amazing woman she's full of grace you will you would like to listen to her her name is june sun ak and jewel center is the dean of life long learning with the role one college life is all about so us all less here so i spent twenty five years in telecommunications and was downsized and i realize that i took advantage of a lot of different opportunities to always learn to sharpen my skill set when i had them and look for another era of employment i realize i love higher education and i love to be able to work with the student population and i began teaching so i teach a couple courses at the college level and when we started to sit down and look at me bringing in several guest speakers into my classroom of really amazing business leaders throughout south jersey i met with leaders of the college and they said well that's exactly what we're looking for in this position of lifelong learning someone with a background in both for profit and nonprofit but then also somebody that understands our student population and they could really show the message of what it's like to not only be a millennial in the learning path but also returning students that are coming in that are second or third career students that are just trying to re evaluate themselves it could be women that have gaps in their resumes because they took time off to spend time with their families and need to get reintegrate into the workforce or it could be people like myself in that we're on a career path and just happen to be diverted based on things that are really out of our control so what types of things can we bring to the community that will help them be reengaged and lifelong learning is really something that is for everyone we just encourage people no matter what you're doing there's always an opportunity to have a lesson out of it that's just great to have you been in this position as dean so i've been in this role for a little over a year but i've been teaching for almost three years now so it really is just a perfect fit for some of the experience that i've had in the past to be able to bring that to the academic space and you know we are the number one community college in the state we have over nine thousand students and it is just a joy to come to work every day it's a great environment to be on campus to see the students but even when i teach a course in the evening and the forty percent of my students are second time career students so they're coming in to learn things to either get promoted in jobs they have now or to go in completely different industries also a lot of people are coming in from the military that are taking advantage of the military benefits  also learn some of the other corruption is that we have to offer so it's fantastic to wow i'm sure you are really enjoying the show and now you know lifelong learning is something i hear a lot of attention to because i believe that comfortable and i do end of the day i'm missing you know what i mean because things happen right so how important is life long learning it is important to always look for additional opportunities to take on new roles  new tasks you never know what's in front of you i was one of the top sales managers on my team i did very well for myself and did not see it coming that i would be part of a merger that those positions would be eliminated if i hadn't continued my lifelong learning and getting a master's degree i would not even be able to teach at the college level so all these things were things that at the time it wasn't necessarily something that was you know on my agenda but if i didn't have those things the other opportunities would not be afforded to me the other opportunity is the world is a very changing dynamic play risk so this area throughout new jersey offers so many different types of industries that even five years ago were not prevalent how we'd be prepared to work in those types of roles or be ready for them when the opportunity comes for a next level of success if we are not prepared i like to believe that education comes in a lot of forms i would be someone who would always take classes myself being a doctoral student i love that higher education space but taking classes in things that are noncredit or training courses or things that are interactive anything that you can do to try to have additional additional experiences they just make you more well rounded no one can take education away from you it levels the playing field for every meeting that you go into and education gives you choices i have a nineteen year old daughter that's in college right now and one of the most prominent things that we've always talked about is when you have education you will never be without opportunities to grow and develop and to find other things for you in your future really is just an amazing equalizer i agree with you totally true you know you need a little before why do you think a l people don't want to learn i think that sometimes i don't want to keep i think that people feel like they are they've achieved what they can do and sometimes people have been i've seen that's an awful lot they lack self confidence to take that next step they're afraid to fail they're free to take a chance that someone might not be accepting of them or that they might not do well and we have to put some of those things aside some of those fears aside because we're all starting out together what i love about my cohort for my doctoral program is we actually get together on sunday evenings and have a conference call and we start off with a motivational quote we talk a little bit about what we've learned in the class and then we talk about how can we inspire each other to keep going we're all working adults going back into things and everyone in there is really excellent in their fields but this is a new endeavor so we're unsure as well so it's not like someone starting out at any level isn't going to be a little bit skeptical but think of all the things that you learn from that and we can show i also really like to show the young people in my life that you never stop learning i think it's important for them to lead by example and to show them that if you're involved in the same types of things they time to read about four books how how can we develop that attitude so it's mindfulness and when you think about mindfulness it's being in the moment that you're in and appreciating that moment at that particular time if you're going to sit down and read a book then make time for yourself look at your calendar and say this half an hour this hour i'm going to take out for myself and i'm going to read this hour i'm going to spend that i'm going to prepare for my business day and when you look at your time and you're like that you don't waste time doing extra things a lot of times people and i can be guilty of this also we can get sidetracked very easily we can also end up with phone calls or over the types of things that just can spend hours get lost in social media but what it still comes down to is some discipline and my fullness to make sure that you do that well what's great about what a bill gates does reading those books are on many different topics course not just one different to  expanded his knowledge he could've written read a book about something and said up i don't really that's not what i want to do for a living but now i'm a little bit more well of us than that i guarantee someone else in his life and his path he can put together with that knowledge and information to recommend that those are the types of things that when we think about just make sure you spend time with yourself in that moment and make that part of your day where do you go to a gym and work out whether you work out of your home all the steps of things education and learning is the same thing for your mind as going to a gym is for your body you need to exercise your mind in that same type of way to grow and that's where the development comes from how important is vision to life long life long learning to do this and i'm asking this question because vision as a very big goal yes a goal can be something very small a goal can be an achievement for that specific day if if you don't know how to tie your shoes and you learn how to tie your shoes you hit a goal and that's good don't compare  to anybody else you're not anybody else your goals in your vision will be yourselves in the things that you want to accomplish and it's so important to see and dream about what's next on the horizon for you and work toward that if i told somebody that i want to write a book and i surround myself with people that i know are published or people that understand that process and i say it out loud you know what miraculously i find someone that's a an author i find someone that's a publisher and then i'm surrounded with people that actually help me move that process forward because that's my vision or so i think that those are the types of things that we have to look at the barriers the excuses we don't need those it's just like having self doubt i always tell people that doubt needs to shut up and put it on the shelf and let you know it has no it's not paying you read it has no room in your head so just let it go it's time to really think about it and i hear this a lot from people they go oh you know i don't have time or i when i get around to it you only have one life what are you waiting for it's not like you're going to get an opportunity get and your next life to say i'm going to do this you have this life i don't list and when you see you only have one life but i'm going to people do don't even understand  vision ok so a lot of people don't have that and i think that is the major barrier because how would you develop your so how would you discipline yourself when you don't know who you are or where you're going or your next five years or less ten years there is and i want to ask a discourse on i'm asking this question is because one of the thing that kept me going or keeps me going is my ability to have been able to capture what i want to be because i believe that those who see the future of tomorrow will in now will be able to move and i see the reason why many foreign are moving because they are not seen well enough so visio i don't need to be an accountant that's not for me i'll take an accounting course as i don't want to need to do that's not my hour i can put that aside but now that i know that i can concentrate on something else the more things i do and i'm exposed to and have opportunities to and lifelong learning then i can start to see things in the vision becomes clearer when you start to take the path of the things that you enjoy the things that you're good at and the things that bring you that inner peace to be able to work with you have to have that vision and sometimes people when you ask them what do they want to do in ten years they'll say oh i can see myself on an island it's not about a vacation it's about what brings you peace and what are the things that you want to strive to achieve into your life lifelong learning is going to give you those opportunities to have that flexibility to even know those things are out there imagine if you grew up in a small town and never knew that the next town around you offered anything to you because you didn't leave your area well now we have the opportunity to do that and we even more of an opportunity with technology in and so many different ways that we can now even travel without leaving our desks look at all the things are in front of us so that's part of that lifelong learning piece of there's so many other things out there that will help you achieve that vision but you have to write it down and you also have to celebrate the little victories along the way you don't have to chalk it up to go all the way to the end you can just say you know what i accomplished this part to my vision today this is my next vision and take it one step at a goals or something like that i think people hit bumps in the road and give up i think they don't look at the bumps in the road like an opportunity to smooth that road out and to get to the next level i think sometimes we give up way too easily when there's a problem it's been very easy and a downturn in an organization for myself or some my constituents to say this was too hard or not don't look for anything else or you could say you know what that was great i learned a lot what else can i do with my skill set to get to the next level and that's all part of it you have to take everything as a learning experience and keep moving with that and build upon it and if you're not sure of something there's enough places to go to learn additional skill sets to really make sure that that's something that you wonder stand and can take advantage of it but i never look at things as a failure i look at things as an opportunity that or a different direction or a big besides beside coming to college to learn something or get a degree or get an of different types of learning so there are different groups that you don't hear she got this out for the correct so you can join clubs and you can get together and you can learn things you can take noncredit courses so just for an example the courses that we take it could be anywhere from zoom and yoga it could be learning how to play the guitar it can even be a cooking class to learn how to make a holiday cookies there's a lot of different things and those are a few hours on a saturday afternoon and now you've learned something else but you've also been put into a class of people that now you have another group of people to interact with well that's fantastic because there is your frame of reference or i also like the fact that we have the opportunity to share experiences with a lot of other groups that are on the campus so whether we're in a meeting with the stem department and they have event that are taking place around technology we recently had an event called girl code so we had young girls so junior high high school age and we showed them the movie hidden figures and then members from a local business came in and taught them coding well i looked around the room and there's fifty little girls and their parents stayed in their parents tried to talk to each other and then the girls had a little bit more interaction than they talked about the movie all of a sudden there's a sudden network of people learning because those kids went to this for just one day so it's not that it's overly expensive but it's another area of interest for them to learn and to be a part of i love to be able to offer all those types of things some things or on the professional development side so maybe it's sharpening skill sets and specific area or maybe to get a certificate program so it doesn't just mean that it's a two or four year  college opportunity it could be things that are one day or it could be you know several months worth of things that you get a degree afterwards could you please talk a ball to how butin network like network and how of the great things about the south jersey area is it is just an entry and sting bed of network opportunities so no matter what type of group you want to gravitate to whether it's a group from us fraternity or sorority whether it's women's networking group whether it's a specific group based on your geography of a business association or a chamber of commerce you have the ability to go into any of those groups and meet hundreds of people that you may not have had the opportunity to meet any other time you might say have an interest in working in a health care field join a chamber of commerce and they will have a panel discussion of the top leaders in health care industry so we're out there in the county if on any given day you're not going to walk into the hospital and say i'd like your audience with the c e o just right but if you attend a chamber event where they have them speaking you have an opportunity to ask them a question to be introduced to them it's really expanding the network and being able to learn from them but then also see other areas of growth potential i had conversations with some industries in south jersey and talk to them a little bit about what do they need or what their clients look like and they said i'm looking for this or i'm looking for an employer in this area and then i thought w saw someone who had that interest and you're able to put people together it wasn't for networking i would know how to match those groups of people rob so it's a fantastic environment for us to be able to do that and i learned so much from it but a lo first join they take you under their wing and they show you all the resources that they have to offer once you're in a group like that i always look for someone that i would feel comfortable with and it has to come organically right to meet them you're not going to force that relationship but when you meet someone that you kind of click with and resonate with and you see that they understand kind of the process and the flow ask if they can mentor you ask if you can attend an event with them ask if they'll introduce you to people that or in areas that you have an interest in and then spend some time with them and it's casual i also invite people to talk to other corporations and do soft skill interviews instead of interviewing for a specific job function i asked them to meet somebody at a chamber  event and say let's watch a little bit more about your company can you just tell me because i might have an interest in this so it gives them an ability to understand a little bit more about it so they can find out a good fit for them but that mentoring process should really help you gauge that we always recommend that people have that kind of a way to approach an audience or you know someone in a group with a familiarity to tell themselves about like who they are so yes this is who i am this is what i'm looking for you know and just be able to build that as a strength as well once you start to have those mantras and you say them frequently enough it really should help with your confidence now one of the one of the missing links that i see between where we are most  where due to where dish should be is the inability to follow up because you just mentioned about networking with people but sometimes at the end of my working with people people don't follow up right so when it says something about it so the tell you that there is a networking event coming up and it's something that's perfect for what you're looking for and you don't respond for three weeks in the event has passed that time has passed for you to make that next move you want to be able to be able to be disciplined enough to follow through with those types of things if you know that you either have a small business or you're an entrepreneur or you work in a company and you only have two days a month for networking then only take two days a month but be mindful and present when you're there and follow up on what you have you don't have to be out every single day to do that but do what you can do to make sure that you follow up in a respectful whether it also is doing is it's building your personal brand people really respond to the brand of the you and who you are and the know that oh i can go to this person because they follow up and they're helpful i find that that's a really helpful way to be credible but it also builds that experience level for you to then be in that position to help other people that you mean when you network well you nailed it you know a lot of people to had eight more hours and any given day and i could fill those eight hours is only because there are groups that are networking groups for business there are groups that are networking groups for nonprofits there are organizations and i meet that i'm just wildly amazed at what their missions are and then there are groups that you meet just because they're your friends and friends become family corrected so there is never a time where i'm at a loss for something to do anything i have to pick and choose the amount of things that i do so i can actually work for a living but there are so many types of opportunities that and it's amazing and you can vet them you can say i'd like to know a little bit more about this any type of networking opportunity that is a credible source of networking opportunity will let you have time to get to know them before you join or before you participate everything should be on a website or you can speak to a board of directors and you can see who else is in those groups and see if that models what you're interested in i sit on a couple different boards and i can tell you that when i do prospective members and we talk about what our missions are in those areas i can ask them well what is it that you're looking to do and then i can introduce you to someone within that group that can help you get to that next level you know so i mean those are the tremendous opportunities that everybody how's you know a lot of people get are serious absolutely i totally agree with you because a l trust me i had the will you're talking to a bomb you just need to step out you do ask will you need to ask and do not be ashamed of asking people follow up and it's it's kind of interesting because sometimes people ask me about will i see that you're doing a know our i go to different events but i tell them that no one's coming to my doorstep to offer me an opportunity i have to actually leave my house and i have to actually speak to people and i actually have to say this is what i'm looking for a lot of things that happen or the fact that somebody might mention something to you and then as you come along something in your path you can put other people together i have absolutely no problem to elevate the next person there's enough in all of this for everyone i don't need to just keep it to myself so when you do that things come back to you you know tenfold when you're willing to put people together it really is there's a humanity to it there's a business practice to it but we all have a successful i recently had a friend that declined to come to our meeting because there were elected officials speaking and they had a difference of opinion i said well that is the biggest mistake because at the same foundation you should know businesses are in our county what jobs are open in our state what or on the table what things are on the table for our next election be informed if you live here have children or pay taxes here and work here you should look at everything  have you know you might have neighbors that say i didn't know they were building you know such and such an area well you would know if you open up a newspaper or you actually talk to someone or you went to a town meeting where it was published that said these are the things that are on the docket so you can't mild so i am by anyone to take the opportunity to research the things that they like to do to make sure that they are expanding not only for themselves but also for their families we all have a vested interest in our personal lives and the lives of our family members and our communities and it all works together and these are the things that we really want to focus on everything that is  good in this world everything that keeps us fresh and positive is really within reach and i know that i have couldn't have imagined life that i have if you had told me a few years ago when i was downsized that this is be to be where i would be i would have thought w can't imagine it and look one thing has led to the other one opportunity is led to the other and i have met the most fabulous people along the way for this journey and i know it's only going to get better from here i'd like to thank you so very much we've come to the end of this show