{"id":98005,"date":"2019-05-31T15:19:09","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T19:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005//?p=98005"},"modified":"2025-06-17T16:56:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T20:56:52","slug":"interview-thad-seymour-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005//interview-thad-seymour-jr/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005//","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Thad Seymour Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"

If you think about it, Interim President Thad Seymour Jr./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s life so far can be seen in three acts./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201cIn my DNA is this belief that education is the single most important thing that can improve a person/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s opportunities, their quality of life, their livelihood and their impact on the world./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

The opening act was spent on college campuses, first as the son of a professor turned college administrator, then as a student pursuing multiple degrees. The second was his business career, where he held senior executive roles in the healthcare and technology industries, before retiring as senior vice president for the Tavistock Development Company. The third act has been his return to higher education, and more specifically 麻豆原创, where he helped develop the university/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s strategic plan, led efforts on the downtown campus and was named vice president for partnerships and chief innovation officer./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

It/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s not that his life has been a drama. In fact, talking to him, you/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019ll notice his keen sense of humor. But there is something to be found in his story coming full circle from his days at Dartmouth /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2014 first as the child of an academic, then later as a young man studying history /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2014 to his position leading 麻豆原创 at a critical time in its history. And there is something to be said for the lessons we learn as children informing who we become as adults. For Seymour, that is seen most clearly in his views about the power of education./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201cIn my DNA is this belief that education is the single most important thing that can improve a person/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s opportunities, their quality of life, their livelihood and their impact on the world,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201d Seymour says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201cAnd education should not be a privilege, but rather widely available to expand opportunity and strengthen our society./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

Here, we asked Seymour about who he/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s been, what he/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s done, and where he sees 麻豆原创 going in the future./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

LJC: I hear you were once a volunteer firefighter. Tell me about that./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

TS: I was. After I graduated from Dartmouth, I was teaching at a boarding school in a small town in New Hampshire, which only had a few hundred residents. They only had a volunteer fire department but not very many firefighters./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

The headmaster had the idea of getting juniors and seniors involved with the fire department, as it would be a good experience for the students while helping the community. He said, /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201cAh, here/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s a gullible young history teacher. Maybe he/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019ll lead it./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201d I thought, /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201cOh my gosh, this is awesome./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

There/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s not much better for young men and women than to have the alarm go off, which in this town was just a big siren, and to all go running to the school van. I had this magnetic light that plugged into the lighter. I/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019d put it on the top of the vehicle and go racing down the hill to the firehouse where we/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019d put our gear on and board the trucks to the fire. Usually, it was a chimney fire or a smoking car or something like that, though there was the -20 degree night when the only gas station in town burned to the ground. Not our finest hour. But 40 years later, the student fire brigade is still going strong./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201cThere/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s a tendency to overcomplicate problem solving, organizational design or any strategy you take on. But if you can boil something down to its essence, everything falls into place./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

LJC: What are some of the biggest lessons you/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019ve learned from business, higher education /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2014 and firefighting?/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

TS: They/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019re all the same, actually. (laughs)/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

You know, I could go a bunch of different directions, but the biggest one /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2014 and maybe this comes with experience /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2014 is just keep it simple. There/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s a tendency to overcomplicate problem solving, organizational design or any strategy you take on. But if you can boil something down to its essence, everything falls into place. We tried to do that with the strategic plan. Even though 麻豆原创 is a big, complex organization with multiple stakeholders, we found a way to take it back to a handful of key guiding principles and measurable objectives that everything else rolled up to./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

It/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s really hard work to get to that, but once you do, everything else gets easier./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n

Having worked in a lot of different kinds of organizations, including nonprofits, I/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019ve learned that the same logic applies everywhere. If you can/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019t articulate the short list of things that you/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019re really about, it/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s hard to get everyone to pull in the same direction. But if you do, leading and managing gets really easy because people just take it on and do the things that help you get there. It/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u2019s an overused word, but /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201calignment/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/u201d so applies. And if you can get an organization aligned to a shared vision and a common set of goals and objectives, well, just get out of the way because good things are going to happen./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/98005/n