PRES. HARROZ: Hi, I'm Joe Harroz, President of the University of Oklahoma. I want to welcome you to our Conversations with the President. This platform gives me the chance to talk to some of the great people who make OU so special. Make sure you are subscribed to Conversations with the President, and you will be the first to know when new episodes are released.
Let’s get started. Alright, first things first. I want to thank OU women's basketball head coach Jennie Baranczyk who joined us for the last episode and did a remarkable job. If you have not done so, please go back and listen to that episode. She is absolutely terrific, and while you are doing that, subscribe to Conversations with the President so you can get every new episode when it's released. Get it before your neighbor so that when they're talking about it, you already have it. You don't want to be behind that conversation.
Today's episode is absolutely exciting. It is the first time that we've had somebody join us via Zoom, joining us remotely. We are bringing in Randall Stephenson who rose to the position of CEO of AT&T and we thought what better than to challenge our IT department by doing one via Zoom for him. We are excited about it and can't wait for you to listen to this coming episode.
All right, now it is absolutely my favorite time of the year, it's graduation time. For the students, they are in dead week right now heading towards final so it's not quite so much fun for them, but they are heading towards graduation. It's a week from this Friday. Each year, we try and find a speaker that will truly inspire our students. This year is especially exciting for us, and it brings us to our guest on this episode of Conversations with the President. We didn't just look for someone who is a global leader, and someone who had accomplished at scale and had great character, that is always the objective, but this year we thought it would be wonderful to find one of our own. Someone that was an OU alum and who is still deeply part of the University of Oklahoma, and that brought us to our friend Randall Stephenson. Randall Stephenson is former chair and CEO of AT&T. He is our commencement speaker. You will hear more, but he had a 40-year career, it was Southwestern Bell turned in ultimately into AT&T. He is so plugged into the University of Oklahoma and in a much broader community. I just what to say thank you and welcome, Randall Stephenson for joining us. It's great to have you here.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Thank you, Joe. It's a pleasure to be here.
PRES. HARROZ: I have had the absolute pleasure of getting to know you and I know your story so I'm dying to tell it, but I think people tuned in because they want to hear from you. So could you tell us about – you’re truly Sooner born and Sooner bred. Tell us about your upbringing?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Joe, my upbringing probably looks like about 80% of the people that are in the University of Oklahoma graduating this year. I grew up in the state. In fact, I grew up 8 miles north of campus in Moore, Oklahoma. Toby Keith and I graduated at the same school, Moore, Oklahoma. Went to high school there, Toby likes to brag, but only his name is on the outside of the water tower in Moore. I tell Toby mine is on the inside of the water tower and mama always said it’s what’s inside that counts. So anyway, I grew up in that community, and I grew up in a classic middleclass family, and just grew up loving Sooner football, loving all things Oklahoma.
PRES. HARROZ: I absolutely love it. Toby does take great pride in that. I saw him at the softball game this past weekend, and mentioned you are coming here, and he took great pride in echoing a very similar story with a slightly different spin.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: I’m sure.
PRES. HARROZ: So you often talk about one of the things we hope for our students, you have seen our strategic plan, and one of the five pillars is to prepare students for a life of success and meaning and impact. You know as you went through your childhood in Moore and then ultimately coming to get your masters at OU, how do you feel OU influenced you?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Well OU was huge in terms of teaching me the things that I needed to succeed, and not just in my job and in career, but in life. And I reflect a lot on my time at Oklahoma, particularly in graduate school. In graduate school, I know people that I did not learn the subject matter, I did, but I really learned more than anything was how to think, how to reason, how to respond to challenge. How to respond to aggressive challenge in a classroom doing case studies and so forth. I also – I had professors, one I always reference is Dr. (inaudible) who I just loved, but she had an approach when you were learning dry, sterile, boring things like tax law or accounting theory and those types of things, to always push you to go back and understand what were the people who put these rules in place trying to accomplish? What was their motivation? That's one of those things that regardless of what you are doing in life, if you come at a problem where you are trying to get to a solution with a counterparty, always having an appreciation for what are they trying to accomplish moves you quicker to a solution, moves you quicker to success than anything is. I just always look back these what I would call bedrock learnings, bedrock principles, how to think, how to reason that have helped me more than anything else as I went in the world of business.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, it is fascinating. I always enjoy our conversations because we are so similar. We are basically twins in the sense that I will tell a story about meeting with the University President, and then you will tell me a story about meeting with a US president. Those are vastly different things. I will talk about meeting this president you will say yes, when I was talking with President Obama or President Trump, those are engaging stories. So are you telling me that as the quintessential Oklahoman, that the tools that you learned at OU and that you gained by growing up in Moore, Oklahoma have translated well into the global stage?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Not only translated well, they have proven to be universal tools. And when I look around me, my peers who are other CEOs or even leaders in our government, they are the same tools that when I look at the ones whom I admire, they're the same tools that they actually deploy in how they interact with people and how they try to affect change. So yes, they are not only critical in terms of developing me, but I also see them as critical in some of the greatest leaders that I've interacted.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah. Now that is interesting. In this role as OU President, whenever I am with student leadership groups, one of the questions I always get asked and it goes to your point about making sure you know what the counterparty to a negotiation wants to accomplish. The question that I almost always get from student leaders I would love to pose to you and that question is, what advice would you give to someone who is starting off their college career, in fact, they usually sharpen it to say what advice would you give to yourself if you could advise yourself when you were a freshman coming into OU, what advice would you have given yourself?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Don't worry about your next job or your next opportunity. Whatever position, role, business you step into, step into it in that moment with nothing but a focused, concerted effort to do that task or that role as best as you possibly can. That is one of the things that I always loved about recruiting out of the University of Oklahoma when I ran AT&T. You brought (inaudible) 99 times out of 100 that’s the kind of person you got. And what I have found is you come in and you master a task, you master a role, you fundamentally change how that role or responsibility is done. You don't stay in that role very long. You get asked to do other difficult things. And I will never forget one time I had gone through my career early on and I would step into a roll and I would be asked to clean it up, you clean it up and as soon as you got it cleaned up and running great, they would throw you into another mess. And I will never forget going to who was the CFO of Southwestern Bell, at the time, expressing my frustration every time I fix one of your messes, you turn around and throw me into another one. And he just paused, and he looked at me and he said you are finally beginning to understand your value to this organization.
That is exactly what every individual ought to come into their role thinking and doing, fix it, make it better, move onto the next thing. I have always told people if you find yourself in a job that you have been in for 10,15 years, you ought to ask why. There is probably a reason. And if you are not being asked to go do other challenging, difficult things, it is probably an indication that you have not really dealt with, in a great way, what you have before you at the moment.
PRES. HARROZ: No, I think that is absolutely wise. So oftentimes, students will look at someone like you and say well he must have had some huge advantage that allowed him to make it to become CEO of AT&T. AT&T is enormous, right? It is a fortune, inside the Fortune 15, probably around Fortune 10 in terms of size of companies, probably quarter of a million employees worldwide. I mean, it is just an absolute giant. It can't be that a kid from Moore, Oklahoma makes it to the CEO position at AT&T. I love the story of how you got your first job and tell us how you worked your way up.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: I got my first job at Southwestern Bell. I like to say I got it the old-fashioned way. My brother got me on. My brother is an installer for AT&T in Norman, Oklahoma still to this day. And my wife Lanise, she was the school, and I remember asking her if she would marry me and she said yeah, I'll marry you, but you better get a job. I talked to my brother, I got on at Southwestern Bell working in the data center in the tape room and had the most menial, boring job you could ever imagine. I hung 9inch tapes, and most of your students would not even know what a 9inch tape is, storage tapes on tape drives to run billing jobs. And it was absolutely awful. There is a classic case I went into that job and thought there has to be a more efficient way of doing this. And so I took that role and changed it, they put me on something else and over time I was doing things like runner operations, (inaudible) came back in the middle of a bunch of deal making we were doing at the time, rolling up other telephone companies. I got to be engaged in running some of those processes. Soon I was CFO and then CO. My wife, she doesn't know how it happened either and she looks at me and says how could this have possibly happened with you.
PRES. HARROZ: It’s those notes of confidence that helps.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Right opportunities at the right time, and I had a great experience.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, it really is pretty amazing to try and take a 40-year career and summarize it from entrylevel job that your brother, who was a line worker, gets you all the way to becoming CEO. I mean, it is truly sort of the great Oklahoma and Great American story of what can happen.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: You know, you called it the American story, and as farfetched as what you just articulated is or seems, it is not that uncommon in this country for an individual with no pedigree or no significant background in these areas to be given the opportunity to pursue an education at a reasonable cost, and with that education be given opportunities to do some of the things you and I have been able to do over the years. As farfetched as it seems, it is not. It is not that unheard of and it’s not that unusual in this country. That is what makes this country such a unique and beautiful place.
PRES. HARROZ: You know, I think it is fascinating. You know, it's at the cornerstone of a belief I have, and I would love to get your take on it that the length that allows for that kind of story to be possible, the accelerant that must be there is high quality, affordable, higher education available to anyone that has the talent and the drive regardless of economic circumstance. Is that a fair statement?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Not only fair, but it just happens to be accurate and true. Look, I was fortunate I grew up in Oklahoma at a time when from a public policy standpoint, we appreciated the importance of higher education, and we invested taxpayer dollars in higher education, and unfortunately you know, as budgets get tight, we seem to have pulled back on that, but I have to say were it not for the ability to get an education when I was in school for $15 a credit hour. I laugh when I think about that, but $15 a credit hour to go to school. I was able to get a full highquality education. I graduated without a single nickel of debt, and that gave me the opportunity to pursue the things that you and I have been talking about. I really, I regret that we as a society have not appreciated the significance of what an investment in the education of our young people produces and how it actually, the returns that it creates for the state and the taxpayer, but yeah I very much agree with your sentiment that higher education, when done right and delivered properly like I think we do at the University of Oklahoma, the return on investment to a society.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, no it is fascinating. I think in many ways that the American dream is only possible as long as we provide that. And not just it's interesting I started school a few years behind you and my tuition had jumped all the way to $35 an hour. Yet somehow, I was able to handle that. But I think in so many ways, that without that, the American dream becomes less attainable. And so that is certainly to how we think here. Alright, you're rising
RANDALL STEPHENSON: It is attainable to fewer people, that is probably the better way – the way I think about it and the beauty of lowcost education is it makes it available to all people in society, not just a select few.
PRES. HARROZ: Yes, I would agree with that completely. One of the things I'm most proud of here is that right now, at a time when we are growing in record ways, and like many private institutions, you know over a quarter of our students are the first in the history of their family to go past high school, and that is what my dad did for our family, and it changed us. So there is a beauty and an importance that extends beyond the individual family to our collective selves as a state and a nation. I could go off on that for a while, I know you could too. I will circle back. You are big, fancy, former CEO of AT&T.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: That is what defines me is fancy.
PRES. HARROZ: That is exactly right. You know I have seen you on a ranch and you look more comfortable there than anywhere. You know, as you think about the challenges that you faced on your way to becoming CEO and while CEO of this global business superpower. While you were there, what were the biggest challenges that you faced?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Oh my. You know when you are running a company when I retired, the company was $180 billion in revenues. We were in, at that time, I think 190 countries around the world, and we had the largest fulltime labor union in the United States. We were investing more capital than any other company in the United States for like the tenure of my years as CEO. And so you are faced with constant really big challenges. As you think about what you were trying to accomplish as a company invariably, unfortunately, your success or failure would run through Washington DC and public policy, and even litigation and regulation. And so you ended up spending a lot of time in the world of public policy, and rulemaking, and you are thrown before the Senate to testify while you are trying to do a certain thing and you would have Senators challenging you and trying to embarrass you. You would have interactions as you articulated earlier with presidents trying to help them formulate policy around taxes and what would stimulate investment, and create incentives to invest in broadband, which was in everybody's best interest.
And so it was invariably, it was those issues around public policy that created the greatest challenges. I have always said that if we could just get a set of rules that were defined, whether they were good or bad for a particular company, they just are what they are, define them and leave them alone for five years, watch what US business will do. US business will invest under those rules, they will hire under those rules, they will provide healthcare under those rules and do all the things that make this country great. But unfortunately, the rules, particularly in this day and age, move not every year. They move every month. And so you are running a big company trying to make multibilliondollar investments that have paybacks over multiple years, man when you have a structure like that, it makes it really, really hard. That is where I spent a disproportionate, unfortunately, amount of my time.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, it is interesting and probably completely uninteresting to our audience right now, but as I look at this, it makes me think about the US Supreme Court case they just picked up around the Chevron doctrine, which might change the pace at which administrative agencies can change the rules. And I had not thought about it from a business angle, to me that is a fascinating perspective.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Oh boy, the old Chevron doctrine and to your point, people will start falling asleep if we get into it, but that is a court ruling, a precedent that gives the administrative element, the bureaucracy of a lot of power and how the rules are set, and that is what allows the rules to change month to month literally.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, it is fascinating and the US Supreme Court has just taken this up for those that don't follow administrative law in the US Supreme Court every day, it will be before the court in the October term, and then out a year from this June. All right, so it is interesting. In addition to being CEO of AT&T, there is a group that is known as the Business Roundtable and the Business Roundtable is the top 200 businesses in the United States. They get together and try and influence and discuss US policy from the perspective of businesses. They represent one in four people employed in the United States, and you were chair of that organization, of the Business Roundtable, and so you had a front row seat on behalf of not just AT&T, but all of US business at that scale into the White House into Congress. In that role, we know you have spoken to presidents and major world leaders, but as you look at that and reflect back on your time, what do you think – and it may dovetail with what you just said, but it might be different and if it is I would love to hear. What do you think is the most important thing that could be done from the business perspective to enhance and drive US global competitiveness.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: It is interesting, when I was asked to serve as Chairman of the Business Roundtable and as you said it is the CEO of the 200 largest companies in the United States that make up the Business Roundtable. I spoke to my board about it because you go into a position like that, you will be front and center and you have to represent not just AT&T, but the entire business community, and what is good for “business”. And I happen to believe business to be a very noble endeavor. I happen to believe business done right and done ethically, there is nothing that creates more prosperity, more employment, more jobs, more wellbeing than business done well. So when I stepped into this, I spoke with my board that I felt like this is something I should do, not just for AT&T, but I just felt like it was a civic responsibility. And so when I stepped into it, I stepped into it asking those questions. I tried to coalesce the CEOs around what are those things that really would matter in terms of propagating the environment that I just articulated to you, steps up hiring, steps up investment, steps up productivity, steps up wage growth and those kinds of things.
And we the CEOs, 400 of us, landed on a very select number of priorities. And it was four priorities and I'm not even sure if I can recall them all – I’m confident I could, but obviously one was tax reform, and that one was not big because we want to pay less taxes, that was not the point. What is the thing we can do that would have the most impact on the moments I just discussed. At that time, the United States taxed corporations higher than any other developed country in the world, and we live in a world where capital is fungible. If I can get a better return in Japan as an investor, I will invest there. If I can get a better return, at that time, in China I will invest there, Mexico, Latin America. So we spent a lot of time talking about we have to get the structure right where investors say we want to invest in the United States of America. And so we initiated an effort on tax reform, and I had many opportunities to have direct personal conversations with, at that time, President Obama, and we unfortunately did not move the needle under the Obama Administration. I must say I had a good relationship when Obama was president. When President Trump was elected, tax reform was initiated and actually got done. I know there is a lot of people who would debate this, but I would suggest that that tax reform, that tax policy drove unprecedented levels of investment for the next three to four years, drove the first time in 20 years enhanced productivity in corporate America. Why is that important? It’s important because mathematically, you cannot have (inaudible) growth for the average American without productivity growth. And we finally began to experience 3 and 4% productivity growth and wage growth at all scales, at all levels of the employment base began to grow. And so it just is an indication of if businesses get their mindsets correct and tries to position it in terms of what is best for America and the American worker, you can get things done, and you can influence public policy, and that is what we try to do while I was in the Business Roundtable.
PRES. HARROZ: Yet, it is exciting, and it matters fundamentally. Maybe, I know we are getting close to the end of our time and there are so many questions I want to ask you. Maybe just one more quick question before we get to the final ones they have actually given me to ask you. As you look at it now three years out of the position, looking at sort of this global question in a world now where we have the current relationship with China and Russia’s war on the Ukraine, when you think about the greatest threats to US global competitiveness in the three years since you have been out of the chair, what has changed? Are there any new threats that you think are new and really do put at risk the US position as global superpower?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: When I stepped down three years ago, I viewed at that time, the greatest competitive threat facing the United States was the reality that all of these silicone chips that are in every facet of our society, they are in the microphone that you are speaking into right now, Joe. They are in the PC that I am working on, they are in the smart phones that we all use, they are in your car, they are in your refrigerator, they are in every element of our lives. Our modern society runs on silicon chips. These silicone chips are almost exclusively manufactured in either Taiwan, a large amount of them in China. And as you think about threats to our competitiveness, if there were ever a moment of hostilities, what would be the biggest threat and that is a massive threat. It is a radical threat. Our Congress has tried to do some things about this over the last year, they ended up putting a lot of junk into bills that are designed to try to get fabrication of silicone in the United States, but I can think of nothing more important than figuring out how we relieve ourselves from the dependence of silicone on the far east and get that onto the shores of the United States of America. And so to me that is probably one of the greatest threats facing us today.
PRES. HARROZ: It is fascinating. In listening to your thoughts, you look at silicone being essentially the oil of 20 years ago or 10 years ago in terms of the ability, it's not just an economic issue, it's a national security and national standing issue.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: It is absolutely a national security issue, and you just made the best comparison. Energy security is critical, food security is critical to our security as a country and our independence as a country. Silicone manufacturing is an element that is consistent with each of those. Our modern way of life, how people work, how people commute, how people entertain, how people have received healthcare is all dependent upon this technology. And I would really love to see a greater concerted effort for addressing this.
PRES. HARROZ: Yes, it is fascinating. Putting this in the role of higher education and even more personally in the role of students that are coming. We talked a lot about having been moved to a knowledgebased society and as someone that knows far more than I do on this, we are now in this digital economy. We have spent the last six months with public availability to generative AI, and so the pace of change is in no way linear. It is geometric in a lot of ways. If you were talking to someone about advice for critical career tools while they are in college that might not have been something you would have recommended 5, 10 years ago, what would those tools be that you think a college student of today would need to be successful in this new economy?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: The tools notably, the ability to think and to reason. Let's always start there. If you don't have a basic grounding in thinking and reasoning and logic, you are going to struggle. I don't care what you are pursuing. Now as you think about technical tools, what are the technical tools that are critical over the next five years that we were not even talking about when I was in school, block chain. People who have a working and indepth knowledge of block chain and the ability to use block chain tools are going to be in high, high demand for a long, long time. The same with as you just articulated generative AI, artificial intelligence and people that are getting grounded and well situated in understanding how to use those tools, how to develop applications on top of both block chain and AI. By the way, I think those two come together in a very short period of time and they become really powerful tools together. People that can actually learn to develop on top of those, just like when I came out of school, people who could develop on top of HTML and build applications on top of the Internet, that is where all of the wealth, knowledge, and great products were created. People who can do that same kind of development on top of block chain and generative AI are going to be the ones who excel over the next 10 years. And so I hope our students are looking that way as they begin to position themselves with career moves or thinking about how they can move into those areas.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, it is fascinating. So just to make sure I'm hearing you correctly, and I know you will correct me if I'm wrong, so if you think about the skills that someone needs to be successful in the world of today and tomorrow, it sounds like it will be an interesting combination of having the technical skills to be able to understand and compete and thrive in a digital economy, the ones you just described, but it also involves maybe an understanding of the classics and engaging in maybe the arts and understanding the humanities and the ability to engage in critical thinking skills that are – are those equally important?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Oh my. Technical schools are a path for students, and I think they are a path for a lot of students. You can go to technical schools and get the technical skills you need to excel in some of these areas. But the people with the breadth and the depth of thought, the depth and the breadth of reasoning and logic, those come through the disciplines that you just articulated, the humanities, the arts, the letters. Philosophy. I think those are the capabilities that if we are not rounding our students with those types of capabilities, then we are just a vocational or a technical school, which is important, but I think we aspire to be much more than that for our young people.
PRES. HARROZ: Yes, it is fascinating, and those will be the leaders and the wealth generators and the content creators, right? Those are -- I think that is such an important mind, especially the time when unemployment is so low and has been for the last several years and it is easy to get a job that appears to be paying well based upon just technical skills. To me that is a concern that I have because I do think that as economic cycles go, and as we look forward, that larger baskets, more wellrounded student will be the ones that actually rise to the position of CFO, CEO and the like that you have been a part of. I could talk to you forever, Randall.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Likewise, Joe.
PRES. HARROZ: And as you can tell, I have sort of diverged from let's talk about graduation and excitement around that to sort of summoning my inner Farede Zakaria only because I love the way you think and the experiences you bring and the perspectives you offer. All right, as we are now, I will see you next – if all goes well, a week from this Friday is our commencement speaker. I am certain you will pack the house. It will be like a game, probably our first game in the SEC against Alabama. So 84,000, an extra hundred thousand for those outside. For those who cannot gain access, can you give us a 30 second trailer of the speech that you are going to deliver?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: You know what, we have covered a lot of that waterfront here. Seriously, we will talk a little bit about growing up and what were the things that really were important and critical to me. We will also speak about the dangers of technology and some of the downsides. I will call it the dark side of technology. I hope our young people, as they step into the world of commerce, will be heightened and made aware of and perhaps give them some things to think about as they move down that path. And then we will also talk a lot, Joe, about some of the ills of our society and some things that I think this generation is uniquely equipped to address. And I'm talking Gen Z. We are now talking to Gen Z. They have some qualities that we have not seen in recent generations that I think are going to be critical to helping this country, and I may even more broadly the globe survive and thrive. And so we will be talking about what those qualities are, and I hope this generation, when they step out, will take full advantage of these unique skill sets that they have and these unique temperaments that they have. I know a lot of people my age in the workforce complain about Gen Z, and I think Gen Z is our greatest hope. We have not had a generation with what I will call the unique perspective that this one has, which gives me so much optimism for where we are going as a country.
PRES. HARROZ: Yes, that could be a show in and of itself, and I think you have just given it its title, Gen Z the great hope. It sort of has a Star Wars feel to it. I like it a lot. I almost skipped over an area that is so important. I reached out to you, which you will not recall, I think it was the day that you stepped down as CEO of AT&T. Again, you may not recall this at all, but I asked you what you were going to do next besides take a deep breath for the first time in 40 years. What have you been doing for the last three years for our listeners and why?
RANDALL STEPHENSON: You know, I retained what I will call some business responsibilities. I sit on the board of this little retailer out of Arkansas, you probably heard of them, Walmart.
PRES. HARROZ: Little momandpop.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Little momandpop shop. I have really enjoyed that, the Walton family I have gotten to know quite well, and amazing company and an amazing company related to technology, and some of the challenges that they are facing. I have stayed engaged there. I also, I have remained in contact with the PGA Tour. They have had some issues with an alternative competitor coming in, specifically funded by the Saudi. There have been a lot of interesting challenges with that. I love the game of golf, and I know a lot of the players, that has been fun. But Lanise and I have engaged a lot with the University of Oklahoma, and I just give you credit and Stacey Reader at the College of Education on trying to address some of the learning shortfalls that in our secondary education system in the State of Oklahoma that are producing some alarming results. And I have a passion, Lanise and I have a passion to looking at what I will call the adolescents, eighth and ninth grade. This is an area where when kids struggle, if we don't get them remediation and help, particularly in the area of math, you can almost put a statistical predictor on how many will not graduate high school.
You can put a statistical predictor on that in terms of how many will end up incarcerated. And you can put a statistical predictor on that in terms of how many will be reincarcerated in five years. And we have a situation, which is a downward spiral of not addressing this. And so Lanise and I have been doing work with Stacey and her team at the University of Oklahoma College of Education to try to create some solutions for how we step in and remediate this and see if there are things here that can be scaled, that can change the trajectory of this for our state in Oklahoma. And so that has taken a lot of time, we are doing a lot of other civic engagement. We have five kids, and we have had number that keeps me busy. These are the areas we are focusing on.
PRES. HARROZ: It is an absolute joy to work with you and Lanise. We call it colloquially the high dosage tutoring, and I love that it is right out of both of you all’s playbook. It is not just where can we give, but how can we contribute to research that can help some individuals right now, and also potentially scale across the state or even more broadly across the nation or even globally. It is emblematic of who both of you are, truly grateful for it, and thank you for taking the time. This was supposed to be 15, 20 minutes and I think it has gone 40. I could make it another three hours. You would probably drive off.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: It's always good visiting for you Joe, thank you for all you do for the University.
PRES. HARROZ: Thank you and we look forward to seeing you on Friday.
RANDALL STEPHENSON: Thanks a lot.
PRES. HARROZ: I want to think again our guest for the show, Randall Stephenson, for joining us. As you can tell, he is a remarkable talent combining absolutely down to earth qualities with an encyclopedic knowledge and remarkable insights. Thrilled to have him helping OU in so many ways and much more broadly. We also appreciate him for serving as our commencement speaker for this year. This is such a great time. It is a whirlwind this time of year as we head towards graduation in less than nine days, but it is a true culmination of the student’s hard work and it is an honor to recognize their achievements. It is one of the great times to be a university president. I know we are all looking forward to celebrating the class of 2023. Thank you for listening to today’s show, and I look forward to our next Conversation with the President. Thank you.
