A University President on Why Pandemic Leaders Became Chess Wood Pushers

Julian Schuster [00:00:00] When somebody tells me to do something, my natural reaction is why. My natural reaction is not necessarily to be a rebel without the cause, but to understand what is, what is the reasoning behind somebody's decisions or decision To begin with, this is Jamal Seward, chief People Officer with St. Louis Bank in St. Louis, Missouri. And you are listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:30] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today I interview the president of Webster University, Julian Schuster. We have a really interesting conversation. He has a PhD in Applied economics and is president of the university. He has to manage, how are we going to handle coronavirus? What is it like to lead when you've got student loan debt piling up in the world, and how does he think about how the university's role interplays with how much debt is out into society? This is really interesting because a lot of his answers were things that I had never really thought of before. And this becomes particularly interesting when we get into the conversation about chess. Julian Schuster went out and found one of the world's greatest chess coaches, Susan Polgar, and brought her to Webster University, where they now have won, I believe, five national championships and they continue to grow out the ecosystem of chess here in the St. Louis region. This is a really interesting interview and it's really different. And if you're the type of person that finds yourself enjoying these conversations, then you might wanna consider joining the Articulate Ventures Network. This is a group of people, many of them came through the podcast and the book club, and they wanted to get together and talk about the podcast and learn lessons on how to become a better speaker. But something new has developed there because it's a paid network and people pay to be a member, that keeps the group kind of tight knit and it allows us to have conversations that are long form and for people to put ideas out there that they've never really voiced before, and they don't know if they're right or not.

Vance Crowe [00:02:08] And so we have these discussions where people are trying to improve other people's ideas, pushing the limits on what they know and what they think about. And it really is turning into a supportive and enriching community. So if you're enjoying these kinds of podcasts, consider that you might wanna join the network, and you can do that by going to network Articulate Ventures. That's it for now. We're gonna head into the interview with Julian Schuster, I am so glad you are here. President Julian Schuster, welcome to the podcast.

Julian Schuster [00:02:42] Good to be here. Thank you.

Vance Crowe [00:02:44] So you are the president of Webster University, which is in St. Louis, Missouri. And we are at an unprecedented time, which is coronavirus and a whole lot of focus on how will students contribute to this and how do you set up schools and people going back and forth. What has changed about running a university during the time of coronavirus?

Julian Schuster [00:03:07] Well, there is a long answer to it and the short answer to it, the short answer to it is everything. And, and the long run, long answer to it, you know, is where do you wanna start everything, because nothing is the same as it used to be. Students who are coming to college for the first time clearly will not have the same experience as their colleagues who came last year in this point of time. Moreover, nobody would ever have anything similar as the students who are coming right now are going to experience. And from the running the university standpoint, there are a number of things which need to be done differently, which I would call require some kind of a technical solutions. You need to assure, you know, that we follow the CDC requirements that we certainly, you know, assure health, safety and security of all members of our community. But students in particular because at the end of the day, students are key of what we are doing. We are here, we are in business because of them. We are not in business because of anything else, but also we are part of the larger system. And that means that we need to take into consideration the environments more than ever, the environment that our students are coming from.

Julian Schuster [00:04:48] What are their expectations? What are their fears or anxieties? And we need to address all of them, not forgetting that the primary reason why they're coming to the university is to learn something, to get their education and to move on in their lives. So technical solutions are, let's say, manageable. They change like requirements for testing or requirements for, for cleaning the rooms or occupancy room and so on and so forth. And we can adjust to it. It is required with the additional spending of resources, both human resources as well as material resource, but we can handle that as industry. What is harder to handle is exactly the other part of the equation, which you might call adaptive, which means what is going to be a societal effort in order to arrest COVID developments? What we as a society, as a nation are doing in order to address the challenges that both businesses, industries, but individuals are facing. As you know, we do not have a common ground about the simple things. Should we wear the mask or not? Should we have tested, should we go and have been tested or not? How often do we need to be tested? All of those issues penetrate students' mind, penetrates community members' mind, and then they do have a tendency not to become issues, which bring us together.

Julian Schuster [00:06:28] But unfortunately, issues will divide us. So the COVID impact on COVID is that it has an easy tendency to become a divisive tool. Divisive thing, you know, which then makes everything harder to operate.

Vance Crowe [00:06:45] You know, it's, it's not very often that you get to speak directly to a president, but because of your background with applied economics, I'm really interested in exploring concepts about the value of a college education and student loan debt. But before we get to that, because we're talking about coronavirus, I think Coronavirus has revealed, or it reveals something important about leadership. And there's a concept, we spoke about this before the interview called Putnam's two level games. And what the, the two level games analogy is trying to describe is from the outside, it looks like when you're a leader, you become the president of university, you get to like smoke cigars and put your feet up on the table and tell everybody what to do. But the reality of leadership is that you're playing two games at the exact same time. And when you're thinking about it on the, in, in Putnam's idea, he was saying, if you're the president of a country, for example, you are playing chess on two different boards, the domestic board where you have to play in order to get elected and get things done. But then you're also playing on the international board, and when you move a piece on the domestic board, it automatically moves a piece or several pieces on the international board and vice versa. And so what you're actually doing when you're a leader is having to reconcile these two games and play them very well with Coronavirus. There has been, I think it has revealed the absence of leadership on many, many levels because people don't wanna make a decision and so they're not making decisions or they're waiting for other people to make decisions, and then they'll just apply whatever decisions are being made.

Vance Crowe [00:08:21] And where do you fit in on that? How is, how does Putnam's two level games apply to, to your work?

Julian Schuster [00:08:29] Well, I'm just trying to to to to to, to address that in a way which is, which is going to be both meaningful and truthful in the same time. So even at the young age, I did not want necessarily to do what the other peoples told me to do. IIII am completely on a different spectrum. You know, when somebody tells me to do something, my natural reaction is why my natural reaction is not necessarily to be rebel without the cause, but to understand what is, what is the reasoning behind somebody's decisions or decision to begin with. Consequently, when we are dealing with the COVID, I can give you one example in the big, and, and that is a overused example, masks or no masks. So you have people who religiously followed, no, no, no, we will not fo we will not have the masks. And then some of them religiously followed now that you have to have a mask, even one notch above the CDC requirement because that is probably a natural year for safety. So somebody else assures your safety and because of that you will follow that.

Julian Schuster [00:10:05] That is certainly not in my book, a leadership trait that can be a perfect survival tool for some people. But that is certainly not something which defines leadership and defines problem solving attitude that we absolutely re are required to get in the times itself. So consequently, the first thing in anything in life, but in the situation like that is understanding what is going on around us. Without that, we are just going to aimlessly swing from one pendulum to another side of the pendulum without having any comprehension about motion. That is a, that is, that is occurring between the two swings and actually understanding where we were, where we are headed, and how are we going to go There is quintessential for the proper response to every crisis or to everything in life. But in this particular instance to this crisis, so as you said, you are absolutely right. We have, I would say societal malice, that less and less we are questioning prevailing wisdoms. We are adopting those prevailing wisdoms and becoming a crusaders of that wisdom without exactly understanding is this wise at all or should we be following that? And if we don't, what are the consequences of doing it or of not doing?

Julian Schuster [00:11:41] So the the ultimate leadership trait is again, if I can sum it up, you know, is understanding situation around you and then mobilizing individuals in, in order to follow the path, which is going to lead toward the solution. And the solution does, again, doesn't need to be a technical solution. The solution can be as esoteric as mobilizing all the resources that we have at our disposal to help each other, help to navigate through the crisis and to see if you wish, you know, where the solution might be, be it at the end, the light at the end of the, of the tunnel or jumping over another obstacle on our way toward, toward the solution.

Vance Crowe [00:12:29] Yeah, to me, one of the biggest issues of the coronavirus solution is that people have an assumption that the, the river we're trying to cross, or the mountain range that we're trying to get to is no more coronavirus. But I, I often wonder if that is actually where, where we're trying to head towards or if there will be such a state that is no more coronavirus or if that ultimately you get there and now you have new things that have cropped up like a new sensitivity to influenza or a new sensitivity to people spreading out colds. And so I take your point on the, you know, we wanna figure out where the pendulum is swinging and not just go there because that's the convention or that's the, the new wisdom. But do you have a sense for what the ultimate solution is? Because when you, when you try and ask people this, there is a level of frustration that comes from them. Like, well, we, we all already automatically know what the end state is. And I don't think we do.

Julian Schuster [00:13:31] I don't think either. I basically as you, the people are, if you think about the vast majority of individuals around us, you know, they are looking for the vaccine as a magic wand, you know, which is going to solve the, the, the, the, the issue of Corona. So if vaccine comes, you know, we will eradicate Corona. But you, as you actually pointing out, you know, what if something else occurs? And I don't believe that this is a question of what if something else will offer. So the key issue which we are facing as a society is the change interpersonal dynamics and change of the way, how we perceive our environment and ultimately the other human being. And by, by that change, how do we perceive ourselves? Every pandemic, every situation like that amplifies insecurities in, in the, in the individuals as, as you can see, you know, what is happening around us is that the rampant insecurity of individuals and what people do when they're insecure again, you know, it is flight or fight, you know, some people become a more assertive and some people are going back into their cocoon.

Julian Schuster [00:15:02] But what is lost in both cases is an ability to establish a healthy, productive relationship with another human being, with your environment now, whatever, however you wanna see, wearing the mask, not shaking hands, not having puffs, trying to minimize your exposure next to the other human being ultimately changes relationship between the human beings.

Vance Crowe [00:15:35] Oh, I'm a hundred percent with you on this. In fact,

Julian Schuster [00:15:37] And and

Vance Crowe [00:15:38] Like, oh, go ahead.

Julian Schuster [00:15:40] No, no, no, go ahead. You know,

Vance Crowe [00:15:41] Well, I mean, like, my, my my pro biggest concern about the let's just wear masks is, is not that it's not safe. Like it's not that I, I mean, I understand that it would automatically, yes, you're going to prevent a certain amount of disease spreading and, and those things, but it was that, that we were not calculating in the idea that for as long as human beings have been around their phases have been exposed so that we can read the emotions on another person. And that is huge volumes of data. And to, to just cut it off at the exact same time, we we're running into all sorts of other conflicts around our political situation, around where our economy is going. And now not only can you not read faces and the the tensions are heightened, like you were saying, people's insecurities are, are manifesting in ways that they hadn't in the last 20 years or 30 years. So to me, the the, we are too quick to come up with the thing that we are going to do to resolve the anxieties and the, the, there's so much pressure to just have an answer that it feels like a, like a chess game where you're just like, I don't know what I'm gonna do, so I'm just gonna move this piece right over here and then just hope for the best.

Julian Schuster [00:17:01] That is, that is an excellent analogy. And you know how we call those people who play chess, they know how they call those people who cannot resist the temptation to make a move without understanding what they're doing. We call them wood pushers, you know, because it is not even a checkers, it is a, I would say level below the checkers. You know, you're just doing something in order to create the full sense of purpose. And, and, and you, what you are touching is exactly what the pandemic is is doing. It's creating a, so if you put the mask, you suddenly create the false sense of safety. If you're not touching the other human being, you are creating the false sense of security, health, staying home, not coming to work. And then allow me another, my, one of my favorite examples is a lot of people would opt and think that coming in person to to work, they'll not do that because that creates an additional risk for their health. And in some instances, because of the, some kind of the immune deficiencies, you know, or, or, or or whatever age as CDC says, that might be very well true, but in some instances it is a subjective perception of risk.

Julian Schuster [00:18:36] And then you see what pandemic brings the worst in the human being, and that is selfishness. So the same individuals who are wearing masks, not shaking hands, not having hug, not coming to work or working remotely by their own preference, are going to go to the local grocery stores are going to go to do everything else which they have to do in order. And you see they are going to shift the per what is risky and what is not risky. And that is going to be done through the, I would say, selfish prison. And that is an intended or unintended consequence of pandemic and I would say insecurity, which is brought to us in the, when people, when human beings are insecure, then the survival. And that is ultimately, you know, me before anybody else comes to the forefront. And society, which is primarily built on that is not sustainable. Society is always sustainable in which people will learn to rely on each other. And in for, in order to rely on each other, they need to have a contact, they need to have a communication. And that communication, as you said, facial expressions, tactile being around people is equally important as hearing somebody's voice.

Julian Schuster [00:20:17] Because at the end of the day, there are hearing voices which are good, and there are hearing voices which are not so good. You know, as you know, there's hearing voices in your head does not necessarily mean, you know, that that is a voice of the divine origin. It can be something which is completely, completely unwanted. I'm like, of course I'm trying to be funny and to make a joke out of it, you know. But the, the key issue is that in the times in which we are living, the principle challenge for us is reestablishing connection with the other human being and maintaining the fabric of society in which people will learn again, not to perceive another human being as a possible source of infection, but as a possible source of a solution to the challenge in which we are finding ourselves.

Vance Crowe [00:21:13] Wow. I actually have not heard anybody say that that is profound and, and correct. I think, you know, you, you were talking about insecurity and the danger of that. I believe that one of the most dangerous things in our political situation, maybe our society right now, is the amount of individual debt that young people are having. Because debt is one of those things that it is a prison where the prisoners are allowed to walk around, and yet they're completely captured by the fact that every single one of their thoughts goes around, how will I get out from underneath this? What will it keep me from doing in the future? And you are at a university that has, you know, charges students to come and get an education. What are your thoughts on how the student loan, I, I would consider it a crisis, but that's not really a fair framing necessarily, but what do you think of the, where we are at with student loan debt?

Julian Schuster [00:22:11] Well, again, student loan or student debt in depthness of, of students is, again, we can talk about that from the narrow standpoint, which will be only how big is that debt and how did we come to have that debt and what is the solution for it? In many, in, in many situations. As an economist, I can tell you what is the easiest solution for that. The easiest solution for that is to forgive that death and just say from tomorrow, this death doesn't exist. And you know, there are political forces in this society in our country, which are advocating for that. They, they're not advocating for the entire student that, but I would say to segment certain part of the society and then to forgive that to this part of the society, however, we in this democratic society decide to do that, that's fine. But the key issue, again, going back to this question, why is to ask ourself how and why student debt operate that is occurring when you borrow money in order to finance something for which you do not have enough money to pay for. Correct? Right. We auto loan b car loan be that mortgage or something else.

Julian Schuster [00:23:45] Some people take a loan to buy the iPhone. Some people take the loan to, to do credit card loan. So what is the situation with the credit card debt in the United States? So what is an average in depthness of the, I would say cornerstone of our society? Now we can, you can say what is the corner cornerstone of our society? Is this 1% of the people, 2% of the people. And I would arguably say those people do not worry about that. Or it is this 50, 60, 70% of the people who made between X and Y amount of dollars, who are Z amount, Z percentage of in debt. So thinking about question, why are we in debt? Basically we are in debt because in general, and then we will go to the student loan. In general, we are financing the purchases, which we believe that we will make money in the future, which will enable us to repay that debt. Correct? You do not, you buy house, take a mortgage, not necessarily to sell the house tomorrow. Some people do that and then they might make money because that is a market economy. But if people have an American dream, they will certainly buy the house to live in it hoping that in these 15 or 30 years they will make sufficient amount of money to repay that, that and to build equity.

Julian Schuster [00:25:18] That is, that is the economic. Now for some people who succeed that doing that, that is a dream. That is an, for some people who do not do that, they just have dream, you know, because they will be left with a debt without a house. If something goes array with the student, that certainly, you know, that people go to school to obtain the education, to obtain the education, to get the job, to get the better job and to make more money. So this is an investment into the future, better future from the standpoint of the quality of living, but better future, better financial future because investment into the possibility because of the better education to get the better job and more income. Now in the number of instances, the ability to get the job does not depend necessarily on the education. It depends on the overall state of our economy. Talking about the example about internal and external, which you gave Putnam example, which you gave sometimes ago. The issue is that we have this, I would say frenzy in the certain political circles. We were saying, what is the bank for the buck? As university can promise to the individual, you will get education, you will get the better job, better job will be better paid, and you will pay your loan fast.

Julian Schuster [00:27:01] Very few universities can do that, and we don't need to name them, right? And again, we all know why is that possible? On the other hand, if we are our ability, we university ability to guarantee that is different in the year 2008, then in the year 2016, and you know what I'm driving at, and university by itself did not create educational institutions. The year 2008, the year 1908, the year 1929, those are big economic crisis in which situations is not economic situation is not developing in a, if you wish, in the normal, in the normal, normal, normal trajectory. So consequently, with every taking a loan, people taking inherent risk, they project the situation in which they take the loan, they project the ability, they project the chances that they will be better off tomorrow than they're today, and that they will repay that loan. However, because of the periodic economic crisis that is not happening. And what is happening is that we end up with a tremendous amount of individuals, large number of individuals who are unable to repay their loan.

Julian Schuster [00:28:41] Thus we have a issue of credit crunch or issue of student loan crisis. So as you can see, student loans are inseparable, in my opinion, from the general situation which exists in our society, in our country. And that is that the vast majority of the people, because of the, of the, of the, of the arrangements that exist in our economic system are financing their current, current expenditure with income that they are going to get into the future. And whenever there is a discrepancy between those two things, you end up in the so-called credit crisis or a credit crunch in which people are incapable of repaying what they have borrowed. Now that can be like it was in 2008, 2009, resolved by the government intervention and forgiveness of debt or covering up the losses and so on and so forth. Or it can be resolved by, in the future, finding an alternate arrangement to finance your expenditures. In this particular instance, you know, how are we going to minimize recurrence of the student debt in the future?

Julian Schuster [00:30:14] Now I can tell you one thing that would require a qualitatively different approach to financing education in this way.

Vance Crowe [00:30:22] Yeah. And that's, I mean, I had never really thought about from the perspective of the university, like we, we have to ride these waves of economic crises and, and the changes. And so you're making a bet at essentially when you enter the workforce and what sort of debt you've taken out. But to, to pile all of this debt in with things like credit card debt or mortgage or car loans. There is one qualitative difference in that in 2002, the government made it so you couldn't discharge your student loan debt in bankruptcy. And so now we have a situation where the, the risk that goes along with that debt. Normally, if, if you can declare bankruptcy, then whoever is giving the money can look at people and say, you're too risky, you don't seem to be applying yourself, or you don't, you don't have a good plan for what your academics should look like in order that you can pay this back. And instead we said, we're gonna take away all of that risk by making it because the students can't discharge the debt. And so this causes, I, I think when you take risk out, and as an economist, I bet you'll agree with me. When you take risk out, people make different decisions than they would if you had the risk or if the risk was clear to you on what was going to happen. And that seems to me to be the, the thing that made student loan debt a bomb in a way that mortgage loans or small business loans or credit card loans don't have, can't compare to,

Julian Schuster [00:31:48] Oh no, there is no doubt, you know, that increasing the, the stakes in the risk gains will alter the human behavior. On the other hand, the key issue there in my opinion is allow me to say those are, and that is a going to be a little bit strong statement. Those are cosmetic measures. They are going to alter magnitude of the issue, but they are not going to address the root cause of the challenge. And the root cause of the challenge is that the cost of education is increasing faster than ability of people to finance it and to obtain it. So the credit or the debt is becoming more important tool in order to achieve the education. Consequently, if you now enter into the game of the risk assessment, it is quite possible that you will end up, you know, somebody can be enormously bright and the third risk assessment in order to repay the debt. And if that becomes a qualification or the selection criteria, that means that you will have a lot of mediocre people who will be low risk assessment and will be granted that, you know, and, and, and very few bright individuals, you know, who will be very high risk, but who will not be able to go, to go and to obtain that education.

Julian Schuster [00:33:25] Somebody will say, well, we have a meritocracy system, which is going to address that. Well, in some instances it will, but in many, in many it won.

Vance Crowe [00:33:38] W when you study economics, what, what, what style? Like you're a free market economist, you're a, you're somebody that, that thinks free markets are dangerous. What are your thoughts on

Julian Schuster [00:33:50] All of the above? You know, free market is a best possible system that we can have, but it's also very, very dangerous. And, and I know that it sounds like a joke, but this is the truth. You know, the, the free market will ultimately put the resources into the best possible use, but that will come at the expense to the society in the long run. And everybody, and I don't want to go into the, into the, into the, into this elaboration. For me, everything is a learning, I would not call it a game, but learning process. So economic economy or economic relationship among people are learning exercise. So there is no such a thing. Those are ideological, if you wish, ideological constructs. Are you for government intervention or are you for free market? And then they are measuring all of that. And then it is very popular to go, to say, to call somebody a socialist if he or she advocates, you know, for less pollution or it is very popular to advocate some, somebody who says, let's go with the free market, he's very entrepreneurial and so on and so forth. It is quite possible to, to do both things and to be entrepreneurial and to be actually, actually I would say environmentally conscious thinking about electric automobile, thinking about about number of other things.

Julian Schuster [00:35:28] So the, the, the, the key issue there is gap. How do we arrange relationship among ourselves in order to obtain things which we want to obtain? What do I mean by that? Ultimately, neither this can be talking about pandemics, neither this can be in which one individual will do whatever he or she thinks it's best for him without any regulation, nor somebody should regulate everything in order to people follow his or her orders. And as you can see in the pandemics, we have those two extremes emerging. On one side people would like to do, I don't touch me, this is my key. On the other side, you have people who are just not, I'm not saying, not thinking, but who are yearning for somebody else to tell them what to do. So economics doesn't exist outside the society. Economics is a reflection of the relationship that exists in the society. So conse consequently, when you say in some instances free market should be actually allowed to operate with as little intervention as possible. In the other instances, free market should be severely limited, severely or should be limited in order for society to achieve its own goals.

Julian Schuster [00:36:59] So there is no simple answer to it. And as you, as you can see, what I suggest is that before we use terms, capitalism, socialism, free market intervention regulation, that we actually know what those things imply and what are the ramifications of the, of, of, of the applications, of those theoretical constructs in a very concrete situation in which we operate.

Vance Crowe [00:37:32] That is, I mean, I talk to a lot of economists and I've never heard anybody lay it out in, in that way. I mean, of course we know that there are trade-offs between if you're, if you're gonna be a complete free marketeer, then you have a society of individuals and then, then you then I'm not sure what kind of society you have. And the more intervention you have, then you have where the individual isn't free. So as you think about the, so you've lived in at least two different societies, your accent tells me to, like, what is it that you have learned by living among two different economic systems?

Julian Schuster [00:38:10] Well, it is, it is again, not an easy question because I lived in the two different systems in the two different periods of time, meaning, and the periods of time in general, but also in particular, let me give you one thing. You know, I remember I was in my mid twenties and I was working, it's about a student's job and somebody who was very young came, came to me, you know, and I was trying to tell him how to do his job and he was very reluctant and it was a manual job, nothing, nothing, nothing. Very, very, very hard to comprehend. And then I used the favorite example, you know, which I used, which was, listen, I'm a little bit older than you are and you are not still as old as I am. And the individual, that individual looked at me and says, yes, but I will be as old as you are and you will never be as young as I am again. So what I, what what that tells me, you know, when I was in the system, which was economically and politically different than the system I lived in the last 30 years here, I was a kid.

Julian Schuster [00:39:47] I was a, I was growing up over there. And what was good for that, it was a safe system. It was completely, you know, the, the rid of the crime, you know, with a good education, with a free education and without a need for a seven or eight or 10 or 11 years old kid, you know, to be politically involved and to, to, to have a notion what a democracy is, to have a notion what entrepreneurial spirit is, that was not necessarily important for a seven or eight or 10 years old kid. What was more important is to go on the street and to, to wander, you know, miles away and come back, you know, without thinking that you will go into the best part of the town or that something can happen to you. So in that regard, I can tell you that from that standpoint, my childhood was very happy from the very similar things at the time when entrepreneurial thing became very important to me, an opportunity to test my abilities to get the broader horizons than coming to the United States and coming to this environment became very important to me. So I can tell from the, if I look honestly back, you know, I can tell you that I had the best of, the best of the two possible worlds.

Julian Schuster [00:41:26] Number of people did not have that privilege, number of people completely reverse that they had a raw deal back where they came from. And then they came here at the age in which entrepreneurial spirit was not necessarily the most important thing, but the security was the most important thing for them. And for them the story was a little bit different. So what I'm driving at is without any characterizations, you know, it is very hard to live and, and to, to be in the same place at the, how to say, to be,

Vance Crowe [00:42:07] Well you never crossed the same river twice, right? Correct. It's gonna change just by the very fact that you've touched it.

Julian Schuster [00:42:12] Absolutely. Absolutely. And it is very hard to be in two different places in the same period of time. So what I'm trying to do is to, to to, to assess situation from the standpoint of somebody really who have a clear experience living in the two different places in the two different points of time, points of time. Now if you ask me, but you need to make a decision, you need to tell me where is better. I, my answer to that is very rarely in my life, if ever I did not, I did things which I do not like. So mere fact that I'm here tells you, you know, about my decision, personal decision, where to stay, where to build my professional career, and where to build my family life. So in many respects, you know, that is an answer by itself and for itself as they would say.

Vance Crowe [00:43:24] So speaking of your professional career, you became president of Webster University and made a very interesting decision. You went out and found a woman named Susan Polgar, who is a grandmaster chess player, and she has built up one of the world's great collegiate chess teams at Webster University. What in the world made you decide to go that route, the, the chess champion route and, and figuring this as a path for your university?

Julian Schuster [00:43:53] So talking about your previous question, you know, one of the positive experiences that I remember from the, what we call it old world, was learning how to play chess basically, you know, in this part of the world, in former Yugoslavia and all around, you know, Balkans and broader what people would call here, Eastern Europe, you know, chess from whatever reason, some people will say, well, there was not enough other opportunities, but the chess was part of the everyday life, life there for centuries. Not only for the last 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years, it was for the centuries. And chess was in many regard, you know, something which was my more than a hobby, you know, and in many respects, my alter ego, I learned how to think like a chess player. I learned to, to make analogies between chess and the real life, you know, and making the right move. Seeing three moves ahead if you wish. You know, the thinking about both tactically and strategically about certain situation. And I always wanted to, to merge or marry education and chess because there is, there are a number of studies which will prove that people or kids, young people who play chess have displace certain characteristics which are desirable in adults and which allow them to perform better.

Julian Schuster [00:45:35] For example, kids who play chess in the elementary schools perform better in the, in the tests under the time pressure that individuals who do not do that. And, and what my idea was is to utilize chess as a game in order to see how we can use chess as a didactic tool, as a learning tool in our elementary schools and also at the, at the university level. And that was something which I always wanted to do. And then through some chess connection, because chess has its own microcosm, I of course knew who the Susan Polgar is. You know, Susan Polgar is, I would say the, the, the, the legend in, in the, in the, in chess. She was a first woman who called the men grandma title. So she is a first woman. If, if you, if anybody wants to talk about the emancipation of women, you know, the Susan Ger is a prime example because she elevated the women game to the level of men playing. And that was revolutionary at that point of time. She was a world champion, Olympic champion, you name it, you know. So for me, and she was at the, at the, at the another university having a chess team.

Julian Schuster [00:47:09] So through the mutual friend, we engaged into the, into the negotiations to use the sports analogy. And she transferred from one franchise to another franchise, build another team here. And we have been five or six times United States champions in, in, in the collegiate chess. So, but more importantly than bringing chess to Webster, Susan and her team throughout the St. Louis employees throughout the elementary schools in St. Louis promulgated the chess game. For me, chess is a great equalizer. Chess doesn't care about the color of the skin, chess doesn't care about your ability of your financial situation. In the chest, there is a board, there are pieces and there are two individuals who are playing against each other and who wins is who thinks more logically in a shorter period of time. So as you can see, you know, the chest as I again, to repeat that is a great equalizer. And that is sometimes important to have both in the education system and in the society because that will foster entrepreneurial spirit and betterment of, of individuals who are engaged in the game.

Vance Crowe [00:48:41] I'm not sure how to ask this question, but I'm, I, I'm very curious. When I talk with somebody that has played a great deal of chess, I do it, but I am completely just a, I'm just playing. I, I don't focus on it in a deep way to learn new moves or anything like that, but I love the game. But when I find that people that are really, truly good at it, the pieces themselves have been anthropomorphized, right? They, they, they take on some characteristic. Is that true of you? Do you have a feeling about bishops or a feeling about knights and rooks?

Julian Schuster [00:49:16] You know, the, the chess, again, think about this, you know, chess is the game of space and tie and certain pieces are assigned attributed and ability to move, right? And their ability to move is one, two squares or eight squares. So they have a different dynamic ability and their shape sometimes resembles or that ability to move. So when you say, do you have, that was a sophisticated answer, you know, or attempt to be sophisticated answer, you know, the shape of the, of the pieces is traditional and they, they all look the same throughout the history. But what is truly different about the pieces is the way, how they move and the, their ability to move on the board. Consequently, some pieces which move, which have a, which project themselves further are stronger than the pieces which don't, because at the end of the time, as I said, you know, the chess is the game of space and time. And don't forget, you know, as Napoleon says, you know, like in any battle, the lost space, you can always recover, but the lost time never.

Julian Schuster [00:50:56] So what I say, it is not the time on the clock, it is the time that you will conquer the most of the space in the shortest period of time. That is that you don't need to make three moves to do one thing, that you need to make one move, which is going to capture the most or to control most of the space. So yes, different, different pieces have a different feel, not because they look differently, but they can do differently.

Vance Crowe [00:51:25] It had never dawned on me that the way that the pieces are carved, they do like the, the, the rook being in, just in being able to go in straight lines and the night being able to jump up and over two. Like, I'd never thought about that. That's very clever. So is, is chess something you still, you play often? It's something you make time for now?

Julian Schuster [00:51:48] Well, I play, I'm reluctant to say that because both my family is not very happy. Whenever I have a free time, I would, I would find a way, you know, to go and to play a speed chess game claiming, you know, that I need to clean something or something like that. So yes, I do play chess whenever I can, although not as much as I used to. For me, chess always was more than a game and less than life. So what I mean by that is chess is more than a game, but chess, again, it is very, I would say it imp prudent to think that chess will provide all answers to, to the life life problems. So when you ask me now, do I play chess? I play chess as a hobby, I play chess as something which will relax me. I play chess as sometimes when I want to have an additional enjoyment, but I do not think that chess is an answer to all the challenges that I face in my life.

Vance Crowe [00:52:57] Is that something you have to say because there are people that do think that it is an answer to your life or that there is some meaning?

Julian Schuster [00:53:03] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Vance Crowe [00:53:04] What does that look like if somebody thinks that,

Julian Schuster [00:53:07] That that means reducing life to the 64 squares and to the, to the, to the, to the figures which are on the board. And then sometimes people try to make an, an, an ultimate analogy that everything in the real life resembles the chess ball. And that is a reduction which people should resist.

Vance Crowe [00:53:32] It's interesting because I was talking with a friend of mine the other day, a guy named Rob Long, and we were talking, should you learn to play the game? You're just to the, or learn to play the man that you're playing against. And we kind of came to the conclusion that in today's modern age, computers do allow you to just play the game, right? It's, it is just, it has automatic moves, but there's something lost there because you are actually, when you're sitting across from another human being, you are playing the man or the woman trying to figure out what are they going to do and having your reaction. What are your, what are your thoughts on that?

Julian Schuster [00:54:09] Well, objectively, objectively you play only the pieces and you play only the game. You play against the pieces. You are not playing against other human being objectively.

Vance Crowe [00:54:26] Wow, okay.

Julian Schuster [00:54:29] Subjectively, those pieces are moved by another human being and we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. And if you know the weaknesses of another human being, you will actually be in a position in which you will better anticipate his or her moves and consequently easier win the game. So think about in, of course in chance there is a less element of chance. It shouldn't be element of chance at all, but the less element of chess chance than in poker. So you can play poker objectively, right? But sometimes because of the element of chance and the element of subjectivity, you do play the player, you know, and that's the reason why you have those silly situations, you know, in which they have those sunglasses, you know, in order not to see their facial. They are perfect COVID examples, right? You know, you put the mask and you play the best possible game. So the answer to that is, or from the objective standpoint, you pay play against the pieces, but you always play a human being.

Vance Crowe [00:55:49] Fascinating answer. Yeah. I'm so glad I asked that. Well, Julian Schuster, I know you've got a busy day, so I'm just grateful that we were able to make time to make this podcast come together. Thank you so much for coming on.

Julian Schuster [00:56:01] Thank you so much. Let me go put my mask and let me go to my usual routine. Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:56:07] Thank you so much.

Julian Schuster [00:56:08] Thank you. Thank you very much.