Student Life

Dr. David Fraze: Can you please welcome, with thunderous applause, our Vice President of Student Life, Randal Dement.
Oh, hi. That was the awkward, wasn't it? Okay.
Randal Dement.
Randal Dement.
By the way, your shoe game is really high today.
Randal Dement: Thank you.
You like that?
That's all my wife.
Dr. David Fraze: That's good.
Hey, me too.
Picks out your clothes?
Yes.
Happy wife, happy life.
Now, before we get started on your questions,
don't look so nervous, okay?
Let's go back in time.
That is a fine-looking man.
was that your freshman year you think?
Randal Dement: No we used to wear ties
for our pictures so I think
that was probably
that was probably junior year
that was probably junior year
Dr. David Fraze: Max looks a lot like you
is that strange? Yeah he
hates that. He does
feathered hair is the way to go how cool was
feathered hair in the 80's? You know
Randal Dement: feathered hair was everything
there was a time
our freshman year where we shaved all this off
we had a mullet before mullet even had a name well let's go to the next picture um
Dr. David Fraze: there the guy tell me who's in that picture one of them is a board member
Randal Dement: this was before he learned how to hypnotize people the guy standing this guy right there rob yep
Dr. David Fraze: yep wilkinson right there okay and here here you are holding the football no are you are you
holding the football? Maybe. I think you are. So you're from Roswell. Went to high school in
Roswell. Nobody's seen the film. How good were you? Like our team or me personally? You personally.
I was really good, Dave. I thought so. Yeah, that's really good. Everybody was good in the 80s.
Yeah, that was wonderful. Did you wear the thigh pads up to your chest? Yeah,
where you had to put them in the pants. That's really good. People don't even know.
he smiled and what's up with the glasses yeah that was 80s that was cool yeah everybody loved
that now i'm this next slide do y'all not feel like randall's putting out the vibe i mean let's
Randal Dement: just say that what's up so okay let's be honest plain so that was right before i went to college
Dr. David Fraze: that's in my parents living room and that's gross who was in there then that you huh just
It looks like you're like, who are you looking at?
Randal Dement: Yeah, it's just my look.
I just...
Dr. David Fraze: That's so awesome.
It's just my look is what I did, put out the vibe all the time.
Randal Dement: Yes, and I will be honest, because you said go find pictures.
So I found the picture, and really, once you sent it back,
that's when I saw the hearts on it.
So I did not plan on putting a heart on it.
Dr. David Fraze: I asked him that this morning.
I said, I'm going to ask you about the hearts.
Are those added?
Are those actually hanging?
You know, they are added.
What?
I don't know where they're from.
Randal Dement: to be like stamps right no i i think i grabbed a post and i didn't realize there was there was
Dr. David Fraze: hearts on it i i i love that and you have a little bit of the beginnings of a mullet
Randal Dement: it looks like a little dark right there you can tell i'm clueless look at me that i had hearts
Dr. David Fraze: around me that's that's good well they're very good all right so here's going to become another
tradition because this man right here is in charge of all of student life so when you hear
announcement and they say,
hey, show up here. I mean, you've got to give
money to that. Gold stripe.
Is it going to be a discount price on Monday?
I don't know.
Is it free coffee?
Because this is going to make a difference for me.
Randal Dement: For after chapel? No.
Dr. David Fraze: Monday, gold stripe.
It's free.
When coffee is free. You can applaud
for that. That's good.
It was one of the Fisher kids.
He has no idea if it's free.
He's like, it's free, so now I'm going to get in trouble.
It'll come out of the president's account.
Okay, so this is what you've given your life to.
Ken Jones, two presidents ago, invited you to come be a part of students.
Now you're the vice president of students, student life.
Why is this so important to you?
Student life or the vocation?
Randal Dement: You know, I was dean of students for five years, and then I went to alumni for a year.
And I was thinking that was 20 years ago because we were celebrating the 50th anniversary.
And I think student life is, it's messy, the things you deal with.
And then when I went to alumni for a year, there was part of the messiness that I think what I missed.
And, you know, my job now, it's really cool because I've got an outstanding team.
just to let them go and see how it comes together, really to benefit these people right here.
Dr. David Fraze: Yeah, so alumni, they kind of have it hopefully all together and you see the end product,
but I love that you love the messiness.
So is there any student who's ever come through here except, you know, let's say Jeff Carey, that was perfect?
No.
No, not even Jefferson Carey?
Randal Dement: Well, I wasn't here when I see Jeff was, it was before me.
Dr. David Fraze: And now he's the Dean of Students.
Yeah.
So I heard he was perfect, but I didn't get to experience his perfection.
Pretty much so.
So student life, it's, is it more than just, hey, show up to Gold Stripe or, you know,
let's go play basketball.
What happens when students start interacting together?
Randal Dement: Well, first let's talk about what student life is.
Cause I think sometimes they think it's the people in an office up there, but you've got
recreational life.
You've got public safety.
You've got the health clinic, counseling.
And then you've got the RDs and housing and all of that.
I think it's, I kind of talk about student life like it's an iceberg.
Because I think people see maybe the parties and the fun that are above the surface.
I don't think it always shows how hard everybody's working to really engage students, provide a framework for which they can thrive to get resources to them when they need help.
And how do you work proactively in that?
Dr. David Fraze: So being an RA at one point with Dr. Estep and everyone lived in the dorm and I know things have changed.
We had a lot of fun in the dorm.
It's probably why it needs to be renovated.
Now we got to have, you know, everybody has to have their little quads and stuff.
But we enjoyed that.
And we had how many phones?
Do you remember this?
There was one in the lobby.
Randal Dement: You could plug one in, I guess, in your room.
But we didn't have air conditioning either.
Dr. David Fraze: No.
Oh, wow.
I forget.
Yes.
Don't even.
You're like, oh, my word.
And we liked it.
We liked it that way.
We didn't have cable either.
No, we had one phone.
We had a ping pong table.
We sound really old.
We should talk about something else, Dave.
I don't know what's good.
But how did it just personally, you left and you came back, how did the LCU experience affect you?
Randal Dement: Like when I was walking through it?
You know, look back at that time, the university was young, probably struggling some.
But the relationships were what you took with you.
I mean, it was about who you spent your time with, you know.
finding those people that make you better people and we didn't have an option like you said we had
Dr. David Fraze: one pay phone but you we would just hang out we couldn't hide in in rooms uh i guess you could
have but usually somebody would come and knock on your door the the food is i don't care what
y'all say the food is so much better today oh yeah can we can we give a hand to randy and his folks
we don't even need to go into that but uh y'all done a really good job making the experience
better so there's a lot of things that that i hear from people and you hear people too you're
like hey uh why can't i just go to class um i don't want to come in here to chapel and do all
this stuff stop making announcements i'm not going to go do anything um why do y'all try so hard to
get people to be involved with Student Life and to reach out to, you know, our campus, our campus
Randal Dement: guides, mental health help. Why do y'all try so hard? Well, I think when you say Student Life,
how do we get them to engage with Student Life? Really, the goal is to help students engage with
one another, provide them the resources. I thought about this the other day. We talk a lot about we
walk with you and I think that is important. I think a component of that is helping students
Dr. David Fraze: walk with one another. And that's true. My parents told me when I left, by the way, did your parents
bring you to college or did you just leave Roswell? No, my parents brought me. I sat in the parking
Randal Dement: lot. I'd seen my dad cry one time before that and we're sitting in the car and I'm about to get out
and I look up and both of them are crying. It was awful. Welcome to college, son. See you later.
Dr. David Fraze: Your dad didn't smoke.
It sounds like he did.
So my dad was crying in Louisville by our boat.
We spent so much of our life.
And they put me in a truck, and I drove all the way here.
And nobody let me out.
I had all my stuff in the back of the truck.
I think my parents loved me more than yours loved you.
Obvious.
Obvious.
Obvious difference in love.
But relatively, it was kind of on us.
And we were taught so well.
Don Williams, which I make jokes about all the time, he still says, walk with me, son, to people like us.
And he gave me my first zero, and he taught me a lesson with it.
Who are some of the professors you can still remember to this day that impacted you, that walked with you?
Randal Dement: I was a business major.
I was not good at accounting.
I had an accounting professor, Christa Dobbs.
Dr. David Fraze: Oh, my word.
I've heard horror stories.
Randal Dement: Yeah, I mean, she scared me to death.
But I remember the, I graduated in December, and in February, my father died.
And I got a card from Christa Dobbs.
I got a card from the cashier at the window.
Just people that are there that you don't even really fully realize how much they are there.
Dr. David Fraze: So with your students, and we have some of the same mutual friends,
But some of the people you met here, give me a couple of lifelong friends that you still have.
Randal Dement: John Lott, Scott Marshall, Troy Fox.
I mean, I could go on and on.
We don't necessarily see each other all that much.
But when life happens, you know, you have those phone calls.
And that's your people.
Dr. David Fraze: That is so awesome.
So my parents would say the people that are going to be in your wedding more than likely will be people you meet at this stage of life.
Is that a truism?
Randal Dement: Yeah, that's true.
And at this point in life, those are the people that are going to be at the funerals when your parents die and all that.
I mean, we've walked 35 years together that you look back at those pictures,
and you never envision being at a point where anybody could walk with you that long.
Dr. David Fraze: You know, one of the cool things yesterday at church when David Stewart died,
and I won't talk a lot about it because a lot of people in here get emotional.
What a great man.
We went to school with his sons.
and I looked at Jonathan
and I saw him from behind and who did he look like?
He looked like his dad.
He looked like his dad. I'm like, Jonathan,
I got to tell you this, man. Your dad was awesome.
You know you look like him.
But teary eyes,
incredible hugs,
and people who've lost
their dads,
it was cool to be able to go to those guys and say,
hey, we know in those relationships
that have been,
oh my word, 80s.
I mean,
from the 80s on over 30 years and be able to be there at that moment they chose to be at church
and the people who surrounded them after church were people they walked with here when we had a
Randal Dement: younger university i think the cool part about that wasn't there's a lot of people that maybe
i didn't hang out with during my time here but it's funny because that has facilitated relationships
Dr. David Fraze: later on in life. Yeah, it makes a difference. So I'm going to give you, we got about just a few
more minutes. Man, we try really hard to get these students, first of all, to look up and be involved
in here, to not carry their phones as much as possible into the cafeteria and actually look
around and say, hello, my name is. It's frightening, sometimes scary. It's a lost skill somewhat with
this generation what is one encouragement you could give them to just go all in even it feels
awkward because everybody feels awkward at this point and to be involved what would you say to
Randal Dement: them i think a lot of times and maybe we say it or maybe it's perceived when we talk about
involvement that has to be some kind of structural involvement i mean organizations are great do all
those things part of being involved is just being present with one another your involvement could be
in your academic department, your involvement could be the residence hall, it could be
the rec center, it could be who you have class with. And for those of you that have the class
staff, the goal of that is to use technology to drive students together to help them be present
Dr. David Fraze: with one another. So if they try out for something to happen, I think to both of us, for me, the
first thing I tried out for, I didn't make it. And I'm like, oh my word, what did I, I'm a failure.
And as we've talked about here a bunch of times, we have the gift of failure when you're at this point in life.
So a kid tries to be involved.
Student, you know, like social clubs, not for everybody.
Intimidation is not for everybody.
You can find your place.
What if they try something and fail?
What would you say to them?
Randal Dement: Keep trying.
I think a lot of times, and if you're a freshman, I think, you know, maybe the messaging that you've grown up with your whole life is, oh, you're going to go to college.
You're going to get involved.
It takes time.
For some, it may be right at the first week.
For some, it may take two semesters.
And I've known students, it was their sophomore year before they really felt like, I mean, they had their people, but it's like, this is the place.
Stay after it.
Look for community wherever you can find it because there's plenty of it here.
Dr. David Fraze: That's awesome.
Guys, I think you hear from both of our hearts.
We're so glad you're at LCU if you're returning or if you're a freshman,
and we want you to be involved because it does make a difference.
Okay, so any way you want to, you get to do the magic dismissal.
So what are you feeling today?
Are you feeling sassy?
Are you feeling loud?
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Hold on.
Let's go back.
Randal Dement: Go back to that picture.
Dr. David Fraze: Which picture?
Okay, wait, wait.
Can we go?
Oh, I'm going the wrong way.
Hold on.
Oh, I'm going to the writing carnival.
What am I doing?
Wait.
Can you put a picture of him up, please?
Randal Dement: Go back to the heart picture.
Dr. David Fraze: Heart picture.
Oh, oh!
Heart picture, please.
Oh, there you go.
It's up.
Okay.
Randal Dement: Let me see.
Dr. David Fraze: Bow, bow, bow, bow!
Ba-da-ba-da!
You are dismissed.
Randal Dement: Oh, yeah!
Yeah!
Godspeed!