[00:00:00] Cheryl Broom: Well, Andy, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast.
[00:00:03] Andy Vaughn: Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation. I really appreciate that.
[00:00:07] Cheryl Broom: I wanted to start off by having you share a little bit about Alliant's history and really how inclusivity became central to the university's identity.
[00:00:17] Andy Vaughn: Sure. Alliant is kind of a play on words. It's a term for alliance of schools. And so about 22 years ago, the last major merger that took place was between USIU, United States International University. And the California School of Professional Psychology became Alliant University System. But yet, 80 years before that, there was another major merger.
[00:00:39] Andy Vaughn: It was California Western University, Balboa College, one other, and they formed USIU eventually in the 1950s or 1960s. The headquarters in main campus is in San Diego. We still sit on the. Original a hundred or so acres in Scripps Ranch up in San Diego. We have seven total campuses, physical campuses in Arizona and California, but this is our headquarters in San Diego.
[00:01:05] Andy Vaughn: So. I don't know if it was intentional, 'cause that was 85, 90 years ago when these mergers started happening for the system to take place. But something funny happened along the way, and it might be coincidence or maybe it was intentional, but every single school had a DNA and a culture of inclusivity, meaning.
[00:01:24] Andy Vaughn: We found articles from the San Francisco newspaper in the 1920s that talked about Alliant's predecessor schools graduating the first two women with a JD degree, a law degree, and that was unheard of in the 1920s. I know today you'd go, well, that's not a, that's not news. Of course not. But in the 1920s it was 19 teens.
[00:01:44] Andy Vaughn: We were breaking glass ceilings back then in the 1970s, being gay was still considered a psychological disorder by the APA. And I know I talked to some of our faculty that were with the California School of Profess Psychology back in the late sixties, was founded in 69 and early seventies, and they were talking about how the school would fight.
[00:02:08] Andy Vaughn: The, the, the reputation of APA on on that issue and, you know, making it so it's not a psychological disorder, it's not, you can't have counseling to cure being gay. And I think our faculty knew that back in the seventies and that that eventually got changed, obviously. And so we have this history of really breaking glass ceilings about being inclusive, by the way, done at a time before it was the in thing to do.
[00:02:33] Andy Vaughn: It's always been the right thing to do. It's not always been the end thing to do. over the last five years specifically, I think almost every corporation and every organization has kind of latched onto that. Maybe that's waning a little bit this year, but overall, it's still a lot further than we were five years ago.
[00:02:49] Andy Vaughn: But Alliant and our predecessor schools have done that for over a hundred years, and I think that's what makes our culture very special.
[00:02:57] Cheryl Broom: I know that when we spoke a couple months ago, when we were first getting to know each other, you told me a little bit about. Even the values that the, the university has really shape the way that you act, the decisions that are made, the culture that's on your campus. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about those impact values and what they mean to the university.
[00:03:19] Andy Vaughn: Absolutely. So I think the best way to develop values, and I've been CEO at two different organizations and more on the executive side for the last 20 years or so at a couple others. And when values are top down delivered, they tend not to stick. And so, my dissertation research is actually in.
[00:03:39] Andy Vaughn: Developing cultures with aligned employee values. That's part of my research background, and so it's big for me, but it's also big for everyone. We always like to be aligned to the values of our organization, and typically when people feel they don't belong anymore. They can say, oh, it's my boss. They can say it's the job.
[00:03:57] Andy Vaughn: But a lot of times it's, you don't feel aligned with the values of the organization you work with or work for. And so I think it's really important you codify those, you define those, but it's also very important. You don't do it from the top down. It's not a leadership responsibility or a board responsibility, it's an organizational responsibility.
[00:04:14] Andy Vaughn: So what we did. About 10 years ago is we asked 20 faculty and staff through our faculty and Senate and our staff council, the elected representatives of both bodies, we said, Hey, can, can you tell us which 20 people at the university should be on this team to figure out what our values are? 'cause one of the things I saw when I first came into the organization was.
[00:04:35] Andy Vaughn: There were some all caps emails. There were some not so nice words spoken in meetings, and I thought, okay, we've got behaviors that have no alignment with a codified value system about how we treat each other, how we should respect one another, how we act. And if you really codify your values, but they're realistic and authentic to your organization, it gives you the guide, rails and foundation on how to behave.
[00:05:01] Andy Vaughn: How I treat you, how do I communicate to you what's the expectation or service level agreement from from you back to me and vice versa. We didn't have any of that, and you could tell that you could feel it. And so there's two types of values. There are aspirational values. These are things that we're not doing yet.
[00:05:18] Andy Vaughn: We're not behaving this way yet, but we need to. We want to. There's also foundational values. We're doing this already in pockets or maybe substantially through the organization, and we wanna continue doing more of that. So I asked the team to choose the 20 people. It was 20 faculty and staff. We gave 'em a budget, gave 'em a consultant that does this work, that does not work for Alliant.
[00:05:41] Andy Vaughn: We said the leadership team is not gonna be a part of that. You all are gonna tell us the leadership team and the board what, what our values are. And they could be aspirational or foundational or both, but it's, it's gotta come from you and work you do through your colleagues at your campuses and even online.
[00:05:58] Andy Vaughn: And they came back to us and said, we've chosen six, three are aspirational and three are foundational. And we want to call 'em the impact values. They, they codified it with an acronym, which is great 'cause then people remember it. We're very proud of the fact that our values are not some hollow statement hung at the front door that gathers dust.
[00:06:17] Andy Vaughn: We talk about the impact values constantly in our four times a year. All hands on meeting. We actually reward people for demonstrating values to their behaviors. We give out awards for it, prizes for it. It's talked about a lot. You, you always know when the values have taken hold when you hear hallway conversations that are not leadership team members necessarily, but someone will say, Hey, I felt when you send me the email, it violated the C value.
[00:06:43] Andy Vaughn: And here's the, oh my. So you can always tell when they're taking effect. 'cause they actually, I don't, police is not the right word, but they. They, they tell each other about how they felt about a certain value. We also put 'em into our job descriptions and also put them into our, assessments every year for job performance.
[00:07:00] Andy Vaughn: Because it's not just about what we do and what the outcomes are. It's about how we did it. Are we ethical? Are we respectful? And the impact values are six different values, but they really are centered around ethics and respect, and we feel that. Because the values were produced by faculty and staff, they took hold more effectively.
[00:07:23] Cheryl Broom: And I love the example of how you continue to live the values. I know when I, when I worked outta college, we got dinged by the accrediting commission for a whole list of a whole list of things. And one of them was that nobody knew what the values were. As the marketing director, my job was to laminate the values.
[00:07:40] Cheryl Broom: I, I like laminated them and posted them around 
[00:07:42] Andy Vaughn: a good start. Yeah, that's a good start.
[00:07:45] Cheryl Broom: but they were so cumbersome and difficult to relate to. Nobody really latched onto them. They weren't part of our culture.
[00:07:54] Andy Vaughn: That's, that's most organizations in my experience, and that's, that's why I really chose that research work from my own dissertation is how do you really have those have an impact and how do they take effect? And if you ask Tenian employees, all 10 would know what the impact values are. They could, they could quote 'em that, that's how much we talk about it.
[00:08:12] Cheryl Broom: Well, that's wonderful, and it's such a great recruitment tool as well. I'm sure people look at Alliant, look at working there and can the values resonate with them?
[00:08:22] Andy Vaughn: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we're not perfect. We don't, we don't nail it every time. I don't nail it every time, but I think what's what important is when you maybe break a value. I have, I certainly, I have done it. But I recognize it, I apologize for it, and I move, move, move on. And we, you do that repair and we become better from it.
[00:08:41] Andy Vaughn: So, you know, I'm not here to paint a picture saying, Hey, we have the best culture in the world and we, we are just perfect at our value. 'cause we are not. I am not. But that's human. And that's, you embrace that. You, you embrace imperfections, but more importantly you get better from it with the self-realization is perfection is not possible, but we will get better at it.
[00:09:00] Cheryl Broom: Right, right. It's part of the journey, right? We're on a journey. We're not all, we never hit the end destination,
[00:09:05] Andy Vaughn: No, you never get there. We try, but you never quite get there. That's okay. That's okay.
[00:09:11] Cheryl Broom: And I mean, you have a really interesting personal journey that's informed your leadership style and really I think, aligns well with your role at Alliant. So if you don't mind, share a little bit about your background and how you found kind of a home where you are right now.
[00:09:28] Andy Vaughn: Yeah, it really aligns to the original question we started the podcast with is the DNA of Align and inclusivity. So, so I grew up in a, a very small town in Nebraska. Well third largest city in the state with 20,000 people. So back there it's a big city. And I had a great family and upbringing. Great, great town to grow up in.
[00:09:49] Andy Vaughn: Had a great childhood, although, As, as a, as some young men and women and others see at a certain age, you go, I'm not like the others. And I knew that at a fairly early age, and I was born in 69, so my childhood is in the seventies and eighties. Not a particularly great time to come out of the closet as a gay man.
[00:10:12] Andy Vaughn: And certainly even worse for people older than me coming, trying to come out in the forties, fifties, sixties, almost unheard of at that time, especially, it was actually could get you into jail, in some situations. But in the eighties and nineties you had a lot of things coming at you. You had generally, I think it was less than 20% of the country thought being gay was okay.
[00:10:34] Andy Vaughn: You certainly had no support for gay relationships or gay marriages that was, you know, forbidden. And being in a small town in Nebraska was even a tougher place. It was, it was a, it was a different time and place to try to come out. And I, I thought about coming out right after high school in 87 in college, and Lincoln is a college town.
[00:10:53] Andy Vaughn: I went to University of Nebraska. Lincoln's a college town. It's more accepting, but still in 1987, this wasn't the right time or place to do that. It, it could impact you mentally. Certainly it could impact you physically. You know, in that time in about late eighties, there was a, a man killed just for being gay, coming out of a gay bar in Lincoln.
[00:11:14] Andy Vaughn: they found his body in the bottom of Lake, you know, just very, very troublesome times. At that time Matthew Shepherd was about that same time, one state over in Wyoming. There's a lot going on, and I just decided, well, I'll just, I'll, I'll figure it out, but I'll, I'll just kind of not come out right now.
[00:11:30] Andy Vaughn: Well, flash forward to 1993 or so, and I was about 23, 24. And, I had met someone and fell in love and I thought I, I gotta, my dad had passed by that. I, I gotta tell my mom, I'm so close to my mom and my mom very progressive. I, I knew she'd be okay with it, which is rare for that time, by the way, 'cause most of my gay friends were disowned, kicked out of the house. Some of 'em lost their job just for being gay. This is back in the eighties and nineties. Again, different time, different place. And so it was pretty brutal. And so you have that hanging over you. And when I told my mom it was, it was a really tough day. I, I went to the house I grew up in, sat across the breakfast table.
[00:12:09] Andy Vaughn: For 18 years. I had breakfast at this table and I'm trying to tell her, and I couldn't. And she finally goes, so are what's going on with you? And I, I, uh, and now I'm crying and I, I said, well, mom, I'm here to tell you something. I'm, I am dating someone. His name is Eric and mom, I'm gay and I'm crying. She comes around the table and I'm now bawling and gives me a really tight hug.
[00:12:31] Andy Vaughn: And she goes, this is actually great news. And I said, wait, what do you mean? She goes, well. You're the baby of the family. You're my son, and I never wanted to compete against the love of another woman. A guy I can totally handle.
[00:12:47] Cheryl Broom: As a mom to two boys,
[00:12:49] Cheryl Broom: I'm feeling your mom right now.
[00:12:52] Andy Vaughn: So would you believe? About two weeks later, I go back to the house I grew up in and she has a picture of the dog, my partner and I had on the same wall as the other grandkids. She goes, I tell everyone that's my grand dog. So she had integrated us right away and just made it a wonderful experience.
[00:13:09] Andy Vaughn: Although she said this, she said, I'm actually a little concerned. She goes, I'm fine. Her friends weren't so fine by the way, but she, she didn't care about that, but she said, I'm concerned about your professional success because again, this is the early nineties and you could lose your job for being gay.
[00:13:28] Andy Vaughn: You could be fired for it. There was no protection about that at all. And she said, of my kids, I know you are super career driven, and I'm concerned. I said, I'm too. And so. Flash forward about 30 years later when I'm interviewing for this job 10 years ago. And I found a place that you know, I, not only could I not have to be in the closet, but they leaned in, they wanted to know more about that part of me, because at Alliant for a hundred years plus, we believe that our differences make us stronger, and we embrace that.
[00:14:02] Andy Vaughn: We want all kinds of different people and backgrounds and personalities. To come together. 'cause I think we're better from that. We're stronger from that. Different viewpoints is always a great thing. And for the first, I remember sitting in that interview you know, when you interview a presidential job at a college, you go through about a month of interviews, committees and students and faculty and staff.
[00:14:23] Andy Vaughn: And every single time they said, Hey, tell us about your partner and tell us about how you came outta the cla. Uh, they, they wanted to know more about that. And I thought, wow, how far we've come. Because when I was 23 and came out of the closet. One, I never thought in a million years we'd have gay marriage in my life.
[00:14:37] Andy Vaughn: I thought I'd be in the closet forever. Professionally, I really did. I just thought, well, it's not gonna happen in my lifetime and I'll just kind of do my thing and figure it out. But I think when you're in the closet at work, I think the challenge is you are not your authentic self and it shows up in other ways.
[00:14:53] Andy Vaughn: It manifests. People feel something's kind of off about somebody. It's, it's not that being a gay defines me professionally. It does not. What I'm saying is when you're hiding a piece of your life, I think professionally people think there's something quite off about someone, in my experience at least. And so I think going from being 23 scared to death to come out of the closet thinking it's gonna ruin my professional career to come, finding a lion where it's embraced was just so special for me.
[00:15:21] Cheryl Broom: I agree. I mean a hundred percent. It's such a fantastic personal story. Thank you for sharing it with us, and I think that institutions that allow people to bring their full, authentic self are more successful 
[00:15:34] Cheryl Broom: and they're places where people wanna be.
[00:15:37] Andy Vaughn: Yeah. Totally agree. It is a part of our culture, and I, I agree.
[00:15:41] Cheryl Broom: I was told by a former employer to never bring my personal life to work.
[00:15:46] Cheryl Broom: And, and it was, I was giving some communication advice as a parent because we were dealing with a, a situation that involved children on campus and it just like floored me. 'cause I'm like, I'm not two people. like,
[00:16:02] Cheryl Broom: you know, worker Cheryl and mom Cheryl and you. It's not severance, it's, you're come as a whole person.
[00:16:08] Cheryl Broom: And having a place that embraces, that puts on in their values is somewhere people would wanna work.
[00:16:12] Andy Vaughn: I agree with you because look, we all have bad days or bad events happen in our life, and it doesn't mean you get to phone it in or don't not show up for work. That's not what we're saying. But my gosh, when I have someone that's on my team that I know is going through a rough time, you, you, you shift your style of communication.
[00:16:29] Andy Vaughn: Maybe it depends on the personality you're working with, but you, you show empathy and, you know, empathy used to be. Maybe, people would think it's weak. It's not. It's actually strength and it empowers people because if you work for someone that you know, truly cares and not cares from here, but from here, the heart, it makes you wanna stay, it actually increases employee retention.
[00:16:50] Cheryl Broom: I imagine not just what you see like on your campus with your faculty and staff and administrators you hire, but also amongst your students. I mean, nationally, I think it's around 80% of students are suffering from. High stress, moderate or high stress. A lot of them are depressed. And I, I see this in the clients that we work with, is there are a lot of mental health challenges on college campuses, and I think it's a crisis we can't ignore.
[00:17:19] Cheryl Broom: And I see you probably, I mean, Alliant specializes in this. So what, what are you seeing out there? How, how are students getting on right now?
[00:17:28] Andy Vaughn: Same as you described. Now we have a built-in advantage, so Alliant California School of Professional Psychology is the largest provider. Of licensed clinical psychologists in the entire United States, about 10 to 12% come from CSPP at Alliant In California, almost 40% of licensed psychologists are from our school, so we are a substantial player in mental health licensure programs.
[00:17:50] Andy Vaughn: So we have a built-in advantage in some aspects in that. It's what we do, it's what we train our faculty, our typically licensed psychologists, therapists, counselors themselves. We also have social work and marriage, family therapy, and clinical counseling. So. We have a lot of faculty on staff, and even some staff themselves that are licensed in therapy and mental health.
[00:18:13] Andy Vaughn: So what we see is there's a few different stressors right now for today's student. One is the cost of everything, whether it's tuition or rent, or car payments or insurance. That's a big stressor that impacts mental health. Two, we see just time. Everything takes more time, even with technology enhancements.
[00:18:34] Andy Vaughn: We have very little time to do self-care, especially when you're a student maybe working full-time or part-time and there's really no time. Your, your brain needs time to have nothing to do, to think, to strategize about your own life, and that's hard for a lot of students today. And number three, there's just, human relationships can be stressful sometimes, whether it's romantic or friendship or family.
[00:18:57] Andy Vaughn: You've got all these demands on top of you. So we're saying the same thing. I think mental health. Also used to not be seen as intertwined with physical health, and we know today with research that the two are. Completely wound up together and one impacts the other, whether it's mental or physical. We know that today.
[00:19:17] Andy Vaughn: Matter of fact, we see a lot of hospitals today hiring our graduates, so they have mental health professionals in the physical care hospitals 'cause they know it's very important for mental health to impact physical health. So you are right. I think students today are under more stress than any student before.
[00:19:31] Andy Vaughn: You know, just take one little, I've seen a, a graphic recently that's verified where. You know, when I bought my first house, I could afford to buy a house making no money, by the way, at 23, 24 years old and didn't have help from mom and dad on that one either It, but I could afford to buy a house even in San Diego back in 1995 making, I think I made $25,000 a year that year. Today, you CE, even today 
[00:19:55] Andy Vaughn: making 50 
[00:19:56] Cheryl Broom: a 
[00:19:56] Andy Vaughn: can't. 
[00:19:57] Cheryl Broom: apartment,
[00:19:58] Andy Vaughn: No, no, because the, the price of homes and wages didn't go together. One, they both increased but not correlated. So I think you've got those stressors too. And that does impact people's mental health.
[00:20:10] Cheryl Broom: I think one of the things that you stood, that stood out is, is this idea of, of your physical health and your mental health. And I was just thinking my older son is gonna be a senior in high school and he goes to a very small school and they made the breaks in between classes longer. They've put out like ping pong tables and spike ball.
[00:20:30] Cheryl Broom: It's become like a spike ball championship
[00:20:32] Andy Vaughn: Yeah. I like that. That's good though. That's 
[00:20:34] Cheryl Broom: But yeah, and so it's, so when you go onto campus, like if he forgets his lunch and I'm on campus dropping it off, I'm seeing all these kids like playing spike ball, playing a quick game of ping pong, just like burning some energy like in between classes.
[00:20:47] Cheryl Broom: It's really improved. It is improved. Everything on campus, it's just giving them a little time to decompress before they're onto the next thing.
[00:20:55] Andy Vaughn: We need that because I think sometimes we think, oh, I, I just have to line my day up with nonstop productivity. And, and in actuality there's diminishing returns on that for the effectiveness and quality of your work without breaks. And you do need to take those breaks. Maybe for some people that's alone time, and some people it's social time and they can figure it out.
[00:21:13] Andy Vaughn: But if you offer alternatives, it it, like you mentioned your son's school. I think that's a great idea for mental health.
[00:21:19] Cheryl Broom: yeah. We don't think about just sometimes it can be simple things, spaces for people to. To decompress, you know, others to talk to in connections are so important.
[00:21:29] Andy Vaughn: are, they are. Plus it teaches you social skills. Even as young adults, we need to improve those and, and move on through life.
[00:21:36] Cheryl Broom: And I know that you do a lot to support your faculty and staff for helping take care of their own mental health. 'cause they're, they're helping students constantly. So how can our colleges make sure that the people teaching are also well taken care of?
[00:21:50] Andy Vaughn: It's a good point because I'm actually married to a licensed marriage family therapist as well. And one, one of the things I see when he comes home from maybe three or four or five appointments in a day is it's draining for the therapist and psychologist. And same thing here at Alliant for our faculty especially.
[00:22:05] Andy Vaughn: And that can be very draining even when you teach it. One of the things that happens too, I think when students do programs in mental health they. They're, they're cautioned against it, but they might tend to self therapize sometimes as they're learning new methods. And they, they, they focus it inwards and that can be very detrimental too to their mental health if, if not you know, properly seen and, and, and move through.
[00:22:27] Andy Vaughn: So, you know, again, we're not perfect at it, but I think for us, one of the ways in my role as CEOI can help mental health is to be very transparent with information. And that's my promise to our faculty and staff has been for 10 years. Is that. If, if you ask me a question, I'm gonna give you the answer.
[00:22:45] Andy Vaughn: It's not gonna be a political answer either. I always tell them there's a couple things off limits. That is personal information. I'm not going to tell, tell you something about somebody else. I'm also not gonna, you know, give you a rumor. And number two is any legally protected information that I can't give you.
[00:23:01] Andy Vaughn: But otherwise, everything else is fine. Ask away. And I'll tell you the answer, the reason I think that helps with mental health is, especially in today's higher education environment, colleges are under a lot of financial stress. You see every day about layoffs or closures or mergers happening. And higher ed is going through a lot of change this year specifically, and I think the best thing you can do for mental health is a leader is tell them everything, you know?
[00:23:24] Andy Vaughn: When I, when I do a board of trustees. Presentation, with the exception of a couple slides about protected information, that's just legally not appropriate to share with everybody. I use the same slides for our staff and faculty. I don't really change 'em out or water it down. I. One of the things I've learned as a leader from mental health is that people should know everything because they gotta be a part of the solution.
[00:23:49] Andy Vaughn: The, I I remember I, talked to a leader one time and he said, oh, I don't, I don't tell 'em anything bad. 'cause they'll, they'll leave or they'll get scared and and I'm thinking, actually people are pretty smart. They figure out that something's going on, they're intuitive, they're gonna talk to each other, they're gonna figure it out.
[00:24:07] Andy Vaughn: And something to keep in mind. For mental health or employees is the monster someone creates when you don't give them all the information is bigger and stronger than the monster that actually exists. So for example, you might have a $1 million deficit you're trying to cure, but if you keep it a secret, people see budget cuts and no paper clips for you, and travel expenses have been reduced.
[00:24:29] Andy Vaughn: And you go, oh God, we're, we're gonna close. Well, no, it's just maybe a million dollar deficit. We gotta cure. Just tell them, make 'em part of the solution because their monster is. A $30 million deficit and really maybe the monster is only five foot two versus six foot seven. Tell them, define the monster so you can slay it together.
[00:24:48] Andy Vaughn: I think that's, that's my role as a leader for mental health improvement at work, at least.
[00:24:52] Cheryl Broom: I love that analogy so much of the monster, because you're right. When people lack information, they tend to fill it with whatever, whatever monster there 
[00:25:01] Andy Vaughn: Oh, I, I've heard every conspiracy theory you can ever think of. I just go, you what?
[00:25:06] Cheryl Broom: Yeah.
[00:25:07] Andy Vaughn: one of the thing I think most CEOs would tell you this, the longer you've been a CEO, the less you believe in conspiracy theories because you go, what? Let me tell you what's really going on, because that's not, no, that's not happening.
[00:25:20] Cheryl Broom: Right. We, and we tend to jump to the worst Oh. Humans are funny. We do, we we jump to the worst case possible scenario. I think that's, I think that's a protectionism aspect of our life, and we just go, they could be awful. So lemme take it all the way out. And you go, yeah, that's not really happening. It's okay.
[00:25:38] Andy Vaughn: It's all right.
[00:25:39] Cheryl Broom: Well, I love this discussion a, around how we help students, how we help faculty, how we help staff. And we're gonna take a quick break and hear from our sponsor. And then when we come back, I wanna talk a little bit about some of the new contributions that Alliant is making in the mental health profession.
[00:25:57] Andy Vaughn: Sounds.
[00:25:59] Cheryl Broom: Alright, Andy, well thank you so much. before the break, we talked a little bit about, ensuring how faculty and staff can take care of their own mental health and how leaders can really play a role in creating a, you know, stress-free environment. And I know that Alliant has geared up to really train the next generation of mental health professionals.
[00:26:19] Cheryl Broom: So tell us a little bit about your community clinics and your new telehealth program and how that's going.
[00:26:25] Andy Vaughn: Sure. So we have in California what's called the Alliant Clinics. We got, we have a couple of physical locations in San Diego and LA counties, and we also have a new telehealth. Mental health facility staffed by our own senior students. Senior level students, but also supervised by our licensed clinical psychology faculty.
[00:26:44] Andy Vaughn: And what we do is a sliding scale, and many times it's free. Our contribution back to the communities we serve all over California is mental health that's affordable, even if it's sometimes free for many, so that everyone has access to mental health. And let's face it, we all need that at some point in our life.
[00:27:02] Andy Vaughn: Every one of us. And fortunately in the US I think the stigma is fading. It's not where it needs to be. It's much better than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. We still have a long way to go, but it's much better. And part of our mission is to make sure we're accessible, that mental health is accept, accessible mental health.
[00:27:20] Andy Vaughn: Health is accessible. I think for us, we. Give back to our communities in many ways. But that's one thing that we have a strength that we think we should do. It also enables our students to learn while they're doing an externship and internship and practicum hours in the role. They are supervised by our licensed clinical psychology faculty as well as they do this.
[00:27:40] Andy Vaughn: But the Alliant Clinics is something we we do to give back to our communities in California.
[00:27:45] Cheryl Broom: How do people find out or use this service?
[00:27:48] Andy Vaughn: Well, actually they have a separate website versus Alliant's site, and it's called alliant clinics.org. And on there you can see in San Diego and LA where physically you go. And if you're in California, you can tap into our Sacramento based mental telehealth center and all the instructions are on there.
[00:28:05] Andy Vaughn: That's really easy to do on the website. We encourage everyone to take a look at it.
[00:28:10] Cheryl Broom: That's great. What a fantastic resource. 'cause you're right, I mean, especially, I'm thinking of a lot of our listeners for this podcast are, are community college or college presidents. And I know that a lot of colleges do have nurses on campus. But there's not always mental health support,
[00:28:27] Cheryl Broom: so this would be a great resource for students if they needed to talk to someone or, and yeah.
[00:28:34] Cheryl Broom: Fantastic.
[00:28:35] Andy Vaughn: Something else to consider too if you're not in California, because we're licensed in California, to do those services on a sliding scale is every school has probably another school somewhere within an hour's drive that does mental health licensure programs contact that school If you're a president or a leader of another school, you know, a lot of schools have these 800 numbers you can call, which are great, and I think they, they're a great service.
[00:28:57] Andy Vaughn: But maybe if you want something more in person, contact schools in your cities and most medium and large sized cities have a mental health practitioner school and ask them, Hey, do you have students that are supervised by licensed psychologists and licensed therapists and counselors that, that we could tap into?
[00:29:13] Andy Vaughn: I think it'd be a great idea for most schools to look into that
[00:29:16] Cheryl Broom: Oh yeah, I think it's fantastic. It's a win-win. I'm assuming that the students who are. Doing this work need hours. Right.
[00:29:21] Cheryl Broom: they, 
[00:29:22] Cheryl Broom: they, Yeah. 
[00:29:23] Cheryl Broom: And Yeah.
[00:29:25] Cheryl Broom: I know I met somebody at my gym who's going through it right now, and I can't, I was like shocked when I learned how much time she 
[00:29:31] Andy Vaughn: Yeah, it's a lot even postgraduate for most mental health graduate licensure programs, you have several hundred more hours of supervised work to do before you get your independent license to practice it. It's a lot of hours, but I think schools can take full advantage of that for their own populations.
[00:29:48] Cheryl Broom: Now one other thing I wanted to to talk to you about before we wrap up our discussion is you clearly, you are on the forefront of new programs of building the university, of opening new areas. And we had talked about you launching a new program in Phoenix. Thinking that when you launch a new program, you would just have people like lined up at the door and you had a little bit of a, of a problem filling your first cohort.
[00:30:15] Cheryl Broom: Tell me, tell me what happened there and what ultimately made it successful.
[00:30:20] Andy Vaughn: Yeah, this gets back to the transparency comment. We, you know, we tell our teams the same thing when something doesn't work as well as we thought. Let's just talk about it so we can solve it together. So, Alliant's been around for over a hundred years. We have been the leader in mental health for the last 55, 56 years.
[00:30:35] Andy Vaughn: we relaunched our K 12 teacher training. We train about 1500 new. K 12 teachers in the state of California every year. That's a great program, growing program too. A big demand for teachers in California and really across the country. And we just thought, hey, we're, let's get into physical health.
[00:30:52] Andy Vaughn: It, it, it matches our mission. So let licensure programs are our thing. So nursing, we launched in Phoenix about two years ago. We thought we'll just put our name out in a new city. We've been around a hundred years. Every, of course, this will work well. Well, it worked, but they weren't lining up at the door right away.
[00:31:10] Andy Vaughn: First of all, I think the market told us, you're new at nursing and we don't know who you are. You're, you've never been in Arizona before, so the Arizonans kind of went, never heard of you. And so we thought, okay, well, we finally got to a point where we. Called the time out and said, Hey, let's redo the branding and the marketing approach.
[00:31:31] Andy Vaughn: And what really made the difference for us in building nursing and Phoenix was partnership development with hospitals and other healthcare professionals. That's what finally made the difference is I think in today's higher ed marketing, you're seeing less, especially at the graduate level and licensure program level, you're seeing less pure marketing. Especially when you're new to a market or new new program that you've never done before and more into building your brand with those that are in the same sector you're teaching. That goes a lot further. And that was, look, we, we've been doing mental health and K 12 teacher training for decades. So it'd been a long time since we launched something new like that and it was a learning curve.
[00:32:13] Andy Vaughn: And I think that's okay to admit because we thought, okay, we gotta call a time out. We actually did a full two day retreat with everybody on campus saying, okay, we gotta figure this out 'cause this didn't launch quite right. But we got it right. Finally, now we're building really healthy cohorts in Phoenix for nursing.
[00:32:28] Andy Vaughn: We'll end up with a few hundred nursing students in Phoenix. Matter of fact, they're starting school here in about a week. And things are going well now, but I think it's good for a leader to say, Hey, we didn't do this quite right. Let's call a timeout. Re-strategize, refocus. But again, to my point earlier, involve everybody.
[00:32:47] Andy Vaughn: We've involved our part-time receptionist at the front desk. That's how much we wanted to get information about What are you hearing, what are you feeling? How do we make this better? And and now it's fine.
[00:32:56] Cheryl Broom: And what's, what's great about that with the receptionist is sometimes they have the most information.
[00:33:01] Andy Vaughn: Oh, she did actually. I 
[00:33:03] Andy Vaughn: know, yes. Oh, she even said, well, if you thought about saying this, and I noticed on the sign over here it does this, have you just changed this? And she was 
[00:33:11] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. And I'm so happy to hear you to just be like, this isn't working. We're gonna quit.
[00:33:16] Andy Vaughn: Oh, no, no. We doubled down and finally got it right. Yeah. So that was good. But I think, look, I think being vulnerable as a leader is, is all right. I think you just have to say, Hey, I don't, I don't have all the answers. We're not in these positions to have all the answers. We're in it to make the best decisions.
[00:33:30] Andy Vaughn: After gathering input from everybody and shared governance.
[00:33:34] Cheryl Broom: Well, speaking of being vulnerable, I, one of my career goals when I first started out in higher education was. To one day, maybe be a college president. So I just was enamored. Well, then I became a chief of staff to my college president and decided I do not wanna be a college president.
[00:33:50] Andy Vaughn: it's not for everybody. 
[00:33:52] Andy Vaughn: It is not for everybody. My spouse will oftentimes at the end of a workday see me or hear about my day and go, I could never do that. I 
[00:34:01] Cheryl Broom: it's, 
[00:34:01] Andy Vaughn: never want to do that.
[00:34:02] Cheryl Broom: and I see it here in California with the longevity of presidents. I mean, you're
[00:34:06] Cheryl Broom: three to five years. Yeah,
[00:34:09] Cheryl Broom: So what is your advice to new presidents to maintain a healthy relationship with work and keep their mental health in a healthy spot? Like what? What, as a 10 year president, what is your advice?
[00:34:22] Andy Vaughn: I think you need to set boundaries. it's tough to do 'cause this job is very demanding. I mean, it can be 24 7 if you let it. And we had international campuses when I first took this job too, in Asia and Mexico. And so the time zone difference, especially in Japan and Hong Kong, there, I'd, I'd wake up and there'd be messages about a crisis going on in Japan overnight.
[00:34:44] Andy Vaughn: And so, you just have to empower your staff to make decisions without you always being involved. And I think. Sometimes leaders need to be involved in everything, and I think you gotta set boundaries. You have to empower, you have to codify things. And again, getting back to the values, your job as a leader is to create the infrastructure so you're not always needed, that people have the tools and the ability to filter their decisions.
[00:35:12] Andy Vaughn: Through an agreed upon matrix of decision making, because if you have to make every decision, you're gonna burn out. You're not gonna last in the job, you're gonna be fried, you're gonna wanna leave, and this is what's happening today. There's a big turnover in the presidential roles at colleges for this reason.
[00:35:27] Andy Vaughn: Your job is to spend a lot of time on the front end creating the framework decision making matrix. And the values on how we make decisions, how we treat one another, how we behave at work, and make sure everyone follows that, then empower them to make those decisions. Therefore, a lot of times I'll get a meeting invite.
[00:35:49] Andy Vaughn: Presidents get invites to so many meetings, and most of them we don't need to be in. We really don't. Because if you empower your people and you trust them and you hire the right people and you hire for talent and not just skills, skills are important, so are credentials, but. Personality and values alignment and how work ethic, you know, all those things.
[00:36:09] Andy Vaughn: Hire the right people and trust them to make the right decisions. If the wrong decisions made, most of 'em aren't gonna end in someone dying, so you, you have time to correct. But the majority of the time, they make very good decisions and you let them do that. Let them fail Sometimes that's okay. And I think a lot of presidents say, oh gosh, we have to be perfect.
[00:36:26] Andy Vaughn: You don't have to be perfect. You have to be excellent, not perfect. And I think that helps a lot in longevity.
[00:36:32] Cheryl Broom: I love that idea, the difference between excellence and perfection. That is a great, great idea.
[00:36:38] Andy Vaughn: We can't be perfect. I think some people wanna be, but you're gonna set yourself up for failure if that's your goal.
[00:36:44] Cheryl Broom: exactly, and I mean, talking about mental health, that's not a great place to be and if 
[00:36:48] Andy Vaughn: It is not. 
[00:36:49] Cheryl Broom: to be perfect.
[00:36:49] Andy Vaughn: That's right. That's right.
[00:36:51] Cheryl Broom: Well, I've loved our conversation
[00:36:54] Cheryl Broom: and you are just a complete inspiration and, and what's happening at Alliant is fantastic. It's been really interesting to, to learn more about the university and and what you're doing and do you have any goals for the next 10 years?
[00:37:08] Cheryl Broom: Anything that the college is looking forward to accomplishing.
[00:37:12] Andy Vaughn: Yeah, so we are further launching more physical health programs. We've got occupational therapy launching in San Diego in January at our San Diego campus. We're looking at some other programs, maybe speech language pathology is one. We just find that. If you look at those types of programs, what we do already in mental health licensure programs and K 12 teacher training, licensure programs, that even though the people are have different career goals, it's the same person from the heart and so it matches our mission.
[00:37:44] Andy Vaughn: What I mean by that is people that wanna be teachers or nurses or occupational therapists or mental healthcare licensed workers have that same desire to help others. And so what's great for us is when we look at a program, we're never gonna launch engineering. And I'm not saying engineers are bad people, they're not, they're good people.
[00:38:04] Andy Vaughn: But for us it has to be a fit. And for us, that fit means does it match our mission? Heart first, giving back to our communities, and that's the kind of students we attract. So programs for us over the next 10 years will fit in that alignment somehow.
[00:38:18] Cheryl Broom: That's fantastic. Well, thank you, Andy. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been a real pleasure getting to know you and if people wanna find out more about Alliant or connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:38:30] Andy Vaughn: So alliant.edu is our URL. My email is right on there. If you wanna send a message, just click on my name and I will respond to every email I get.
[00:38:39] Cheryl Broom: Wonderful. Well, great. Well, thank you so much again.
[00:38:43] Andy Vaughn: Thank you. It's been great.