in high school every once while we get a kid who wears
their letter jacket their freshman year and i immediately think of napoleon dynamite and you
know uncle rico if coach would have put me in um really what it's about and my students know this
that have gone through my classes. How many of y'all, raise your hand if you really cared about
when you were in high school who the popular kids were? Anyone? Okay, how many of you had a friend
that you lied for? I mean, you looked at an adult and said, oh, they were not there. How many of
you lied? Matt, slow it down. How many of y'all? Our student body president. Okay, how many of you
lied for a friend? Raise your hand. Okay. Put your hands down. How many of y'all know lying's
wrong? Raise your hand. Nobody's taking a photo of this. Put your hand down. How many of y'all
would have done it again? See, it's about loyalty. And this is what gets to the idea of you tried.
Do you realize some of the kids who are more outgoing and more involved in things,
sometimes they do that because they're more insecure than the kids who don't do anything.
Because their identity is still wrapped up.
If I do something, you'll see me.
And then I'll be respected and I'll be accepted.
There's others of you that are like, I ain't telling anybody anything.
Because you think if they really see who you are, you won't have anybody.
Everybody's going through this, folks.
Everybody.
Everybody.
because your generation didn't group because of clicks, because of popularity.
You grouped by self-concept, which is a very deep thing. You found safe people.
That's why you lied for them. Does anybody want to tell me I'm wrong? Are you with me on this?
It's like I jumped in your backpack and followed you around high school. I see it all the time.
How many of you had two or three people that were like family to you, but were friends?
Okay, put your hands down. How many of y'all still talk to them through social media on your
cell phone? Put your hands down. How many of you are texting them right now? That's what I thought.
Years ago, our internet went down. It was Elsie's time in hell. And the weirdest thing happened.
Some of y'all remember this. Some of our students just left. Do y'all remember those? They left.
They had no connection to the outside world. And they were like, I don't know these people.
I'm out of here. That's what social media and cell phones were just kind of a new thing,
but they had to have those attachments. So you come to college with that strength of attachment
that we're asking you to let us walk with you. We got to earn your trust.
And that's hard because we're also the ones that hold up the standard. And it seems like most of
y'all are starting to realize we do that because we do care and we're teaching you skills, not just
to get a grade, but transformational so you can keep a job and impact the world for life
and for service, right? That's our mission promise. We walk with you.
But for most of us here, we get kind of scared.
Some of your things is not going to the game. Some of your things is not being in a social
club. Some of your things is not even, you know, hanging out in the cafeteria. You just kind of do
what's right by you. And I get that, but I'm asking you, and that's a really high number,
to keep taking the risk. I'm going to throw some people under the bus for fun because I love them.
Forever, I've been telling faculty and staff, sit with the students, but you scare them
because they don't think you want to sit next to them. I'm like, I promise you,
just go sit next to them. Be like Byron, his little bow tie. Just sit next to them.
See what happens.
And most of you look around and go, am I in trouble?
No, just want to sit here.
Are you sure I'm not in trouble?
Yeah.
That's the kind of community we want to have, and we're all growing towards it because we're all a little bit nervous.
But what happens if all of us keep making the effort to belong, to be seen, to be loved, to walk with?
This is already a truly crazy, inspirational, life-changing place.
not for all of you because we've seen the numbers but some of you are starting to get some of it
what this tells me is we don't need to put the aed on you even though i got the card dr g
and i can shock you back to life this is not a guilt thing it's nothing it's a wake-up check
for me it's a wake-up check for the faculty and staff that we cannot coast in the main thing that
makes this the main thing is the relationships we build with you that can change the way you
look at academics and the way you look at life. Amen? So that's what we're doing. This is great.
Thank you for your honesty. Now, what I'm going to ask you is to go the next step.
You're going to get surveys. Would you write your heart on those things? Would you let us know?
Because it's one thing to get a quick check, but let's do a blood test and see if our cholesterol
is high. Keep looking. Are you impressed with what I'm coming out with there, doc? You know,
it's pretty amazing. We need to see if something's out of balance because we listen to that
because we want to be above reproach, not only in our academics, but our statement and our brand
promise that we will walk with you. We're doing our very best to navigate this with you. So we
got a few minutes left. You can leave if you want, but I'm going to ask you to do something scary.
Are you with me on this? This mic's going to go off.
Go ahead and get ready to hug Dr. G because I know what you're going to do.
That's just disturbing fish.
Here's what's going to happen.
Don't just run out.
Okay, if you want to, fine.
And you can get your credits and leave.
But would you hold on just a second?
You don't even have to hug.
Would you look to a person you've never seen before and break the rules of your world and just go,
How are you doing?
Fine.
Say your name.
Don't just go.
I'm out. Earplugs. Hello? Hello? Hello? They can't hear me. I can't hear them. Don't.
Just find somebody that you think needs a smile, a small something, and go,
I'm glad you're here. You don't have to go overboard.
I know Dr. Patty loves hugs, but not everybody likes hugs like Dr. Patty.
Okay? He says, I do not. Yeah, I know he does, Fish.
so look around and find somebody even if they are i'm looking at these people over here you
see these people over here they're about to run away into that closet fish go stand over there
dr jerevick that was cool wasn't it i hear dr jerevick going ha ha
you have to at least you better hug somebody else because that's just gross so anyway
say something hi to somebody you've never seen before thank you for your honesty thank you for
the check of our vitals have a great weekend go chaps see you monday