Doug talks with Dr. Debby Thomas - The dean of the George Fox University school of business administration about the decision to hold the fall semester onsite and its associated challenges.

The objective of higher education is not only learning content. Interacting with professors and students is a critical part of creating a rounded experience that prepares students for the outside world.

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[Introduction]

Welcome to the terminal value Podcast where each episode provides in depth insight about the long term value of companies and ideas in our current world. Your host for this podcast is Doug Utberg, the founder and principal consultant for Business of Life, LLC.

Doug: Welcome to terminal value podcast. I have Debbie Thomas from George Fox University. She's actually the dean of the school of business and we are co-Rotarians in the Newberg noon Rotary Club and what George Fox did this fall I actually thought was very courageous. They decided to hold a school on campus instead of deciding that everybody was going to go virtual. This was a stark departure from what a lot of universities have done and for me I appreciate the willingness to go against the grain. I'm a you know and in my soul I'm definitely a contrarian at heart and so I just really like to hear these stories and Debbie I'd love to just discuss what's the experience been. Like how have you made the adjustments and how did you come to the decision.

Debby: Yeah well, first of all I am the dean of the college of business and the decision was made way over my head right. So I got to implement the decision but I didn't make the decision. So I can't take any credit or blame for the decision but, I know why the decision was made and it's really that what we have to offer at George Fox University is a small private Christian University  and what we are offering in education is more than just going to class. And so it's really a life-forming experience right. There's a  life transformation that we want to be happening and that has to do with your classes and all the spiritual life types of things that happen on campus and all the activities and the sports teams and right. It is a life transforming experience and so going to zoom means oh you're going to get your classes but it's not the whole experience that George Fox is trying to put together and so it was the decision was made very carefully of course but also recognizing that we really want to be able to give people that whole transformative experience.

Doug: Yeah, I think that. So I am 100 percent in agreement with that because yeah I think that it's at least I guess you. To me it's like if you're gonna because if you're only going to learn over zoom then you might as well just watch stuff on youtube because the effect is going to be pretty much the same. Because yeah, I think the transformative effect of school has to do with the internet is the interaction with other people. It's I mean just yeah just the content you can find on the internet for free. It's the internet. It’s interaction that really makes the difference you know. That’s the thing that’s going to you know that will help people to become transformative people to develop and implement ideas to be able to influence people to  adopt the course of action. That's at least.

Debby: Yeah.

Doug: That's one of the things that I found in my career is that coming up with good ideas is not that hard. Influencing other people to implement an idea that isn't theirs is extremely hard.

Debby: Right and you know Doug one of the interesting  things is we went face to face for the very purpose of being together and experiencing things together and yet we had so many restrictions on us right.

Doug:...