Dr. Ethel Scurlock on Empowering Students

Apr 18

Dr. Ethel Scurlock lives each day finding her purpose in life. As an academic leader and mentor to students at the University of Mississippi—and a pastor—she takes her journey of purpose and helps others find theirs. In this episode, David and Dr. Scurlock talk through the pressures many young people face when finding their passions in life. As technology advances and more societal pressures stack up, young people can become overwhelmed with anxieties about their futures. But, as David and Dr. Scurlock agree, one thing is certain: no matter where we are all in life, each day is a gift and a step closer to finding that purpose and helping others find theirs.

“Finding purpose is a very personal journey, and people have to believe that purpose is out there, even when they do not understand it … When you’re 18, 19, 20 years old, your purpose is to live through the moment—to access all the things you can while you can from the people you can … and it’s going to open the door to the next thing.”

- Dr. Ethel Scurlock

Dr. Ethel Scurlock is Dean of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Luckyday Residential College. Dr. Scurlock became a faculty member at the University in 1996 and has taught honors courses for over 16 years. Prior to being named Dean, she also was the Director of African American Studies.

Dr. Scurlock is a native of Memphis and earned her B.A. in English from the University of Tennessee and M.A. and Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University of Ohio. She has published numerous articles and reviews of African American literature in signal publications. Her excellence in teaching is notable, having been named the College of Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year in 2003, UM Humanities Teacher of the Year, and the Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award in 2011. A 2013-2014 SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellow, Dr. Scurlock also been recognized by the Mississippi House of Representatives for her work to promote diversity.

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David Magee: I'm Magee, and this is the Mayo Lab Podcast. As we begin the Mayo Lab Podcast, one of the most important aspects for us was not just basing our conversations around student and family wellbeing, talking about, say, specific substances or saying don't do substances. Our plan was to delve in just like the fitness of the human in requires the whole body. There's the physical aspect, there's the mental aspect, there's the aspect of the soul.
And for us to really understand the wellbeing of students, for us to be able to think what we're doing, where we can go, it's important that we involve leading educators in that conversation. People on the front lines with students and people on the, I'll say, cutting edge of it. And so today I think we have one of those guests as we look at kind of the whole body of student and family wellbeing, and we're excited about it. But first, as always, excited to welcome Lee.
Alexis Lee: Hello.
Magee: Alexis, if I haven't said it, I don't want to choke up when I say this, because I might, you came to me some months ago, and said you were called to this work and you wanted to sign up. And now we're some eight or nine episodes into the Mayo Lab Podcast, plus we're doing a lot of other work. And you have been an important part or the formation of this, and I thank you for that.
Lee: Well, thank you for inviting me in and letting me be a part of it, having a seat at the table, figuratively and literally. This work is just, I go home, and I'm just like, I'm so lucky I get to do this work every day, and I get to work with someone I admire so much.
Magee: Thank you. Speaking of admiration, because I hold you in that. My wife has a line she says with me. She knows I love all humans, and I very much love all humans, but it's kind of a joke line. She says, "You're not easily impressed." And I say, "Well, true. Because we humans, it's a human struggle, and I see the goodness in all humans and I'm impressed by that potential."
But there's some people, Alexis, and I put you in that category, and I think that's why we really enjoy working so much together where there's this service above self. And we have a guest today that, honestly, and I don't want to embarrass her, but really she's at the top of the list. For me, right at the top of the list. And that's why she's on this podcast because she is, when we talk about the body, she's all of it. And especially my favorite part, gets right down to the soul. So tell us who our guest is today and let's get on with it.
Lee: Our guest is Dr. Scurlock, who is dean of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, associate professor of English and African American Studies, and senior fellow of the Luckyday Residential College. But what her resume won't tell you is, I agree with you David, is she's one of my heroes in life and this is just going to be so much fun.
Magee: Dr. Scurlock, welcome to The Mayo Lab Podcast.
Dr. Scurlock: Thank you for having me today. It's truly an honor to be here to sit with you and to sit with Alexis. And I guess we just have a mutual admiration fan club going on. So it's truly an honor. So thank you for having me.
Magee: Thank you. So before we get into specific of students and working with that, I'm interested in listeners hearing about you because your background fascinates me. You serve today as dean, I think, of one of the top academic student institutions in all of the country, our Honors College here at the University of Mississippi. And that is such a vital role because that Honors College and its students excel in every way possible that it feels Ivy League to me in so many ways often, except we get to add that caring Mississippi touch. How did you get there?
Dr. Scurlock: It's interesting because I'm not a person that pursues position at all. I pursue purpose. And so in no way was I ever looking to be a dean. In fact, people who know me well knew that one of my jobs or one of my kind of dream things on campus, I wanted to be an associate dean where I helped build someone else's vision. So that was my kind of goal and my desire. Did a lot of work in honors because I love our honors program. It is one of the best honors programs in the country. To be able to deliver the kind of education we do with our students having to pay additional fees is absolutely incredible. I think that what they get is such a rich experience. So I've long been invested in honors education at the University of Mississippi. I taught honors 101 and 102, our foundational courses, for about 17 years. I also led faculty development of honors 101 and 102.
So I was doing a lot of behind the scenes work. I also worked with our admissions, and I was just committed to the work. I'm not a person that has to be out front doing the work. In fact, when our dean, Doug Sullivan-Gonzalez retired, said that he was going to resign from that position, I was kind of mad at Doug. And so I called him up like, "What are you doing? No. We need you." So I truly was invested in supporting his vision, working to see how we could continue to enhance what he wanted.
So anyways, he was coming out. We had some conversations. The provost asked for some people interested in serving as interim, and I was jumping in as interim, never thinking that I would apply to even be the permanent dean. And I fell in love with the job, fell in love with the ability to create these spaces for faculty to do this dynamic work, the ability to help students live their dreams. And for me, it's just absolutely incredible because I don't have to compete with these high performing students. I don't have to insert myself into their situation in any kind of way.
All I have to do is listen to them, what they want to do, how they want to do it, try to find people to help us make it happen for them. Whether that's attaching them to a donor, attaching them to a faculty member, attaching them to the right administrators, or even connecting them to alumni who can help open doors for them. My job is to make great people even greater, and I couldn't find a better job to do. And when I wake up in the morning, I'm excited about how I can help somebody else and how I can serve this community, but in particular serve our Honors College students at the University of Mississippi.
Magee: Now that's incredible. And I love what you talk about listening to students, and I think that's such an important thing, and we're going to come back to that in a minute. But one thing I do want to add that I think listeners will be interested to know about you, that I don't want to save. Sometimes I'm amazed at your schedule because you're busy. And I'm not sure how you juggle family, leadership of the Honors College, engaging with those students as you do, and on Sundays you are on the pulpit preaching.
Dr. Scurlock: I am.
Magee: And so how in the world do you make all of that happen and what is that about?
Dr. Scurlock: Okay. Well, first of all, I always say everybody's busy. And nobody's busy is more important than anybody else's busy. Nobody's busy is more busy. So I do feel like, I mean, I've always been a worker. I enjoy work. I don't work as something to take away from me. It is something that energizes me. I also see all of my work as intertwined. I feel like my calling, my mission, my purpose in life is to educate, to uplift, and to engage. So I'm educating, uplifting, and engaging as a professor in the classroom. I'm doing the same thing as an administrator, whether it's with the Honors College or with Luckyday. I'm doing the same thing in the pulpit on Sunday morning.
I have a good friend who many years ago wrote a book called The African American Sermon in the Literary Tradition. When he talks about the role of African American preaching, he says, "The African American preacher every Sunday morning has to get up and take a past history and connect it to the present of the people they're standing in front of, and then make it serviceable in a way that it empowers them for the future." And that's my paraphrasing of it.
So that's what I do every Sunday morning. I'm reading the past. It's historical, scriptural, religious, sacred text, trying to bring it to this everyday reality, and using that to empower this community. And that's exactly what I do as a professor of literature. I take these old texts written in the 18th, 19th century, try to make it relevant to people sitting in front of me in the 21st century. And then I want them to hold onto it in a way that services them in the future. Even today when I came in, talking to a student from 1996 saying that, "I still have these books. They still mean something to me." I want that work to come alive. And so it's not different work, even though it takes place in different spaces.
Magee: Wow. Alexis, so first of all, you could just drop the microphone on that one. You could walk on out of here. I'm going to think on that one for a long time because that's such power. And I agree with everything you say. Alexis, Dr. Scurlock was humble when she talked about, she's not seeking to stand in front, she just wants to serve and is very comfortable being behind the scenes. Except by the way, those of us that have seen her lead from the stage, I've seen her bring the house down.
Lee: She does what she just did to us and just makes everyone speechless. You walk out and you're going to think about it for the rest of the day, probably months. You lead so well from the front and the back.
Dr. Scurlock: Thank you.
Lee: And I think when you lead from the back, for me it's even stronger, and you just come out even more. And I know that's something I've taken with me because I've had the pleasure to work with you for since 2019 when I started with the Ole Miss Women's Council. And that opportunity to learn from you and see what you did, and the passion you have for the university and how important that is, has translated with me forward. And I mean even all your faith too.
Magee: So much of our, I think, we share a lot of things, I believe in, one, Dr. Scurlock, is what you speak of is a purpose. You have a purpose, you were called to it. And that's very much my journey and I have the same thing. And I know Alexis speaks of the same. We know in human happiness, we know in human joy, that having a purpose is such an important part of it. But when we talk about young people, they're on this journey, how do we help them find their purpose?
Dr. Scurlock: That's amazing. I think that finding purpose is a very personal journey, and I think that people have to believe that purpose is out there even when they do not understand it. Sometimes your purpose is simply to live through the moment. And I think that when you're 18, 19, 20 years old, your purpose is to live through the moment, to access all the things that you can while you can from the people you can at 18, 19, and 20, and just kind of have this faith, which is difficult to understand. I mean, if you had asked me 18, 19, 20, 21 years old what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, you would've had 25 different answers about what I wanted to do.
But I think just walking, trusting that there is something at large, there's something big. In some kind of way, all of your gifts, all of your skills, all of your ups, your downs, your ins and your outs are going to be used in a serviceable way. So sometimes the purpose simply is to find the purpose. And I see students get distracted or discouraged or upset because it feels like everybody else knows what they want to do. But even the ones that look like they know what they want to do, often don't know what they want to do, or they don't understand the depth of the calling.
So when you're in school, especially for my students who are high performance students in the classroom, when you're sitting there besides someone who said since they were in the first grade they wanted to be a doctor, and now they're in the pre-med track and they're already pre-accepted to medical school, and here you are reading books in English. How do you compare yourself? It can be really deflating. But it's okay. You just got to believe that you do the best you can at the level you're on. And if you do well on that level, it's going to open the door to the next thing.
It's kind of like what I said about my own career and my own journey that I was not in any way looking to become a dean. But then when I look back at the work that I did with the Ole Miss Women's Council, the work that I did on the athletics committee, the work I did in the classroom, the work I did as a faculty fellow, when I got ready to write up my application letter, all of it came together. I'm like, okay, I have been preparing to be a dean all along, even though that wasn't my vision.
So really purpose to me is one moment at a time, figuring it out and figuring out what is the thing that gives you peace, that gives you joy. And that's why I always say when people say, "How do you work so much," or, "How do you do so much," I don't have an answer to that. I just get up and do what has to be done. And I enjoy every bit of it. Every Sunday, I'm in one church in Batesville, Mississippi at 9:00 in the morning, then I go to Oakland, Mississippi at 11:00, and then-
Magee: Wait, you're preaching in more than one church?
Dr. Scurlock: I'm in two churches. I am. I thought you knew that, David. I am.
Magee: I thought that was an occasional thing.
Dr. Scurlock: No, that's every Sunday morning. Every Sunday morning we start out at 9:00 at First United Missionary Baptist Church, and then we go down to Alvis Grove Missionary Baptist Church at 11:00. And that's an interesting story. You probably don't want to spend your broadcast talking about how I ended up in two spaces.
Magee: I'm interested.
Dr. Scurlock: Okay, I'll tell you, and then you can cut it if you need to.
Magee: Bring it.
Dr. Scurlock: But the short story is, again, some of those things, I know what I'm passionate about, which is teaching, empowering, encouraging, engaging. So this guy started this church in Batesville, then he was called to go to Oklahoma, asked me would I come help. And I'm like, okay, I'll just come help him out. So I went over there to help out to stabilize this very small church, trying to get everything together for them. And people started joining. We were doing things, I got the finances together. And I called him and said, "Well, I got everything together, so whenever you're ready to hire a pastor, I think we're ready for the search." And he was like, "We're not looking for a pastor, you're the pastor." So that's kind of how I ended up in Batesville. I just had so much to give and it was given in overflow.
My first husband at the time was pastoring a church in Oakland. He's deceased. I was a widow. I'm remarried now. But he was in Oakland, Mississippi. He passed away. They asked would I help transition them after his death. And it was a kind of similar story that I went down to help them transition because they had been very good to my family, to my daughters, and ended up stepping in and serving as the pastor of that church also. That church was very different in nature. It's a church that's over 100 years old, founded in Reconstruction, powerful history, no history of women in ministry. In fact, and I'll be quiet, but I do want to say this, they did not believe in women in ministry at all.
Magee: Are you the first?
Dr. Scurlock: I'm the first. In fact, when my husband was alive, I wouldn't even go in the pulpit. Because they didn't believe in women in ministry. So again, I would just sit in the audience and say, "Amen," and wear shiny clothes.
Magee: Smile.
Dr. Scurlock: Shiny and smile real big, and pat on the babies. So that was my job. They did not believe in female ministers, and now here I am as their pastor. So life is good. It brings you to those moments and you just keep living. I went from being licensed to preach in Ohio, moving to Mississippi where nobody believed in female ministers in the Baptist tradition. And now to pastor two churches. It's something bigger than me at work. And I think it's at work for everybody. It's not just me. There's nothing special about me.
Magee: And you make a great point, and as you're talking about your journey, I keep going back to what you were saying in regard to students about how you try to help them think to keep moving through those moments and keep doing their work. That's kind of what faith empowers you to do, I think a lot of times. And it doesn't mean you're just going to get what you want in that moment, or it's going to go exactly like you want. What you're speaking of is resilience. And so many times the resilience is the empowering element of all of that that can pay great dividends when you least expect it.
Dr. Scurlock: I love that. And I think that we have to do better about sharing those narratives are not narratives that are straight, that they are up and down. And we make a lot of mistakes, and we have a lot of crying nights, and a lot of midnight hour things. I always say, and I don't know how spiritual you want to be or not want to be, but we love to quote the scripture that says, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." But the question is how long is the night? Sometimes the night is for months, sometimes it's for years, and sometimes it feels like you can't get out of that situation. And we need to be more honest about that.
When people celebrate where we have arrived, we need to be honest about what it took, and how many tears, and how many struggles, and how many failures, and how many doubts we had along the way. And that's one of the challenges of students who grow up or young people who grew up with this social media emphasis. And I don't consider social media fake. I feel like it just emphasizes the highlight reel.
Magee: It might look a little easy. Because when you talk about submitting your resume and you decide, okay, well I will apply for this job, and you have this body of work. The resume, kind of like the social media, doesn't always in that curated form allow for everything that happened in between. You talked about being widowed. What we know is you may have arrived at that point, but just like me on my journey, people say, "That's amazing where you've gotten." I'm like, "Yeah, it was a long hard crawl." That night was long.
Dr. Scurlock: It was long.
Magee: That night was long. And I think that with students, and even sometimes their parents, is helping them understand that it doesn't always feel great, but that is the human experience of how we get to joy. That's how we get to that destination is really learning that resilience and enduring that, and to be able to stand on the mountaintop.
Lee: I love what you're saying. In the Psalm 23, it says, "Through the valley of the shadow of death." It's like through it, you're not going to stay there in a way. And I remember I was talking to my counselor at one point and I was like, "I just wish the highs weren't so high and the lows weren't so low."
Dr. Scurlock: Oh, I love that.
Lee: And then she was like, "If you're looking for the middle ground, if you look at a heartbeat, you flatline if you just stay in the middle. You don't live."
Dr. Scurlock: Oh, wow.
Lee: And I always just keep that in my head of it's a heartbeat. It's a through. It's going to keep moving. You keep moving forward.
Dr. Scurlock: I love that analogy. I'm going to use that Sunday. Thank you.
Magee: Oh, Alexis just made her way to the pulpit.
Hi, I'm David Magee. Now more than ever before, parents need better information about the challenges facing their children, what sorts of issues to expect and when, and the warning signs to look for. From anxiety and depression to addiction, eating disorder and loneliness, students and their families are facing a mental health and substance misuse epidemic that requires new guidance.
My new book, Things Have Changed: What Every Parent and Educator Should Know About the Student Mental Health and Substance Misuse Crisis, offers a clear roadmap for helping students find the joy they want and deserve. Head over to themayolab.com to sign up for our newsletter and find a link to pre-order my new book. And everyone who signs up for our newsletter and pre-orders a copy of things has changed, will receive a digital copy of my expanded student toolbox. Visit themayolab.com today.
Lee: You are listening to the Mayo Lab Podcast with Magee. Now back to the episode.
Magee: Alexis, I'm dating myself because what I'm about to say is, to sound like the old guy sitting here to say when we were young, but I'm going to say that, back when I was young, there were plenty of pressures. They were self-applied, I think. That I certainly felt pressure to perform and excel because that's what you do as a young person. You're told to behave, to go to school, to do activities like sports or whatever and do well.
Where I sound like an old person is, I promise you things have changed. What young people feel as pressure today is so much more intense, and at times, I think unfair. They share with us that they feel they're not sure they can earn the money their parents earn, or buy the car that they were given, or even afford a college education. And if they're playing sports or activities, they're expected to be the best, and they're supposed to make A's. And I don't know where this goes, but it seems like a lot of pressure has mounted on teens and students today like never before.
Lee: I think it really has. And I know, I'll speak from experience, when I was in college, I was on a volleyball scholarship here. And so there was a lot of other, you have to perform in school, but you also have to do all these other things to be on the team and to be a part of it. And so when I was in college though, even I had classmates that were talking about their parents only gave them four years to finish their college degree. And whether that was you finished with an actual degree you signed up for, or you just finished with a bunch of credits and you didn't really have a degree, you had four years. And I think it's even gotten heightened to this point. Dr. Scurlock, and I know you work with students a lot and probably can speak to this better of the pressure students feel to be successful in college and get a degree has escalated.
Dr. Scurlock: I agree. I think the pressure comes from a lot of different directions. So as you began to speak about some of the economic pressures, I mean the costs are astronomical, and I don't think there's anything that we can do about that. I don't think it's turning back. And so when I was in school, people could get a part-time job and put themselves through school. The economy does not uphold that. The cost of tuition is so much more per year than what most people are making as a salary full-time with multiple degrees. So it just does not uphold that. And that economic pressure is a lot. People feel like, if I'm going to invest this much, I want it to pay off.
The other pressure that I think parents don't often think about and understand is that there's been a big shift in what it means for students to go to college. Number one, there is information coming at them in a very different way, very rapid kind of movement of information. So it wasn't many years ago, 20, 25 years ago, where if you wanted to do a research paper, you went to the library, you went to the card catalog. You got a card, and you went and physically found this information. And now it's changing on a daily basis. There is a different pressure.
The other pressure that's very different is even in terms of when I was in school, we had a Tuesday, Thursday class, and a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday class. If I had a paper due in my English class, that meant Tuesday and Thursday, I would write my paper out and I would bring it to class on Thursday. There was no way that I could miss that deadline. Now, your Tuesday, Thursday class may say, "Your paper's due Sunday night." Then your Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is saying this is due Wednesday morning. The times, the way things come at you nonstop, there's never a break. That's real for our students. And so to make a joke out of it, to take it lightly that they're under pressure, I think really is a disservice, and really means that we're not taking an honest and sincere look at how the world has changed for young adults today.
Magee: And you right there just hit on something so important, Dr. Scurlock. When I talk to college students around the country, and when I talk to high school students, they talk about being overwhelmed. They feel overwhelmed by the schedule. And I have learned that some of the high schools, so a lot of we do in the William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing and the Mayo Lab within that, is try to get into schools. I'm in a lot of schools throughout the country. I get to meet with a lot of students and parents, and listen and learn. And we're trying to bring it back in so we can think what we can curate and help spit back out and engage others.
You just put your finger on, I think, one of the key elements, which is how the schedule has changed in a bit of a chaotic way. And I think the rest of us, parents and educators, maybe don't realize that impact. Where I'm seeing some positive results are schools that have decided to really think about how to emphasize teaching calendaring better. When freshmen arrive, I often tell them, parents say, or freshman, "Hey, what's one piece of advice?" And I'll say, "You know that calendar on your smartphone? Learn how to use that." And they will laugh, but I say, "That thing will save you and it also can transform you."
And so, in some of our schools work, we're beginning to think about sharing with others and maybe bringing others to the table around how to engage around creating perhaps some kind of interactive calendar. And because we're seeing that that's such an incredible element. So in the Honors College, look, that's some high demand. I know.
Dr. Scurlock: It is.
Magee: My son William was in the McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. He made A's throughout. He had a phenomenal experience. I was always amazed at how deep his education was. I was always amazed at the rigor of it. So when a student comes in and starts this program, I mean, what kind of messaging do you guys try to send to them as here's what you're embarking upon and here's how we'll navigate this together?
Dr. Scurlock: I have to be honest to say I'm not sure that we fully navigate that well in terms of how we welcome our students on campus. One thing I can say I do is we try to keep our doors open. We try to always engage. I do a weekly dean's message where I talk about some of the issues, or some of the pressures. Inviting students to come by and asking them to connect with us so we can connect them to resources on campus. So I really do try to push the resources out, to tell them about places like the Magee Center.
But I'm not sure that I have any kind of magical answer about how we address this. I think it's especially important that we think about it in the state of Mississippi. I know you have some passion and interest in rural education, and what does that mean?
Magee: Very much so.
Dr. Scurlock: But what I worry about is the fact that we are a state institution, we're a flagship institution. What a student gets in terms of educational preparation and calendaring, being able to calendar from a private academy or from an academy, a school in a, what do I want to say, an affluent school district is very different.
Magee: Well, you could have a public school district that has an endowment, right?
Dr. Scurlock: That's correct. That's correct. Versus, and many of our kids from rural Mississippi, are still old school, like I said I was. They're handwriting papers. They're turning them in in class. They don't know how to use all these different systems. So I try to make them aware that it's okay not to know. A student can come in as a freshman at the University of Mississippi, they're going to have to learn Blackboard as one platform. Then they're going to have to learn another platform for their math classes, another platform for modern languages, another platform for the science classes. So there's this rapid fire that you can adjust to if you've come from an affluent school district. if you have never had to use any platform, and all of a sudden you're using all of these platforms, it is scary, and it can make a student feel like they're ready to drop out.
So the thing that I think that we do best is to reach out to our students over and over again to pay attention to progress, to pay attention to the class attendance, pay attention to what's happening in those classes so we can catch students early on. And then if I have someone that says, "I'm struggling," let me let them know it's okay to struggle. Let's connect you to these resources. Let's teach you those resources and let's help you succeed. And that's been one of my challenges in Luckyday and in the Honors College to make sure students know when they come into my office, they're not coming in there for punishment or because you failed. We're coming because we want to help you create a success plan.
Magee: As they might say in the congregation, amen. Amen to that, I do feel strongly about creating access and equity and all for education. You can look even in our region. We're based at the University of Mississippi, and in our region we have regions like the Mississippi Delta. There's not far away the Alabama Black Belt. And actually, if you go traverse throughout this country, there are deserts all over in pockets.
Nd that my daughter told me when she arrived at the university, she said, "By the time I came up, and then went through nursing school also, I was prepared because I had those advantages. I was taught how to study. I was taught how to use Blackboard." So she says, "I didn't have a cold start there." And she really articulated that well and helped me understand.
I have dreams, you think about it'd be fun when you think about the capacity of students you have in the Honors College, and we'll just take the Mississippi Delta, or areas of underserved students, is it's very exciting to think about potential collaboration. Because what I love to do, and you said it early on, so I know it's what you love to do, listening to students is the magic. What I always say is they have a lot of the answers. And I think that if we can deepen our engaging with students to help us solve these problems.
I led a seminar once over in the Delta region. I was involved with Mississippi Today, the nonprofit news organization, just as they were getting organized. And I went through this listening session. And we invited young people through the Delta region to come to this listening session. We're just listening. I'm just facilitating. I wish I could tell you this was my idea. It was their idea. Because they begin to talk about how we are talented, but we don't get the resources to help us understand our capacity. They said, "What if somebody taught us in high school filmmaking? We could be great filmmakers." And that's a burgeoning business right now. And it's very hot.
I was in Baltimore recently, and I looked at a well funded school, and they are teaching craft woodworking. And somebody else is showing me beekeeping, which by the way, in this era, see, I like that, right? Beekeeping, which is a highly profitable craft business. It is very good for the environment. Which for example, in an ag area like the Mississippi Delta, fits it so well. I'm like, we need to be teaching students how to sell honey and bee keep. And we can all laugh, except what a beautiful, amazing business.
And I think getting young people around the table in these types of solutions, because these were not my ideas. These were not my ideas. These came from young people. So that listening, I think it really is the gateway to opportunity there. So in your work, because you did come through the resume, so to speak, whereas you talked about it the resilience along the way, and it wasn't easy. But now you are dean of the Honors College, you are preaching twice on Sunday, and you do have a family. Once you do achieve some things, how do you manage yourself in that? How are you doing in that?
Dr. Scurlock: I don't know how I manage myself. So one of the thing I should have said earlier, when we talk about how I do everything, I do have good teams around me. Starting with my family team, then the staff members I work with. So I don't have to do everything by myself. Managing myself requires doctor's visits to make sure that I'm doing the right things in terms of my health. Also doing a lot of escape. And I will have to say, my husband is a great partner and friend. I'm so thankful I married him in this season. He's a country man from Charleston, Mississippi, and he likes country things. And so he likes to do things like get in ATVs. We get on side by sides, and four wheelers, and ride in the mud. And that allows me to get away, have a good time, not think about having to be an academic, not having to service anybody.
And one thing about this work, you know when you do work that's in front of people, people don't allow you the opportunity to be off. So I can be in Walmart and somebody will say, "I've been looking for you," and they want to tell me their problems, or what they need, or what their child needs. And I'm going to stop and I'm going to listen-
Magee: Because that's you.
Dr. Scurlock: That's me.
Magee: You can't turn it off.
Dr. Scurlock: Yeah. And that's our job, right? So I do that. But if I'm out there in the mud, having a good time, nobody can bother me. So that's a very big part of my identity now, being able to get out, walk, do the mud, and really stay on top of my health. I will say that I've had moments where I was so busy serving other people, I did not serve myself. But we know it's cliche, but it's true that if I don't serve myself, I won't be around to serve anybody else.
And I started doing that in increments, even with my children at a very young age, to say, because I do work Sunday through Friday, I stopped doing Saturday engagements. No matter how good the engagement was, I had to learn that I couldn't be at every engagement. So Friday night is date night with my husband. And when my children were at home, that was their day, whatever they wanted to do. They would sit around in their pajamas or go shopping or whatever, I just had to have that time for them. And when I'm off on Sunday, when I finish that second sermon, I'm off. I mean, I am off for real.
Magee: Hey, two sermons in a row, I would be exhausted.
Dr. Scurlock: And I am. I am. I'm absolutely off. I'm about to go hang out with family and have a good time and be myself. So those are some of the things I do. I don't know.
Magee: Alexis, a lot of wisdom has been imparted so far, that might be number one. The most important thing we can do for ourselves often is learn the word no. And it starts with saying no to others, but it also is foundationally saying no to ourselves. Because we want to be pleasers and we want to be yes people. I'm very impressed that you can draw that line because when you are a people person, so-called, it's not that easy.
Dr. Scurlock: Yes.
Lee: What advice do you have for students? Because I know when I talk to students, and I say, "Take time for yourself, time block, self-care time," and their fear is, but I'm missing out on all these things my friends are doing, or I'm missing out on an experience. What advice would you give to students specifically as they're trying to stand up those barriers?
Dr. Scurlock: Oh, I think it's bigger than any piece of advice I could give. They talk about FOMO, fear of missing out. But most things that you're going to miss out on, you'll get another opportunity to do. Especially if you're at Ole Miss. If you miss one party, there's another one that same night.
Magee: There's another one coming.
Dr. Scurlock: That same night, there's another one. So I mean, it's not like you're not going to have another opportunity to be at a party. We have so many organizations. If you don't take that leadership position, I promise there's another one that needs you. Really just believing that you can't do everything and do everything well. You have to make some decisions about what you really want to do. And I don't know how to fix that. I mean, for example, many of our students are professional box checkers. That's how they got to where they are. They learned how to be. I had a student tell me, for every organization, they were the vice president because they didn't want to be the president because the president had to do all the work, and they knew vice president still looked good. So I mean, they are savvy-
Lee: They are.
Dr. Scurlock: ... about-
Magee: They're savvy.
Dr. Scurlock: ... accepting about all these different obligations. So I think the pressure is for real. I also think that they have to believe if they whittle down and choose to do the things that they do and do those things well, deeper is often better than being wider. I just like to go deep into what I do. So again, even though I said I'm in these different locations, it's the same thing. So I'm always going deeper and always trying to figure out how to do what I do.
So for example, my father was a pastor, and my mom always wanted church musicians for children. So we took piano lessons for years. And so I would have to play the piano at the church when I was growing up. But I'm an awful piano player. I'm awful. I can play about eight hymns, and I might mess up in the middle of those eight. So I'm awful. So on Sunday morning, am I going to spend my time over here on the piano just to say I did it?
Magee: Just to check a box.
Dr. Scurlock: Yeah, check my box and broaden my resume to say, not only am I a pastor, I'm also a church musician. I could, but would it be useful for anybody? It would not. It would take away from the thing I'm really called to do, and it would take away from the broader service. So I encourage students to find the thing that you really do and focus on those things and do them well. And it's okay to say no. You'll have another opportunity to say yes.
Magee: Somebody told me several years ago, well see, it was probably about 12 years ago when my life had crashed and I was getting back up on my feet. So even by then I was in my mid 40s. It was kind of like what students face, because I felt like I was 21 all over again. What am I going to do with my life? I'm starting anew. And I remember getting some advice because I had been doing that. I was building a resume of I've done this and I have done that. And I was checking boxes, and it felt like running the proverbial hamster wheel.
And somebody I respected as a friend and in business, they said, "You know what? You've got some talent. And what you ought to think about is about just what two or three things can you accomplish in a year?" They said, "If you could do two or three things with that talent really well, it will far out shadow what you can do trying to prove you're everything." And I think that goes back to your organ playing. What's the point? What's the point? Did you feel pressure from your mother to see that all the way through, or was that-
Dr. Scurlock: I did. I did. I mean she kept us in lessons, and we had to go, we to take lessons, we had to show up. And I grew up in a rural church. So if the musician didn't show up, we were doing it. So we saw it through as much as she could force us to. And once I hit college-
Magee: You were like goodbye?
Dr. Scurlock: ... that was over with. That was over with. Yes. It was over with.
Magee: The moral of that story, and there's an important moral, is that our parents aren't wrong for trying to give us exposure to things. And so I'm not suggesting that. But at the end of the day, what we have to remember about young people is they are going to go where they are going to go.
Dr. Scurlock: I love that. I love that. And I appreciate the discipline. Even my mom made us take ballet lessons. You can look at me and tell that was not a good idea. But I was doing ballet and tap, and all these different things. They taught discipline. They taught how to stick to things. They taught me even how to fail, how to do things not well. How to not be at the top of something and cheer other people on. It's okay not to be the best at everything. It's okay to be the worst one in the class and stay in the class and do what you're supposed to do, and then celebrate the ones who do it really, really well. So I mean, every lesson, I think every opportunity, every engagement is an opportunity to learn something about what your purpose is on this planet and something about what your purpose is not on this planet.
Magee: Well, and I think that is the magic, right? Alexis hears, we talk a lot about management, about how we find our place, or what our calling is, and being able to say no. And I think one thing I appreciate, Alexis, is we talk often about what we're not good at. And we are not all good at everything. I myself, I always say, "Don't ask me to teach algebra. Do not ask me. If you want me-
Dr. Scurlock: Don't ask me to take an algebra test.
Magee: Yeah, yeah. Don't ask me to take an algebra test either. I did pass it, but it was not pretty. But that's okay. That's okay. And it does take some humility though. And it took me really deepening the learning about myself that, at times I needed to spend more time focusing on really what I'm not good at, so I can just let that go and/or let it be a learning lesson, and be able to parlay it into strengths. And I think with young people in particular, and it's a good lesson for parents and all, it's like it's not helping them empower themselves with that freedom to not be all things. And that's such an important message that you are all talking about is you don't have to be all things. And there's real freedom once you let it go.
Lee: There is. And I was just reading and taking some assessments learning about myself and how I work well in work and my skills. And it was talking about, there's some areas that are not my strengths. And it said, "If you spend too much time in them, that's how you feel burnt out. That's how you lose joy and passion and purpose." And I want that to be something students learn more and lean into more to understand it's not your strength. God didn't give you that. You're not supposed... You have so many other strengths, you can lean into those. But if you try and fit this square weakness into a round strength hole, it's going to force more pressure on you. It's going to force uncomfortability. And I know when I was in a season of burnout, I look at my weakness or the things I was not gifted at, and that's all I was doing. I wasn't giving myself space or time to do the things I am really disciplined at because I was trying to make these weaknesses more strengths.
Magee: And sometimes, Alexis, that is powerful. And sometimes, Alexis, well-meaning parents, hear me. You mean well. You love your child. You want from them so much to be what you want. And what you just said, Alexis, one of the most important things, any parent listening today, if you could just take a moment, even if it requires having them take a formal test. Though as a teen, their personalities will morph and change. They're not all set. But really parents, I think that can more understand the personality assets of their children might help them not necessarily push them into these spots that create their burnout.
And I think that, Alexis and I were at a meeting in Georgia recently where we're talking to some leaders in education and there was a lot of time spent on this subject about what are some programs we can perhaps put in place in K through 12 that can do a better job of students helping assess their personality. You're talking about you just took one. Well, Alexis and I work together. We've even done our own personality assessments to see, and guess what, our skills match up very well together. Strengths against weaknesses make a good team. But helping young people better understand it's not just that you have to take this class to get a degree. It also is helpful to understand who you are.
Dr. Scurlock: Absolutely. And I think as parents, we really have to step back, and it can be very difficult. I think about my own journey with my daughters. My oldest daughter graduated from the university in 2019. And so my path had been, as soon as I finished my undergrad, I did my master's and I did my PhD. And because she had the resources, the opportunity, and the ability, I wanted her to do the same thing. I wanted her to just jump into a graduate program. And then I'm like, "Okay, take a year off and then we'll do it." And so after working a year for a corporation, she decided she wanted to do an internship with a nonprofit in Nashville. And we said, "Okay, I'll help support that as long as you're applying for graduate school while you do that."
Magee: Stay on my track.
Dr. Scurlock: Yeah, you got to stay on my track, but I'm going to pay for it. So I did. She took the internship. We took care of her. And as she got towards the end of that internship, she was really not happy. She was beginning to have a whole new level of stress and anxiety. And finally I'm like, "Jasmine, do you want to go to graduate school?" She was like, "No." And I'm like, "Well, then you don't have to." And she cried. She was like, "Are you sure?" I'm like, "Yeah. Plenty of people get a degree, and they're finished and they live for a lifetime." But as a parent, as much as I say be who you are, I found myself trying to push my child into a place that didn't fit her in that moment. If she goes back, she goes back. And like I told her, you'll be a young adult, and you'll fund it, and you'll do it when you're ready. And if you don't, that's okay too. It's not a failure. You're amazing. So she's doing nonprofit work and having a good time and enjoying it [inaudible 00:46:48].
Magee: My son Hudson, always say I'm so proud of him. I look at who he is, I look at what he does for a living. I look at how he engages with other people. And if you had asked me when he was young, even into high school, is that the career picture I would've drawn up? He's great in sales. He thrives in selling real estate. Just got his broker's license. He has a craft ice cream company. He's an expert in fly fishing. But what he really is an extraordinary human. I'm telling you, I've never heard him pass judgment on another human. And in fact, once he heard me, and I hope it was just once, and he calmly paused and said, "Dad, that's not going to serve you well."
Dr. Scurlock: Oh wow. What a powerful statement.
Magee: Just think about where that's coming from. And he's a quiet person and doesn't talk as much as I do. But when he talks, he carries a big stick. But I say all that to say is look at who he is. Yet, if someone had given me a marker when he was in middle school or high school, or my wife a marker, and we thought we had one, to draw up what his life would look like, it wouldn't have looked the same. Joke is on us, parents. Joke is on us. Just like you with your daughter.
Dr. Scurlock, one really important question to me, as we near running out of time, so back to you. And you have had a remarkable career. And what I'd love to say about you is it's not done yet. And you're where you're supposed to be and you are thriving in that. And so many students and those you work with get to benefit. But there's more work ahead from you.
But I must ask you, as you reflect back, and you've been through this path of where, you came into education and been a tenured professor, and then moved into management of the leadership with the residential college, and like you said, this long resume. I think a lot of young people, when I talk to young people, they share a lot to me about imposter syndrome. And I relate to them because I always have the same thing. The difference in me is I work at a university and I have a bachelor's degree. And I'm very proud of that bachelor's degree because it wasn't in the cards for me. That's just where I am.
But at times people say, "Well, this is so amazing. You've had a bestselling book," or, "You've achieved this," but I battle feeling at times, despite achievements, do I belong here? And what I find as I talk to people, I think everybody at some time along their journey has some degree of that. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, I have no idea how you feel, but as you've been on this journey, tell me about how you've taken steps along the way and how you have felt in this.
Dr. Scurlock: So if we want to talk about this idea of imposter syndrome, I think I don't feel so much that I'm an imposter. But I do feel that idea-
Magee: Well, you're not. I'm talking about your-
Dr. Scurlock: Well, I don't know. I may be. I may not be self-aware.
Magee: No, no, no.
Lee: Oh, no, no, no.
Dr. Scurlock: No. But I saying-
Magee: I'm talking about the feelings.
Dr. Scurlock: Yeah. No, I was going to say I feel the idea of not belonging. And I remember a trusted mentor who I still consider a mentor and a friend, once I was an English professor, tenured as an English professor, had no joy in doing their work at all. Just absolutely no joy. Had to figure out another way. I loved the teaching part, didn't like the research. Didn't like so much departmental service or service to the profession, had to figure out a way to transition out and had connections to that.
But as I was trying to figure out how do I transition and do something different, I remember talking to a mentor at the university. And he said, "Well, this place is not for everybody." And that kind broke my heart. I didn't come here for you to tell me it's not my place. I came to get guidance about how I create the space to be in this space. Not mad at them, I still consider them a mentor and friend. They said all they knew how to say at that moment.
But there are many moments when I felt like maybe this isn't the space. Maybe as a female, or maybe as an African American that maybe I'm trying to push the envelope too much. But when I feel that, I just kind of try to talk back to it, David. That's all I can say. But I think there are a lot of things that make you feel that way. I think about even serving on the athletics committee. I had the opportunity to serve on a search committee that hired one of our athletics directors in the past, and that hired one of our football coaches. And I was so excited that they invited me to be a part of this committee. And so I'm reading everything, and trying to read the message boards and everything about this. And got on the message board one day, and they were like, "I can't believe they let a hyphe on the committee." And I'm like, what in the world? What is a hyphe? I didn't know what that was. And so I'm like, who is the hyphe? So I'm going down the committee and trying to figure it out.
Magee: You're like, who is this person they speak of?
Dr. Scurlock: Yeah. Which one is the hyphe? I'm looking it up. I can't figure it out. I'm Googling it. And I'm like, is this some kind of religious faith? What is the hyphe? And so I could not figure out who the hyphe was, and why they were on the committee. And finally I realized, I don't know how it finally got to me, that the hyphe was a woman with a hyphenated name. And my name was Ethel Young-Minor at the time. And so they were mad that I, as a woman with a hyphenated name, was allowed to serve on this committee. So they're those moments where you feel like, yeah, I don't belong, but I must belong because I keep getting asked to come back and show up and do the work that I do. So I just kind of show up and do the work no matter what.
Magee: And we are so thankful you do.
Dr. Scurlock: Thank you.
Magee: And I think your power and your resilience down to being the first woman to take the pulpit in a church that wasn't used to it, down to your leadership in the university. Look, you're blazing new ground and you're doing it. You are not an imposter. You are carrying the power and the strength of something bigger than all of us, and we're so thankful.
Dr. Scurlock: Thank you.
Magee: Yes. Thank you. Dr. Scurlock. Thanks for listening to us on the Mayo Lab Podcast, and also for Lee, we shall see you next time.
Lee: Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Mayo Lab Podcast. The Mayo Lab Podcast is produced by Dr. Natasha Jeter, Dr. Meagen Rosenthal, Magee, Lee, and Slade Lewis. This podcast was recorded at Broadcast Studio in Oxford, Mississippi. The show was mixed and mastered by Clay Jones, and our original music was composed by Slade Lewis. The Mayo Lab Podcast is brought to you by The William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing. For more information on The Mayo Lab, head over to themayolab.com, and follow us on social media @TheMayoLab.
If you enjoyed listening to The Mayo Lab Podcast with Magee, we need your help. Tell others about it. And we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you are listening to this podcast. This podcast represents the opinions of Magee and guests of the show. This podcast is not intended to be a substitute for the medical advice of a licensed counselor or physician. The listeners should consult with their mental health professional in any matters relating to his or her health or the health of a child.