| 0:00:09.89 | 37.3s | Alex Fronduto | Hello and welcome everyone. This is another live edition of Admit it. I'm Alex Fronduto, associate teaching professor at Northeastern University, and we're coming to you from the 2025 ACro annual meeting in Seattle, Washington. This episode is part of our conference conversation series where we sit down with presenters to dive to dive deeper into their sessions and insights. Joining me right now is Eric Sanford, university registrar at Friends University. Who led a session on the power of questions in higher education. I'm excited to hear more about his work and the key takeaways from his presentation. Eric, thanks so much for being here. Hey, |
| 0:00:47.43 | 2.9s | Eric Sanford | thank you so much for asking me to be here. I appreciate it. |
| 0:00:51.11 | 8.0s | Alex Fronduto | Well, obviously, my listeners may or may not have gone to your session and may not know who you are, so I would love first for you to introduce yourself. |
| 0:00:59.43 | 17.7s | Eric Sanford | Yeah, my name is Eric Sanford, as you said, I'm the university registrar at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. I've been at Friends for just about 5 years and I've been at a couple of other institutions in the past, so my higher education journeys um reached almost 20 years. |
| 0:01:18.84 | 5.1s | Alex Fronduto | And that's nothing wrong with that. I feel like you had like a negative like almost 20 years. |
| 0:01:24.1 | 0.8s | Eric Sanford | No, no, no, no, |
| 0:01:24.84 | 20.6s | Alex Fronduto | no, you are in it. We are trying. I just did a series trying to get more people excited about moving up the ladder into leadership roles, um, so excited for you to be here. Um, so first kind of a high level summary of what your session's all about, since again, some people may have went, some people may have not even been to the conference. |
| 0:01:45.94 | 51.3s | Eric Sanford | Yeah, the power of um questions in higher education, I think is just important um because oftentimes when we are in education and we get more and more letters behind our names. I always am concerned about how many questions we actually ask. Um, and so that's what posed the, the topic for me at the beginning, um, and as I'm also an executive coach on the side, it's a side gig of mine, so I am always asking questions of my clients and I try to correlate both of those works into one. And so my session has been is about my work as an executive coach. And taking those principles that I've learned in coaching into my higher education journey as well. |
| 0:02:38.5 | 21.8s | Alex Fronduto | Well, of course, as you can imagine, that is really important to think about how we are asking the questions, what are we asking and not just telling and talking, which I assume is what you're saying the latter part is as people get their initials after them and move up in the field, they think they know everything, so they're not asking, is that kind of what you're getting at? Yeah, |
| 0:03:00.13 | 48.5s | Eric Sanford | well, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I mean, I, I think people continue to ask questions, but Sometimes in higher ed, at least my experience has been, we stop being curious. We get to that plateau of the degrees we've wanted to earn, the, the salary we've, we're at, we might have stayed at the same university or institution for a long time. And we be just become, you know, uh, even keel, so to speak, and um. I think in leadership, we always have to be asking questions. We need to be asking questions of our students, of our, of our faculty members, of our peers staff members. So it's important to ask questions and stay curious. |
| 0:03:49.64 | 11.8s | Alex Fronduto | And with that being said, are there specific types of questions or in your session, is it more general? Talk a little bit about kind of the inner workings of the session itself. Yeah. |
| 0:04:01.64 | 11.9s | Eric Sanford | Well, what I, I cover is a little bit of both, a lot of it is general, but one concept, um, I. Introduce is the 5 wives, One Husband model. |
| 0:04:13.88 | 2.1s | Alex Fronduto | OK, I haven't heard it, so I'm excited. |
| 0:04:16.58 | 2.7s | Eric Sanford | So who, what, when, where, why, |
| 0:04:19.52 | 0.5s | Alex Fronduto | right? |
| 0:04:20.30 | 25.0s | Eric Sanford | And of course the one, the one is the how. And the questions when we're asking questions, it is always important to, of course, stay quiet, listen actively as I put it in the in my session. But ask those 5 wives, 1 husband questions. And also my word of advice is try to stay away from the why questions. |
| 0:04:45.92 | 7.2s | Alex Fronduto | OK. And so why should someone stay away from it? See, I see what the point is there. |
| 0:04:53.79 | 75.3s | Eric Sanford | So the point is, a lot of times when we ask why questions, the other person. Becomes defensive. And sometimes that's our typical question that we run to is, well, why did you do it this way? Why are you thinking about it this way? Um, as a registrar, it's like, why are grades do at this certain time, you know? Well, that puts my staff and myself on defense, as well as if you're asking that question to someone else, so. Some of the best questions to ask are what? Or how is what I would say. My favorite question is always what else? When someone comes to you with a project or an idea of, uh, maybe a solution to something else that you've been working on and. I wouldn't be afraid to say, well, what else. And what else? Because a lot of times there's something even deeper. And it's about going below the surface level conversations and getting deeper in in with the, again, the student, faculty, staff member, or whoever it might be. Um, and when you ask those types of questions, man, the world opens up for them. |
| 0:06:09.63 | 33.0s | Alex Fronduto | Right, I think, and you might be able to quote this better than I can, but there's a lot of research around that like second level type of questioning because you are getting to like initial reaction, initial answers, and so you always should really be going to that level as you're saying, um. And so obviously I'm sure you've applied this to a lot of situations, whether it's in coaching or whether it's in your office. So is there a specific example of kind of how you saw this benefiting you and potentially obviously benefiting your university as well? |
| 0:06:42.86 | 45.2s | Eric Sanford | Oh, for sure. I mean, I, I deal with a lot of administration and a lot of staff members or faculty members, and most recent one that comes to my mind when you asked that question was, you know, meeting with our faculty chair, um, about a possible problem that the faculty have seen and I just, I really let them share with me their thoughts, their his ideas, what was coming up in other meetings with faculty members. And just let him, let him talk. And I literally just listened. One of the exercises in my session is to sit knee to knee with each other for at least 2 minutes in pure silence. |
| 0:07:28.98 | 4.6s | Alex Fronduto | That's I feel like I would be very bad at that, but yes, it's probably a good technique. |
| 0:07:34.10 | 72.8s | Eric Sanford | Well, it was one that was taught to me in my undergrad counseling school. And it is something that has served me well in all areas of my life ever since then. And that's what I did though with this faculty member. I literally just listened to him. And I at the end I said, and what else? Of course, because there's always again, and he came up with another few minutes of conversation, but at the end of that conversation, I asked, I shared our pro our process with the with the situation that was coming up. And um then I started asking questions, how can we collaborate on this together? What solutions do you have? What solutions does, what solutions did my staff come up with, you know, when I approached it with them, um, and shared those things with them and it was a great conversation that Honestly, if I would have gone into it not having some of the background that I do, I think I would have been pretty defensive. Um, but to stop and breathe and listen to him. And then respond is always important when asking questions. |
| 0:08:47.86 | 37.6s | Alex Fronduto | And I find that many times it's that want or need to kind of almost like keep going, right? as some people aren't going to want to take that time to actively listen, one, because they might have a response, I'm sure, and or two, they're like, OK, this is a waste of my time. They've already made that judgment, for example, or I know how I'm gonna respond. So I'm curious, what examples or what scenarios have you given for why people aren't asking the questions because it. Fundamentally seems like, OK, why, why shouldn't we be asking questions? Everyone should be asking questions, but we know that people aren't. So I'm curious kind of that piece. |
| 0:09:26.4 | 95.6s | Eric Sanford | Um, well, I, I'm gonna refer to something I share in my session but is by an author called Mike, his name is Michael Boonga Steyer, great coach, facilitator, speaker, and he calls it the advice monster. Um, and I think that's the reason why we want to give our advice. Um, Sometimes we think we have all the answers and sometimes we just want to share our opinion because we want to make sure our voice is heard, right? So, I mean, the advice monsters um that MBS as he goes by, says one, the first one is tell it. You have to have the answers to all things. You've been hired to have all of the answers and if you don't have the answers, you've failed your job. So that's advice monster #1. Advice monster #2 in his book is save it. You protect everyone. You're the rescuer. Your job is to be fully responsible for every person, every situation, and every outcome. When in doubt, you are going to take it on yourself. And then the third one is the controller device monster, and as I, as he states, this is the most tricky one. The only way to succeed is to stay in control at all times. At all times. And it convinces you that everything is controllable so long as you're in charge. |
| 0:11:03.88 | 17.2s | Eric Sanford | So when you ask that question, I really think it's because we want to speak up. We have, I mean, I have one of these advice monsters within me all the time. And I think everyone out there has an advice monster. It's how we go about taming the advice monster. |
| 0:11:21.84 | 34.4s | Alex Fronduto | That's exactly what I was about to think about is like the the controlling the urge to want to speak. I feel that that is very difficult at times for anyone, like you said it, but especially if you've been in a specific role for a long time, a specific institution, I think that history piece also plays a large role and so I'm wondering like. Obviously again we're saying everyone should be asking more questions, but do you find like those types of scenarios are more common for why some people aren't asking those questions if it's like that historical piece or is it just a personality trait, for example? |
| 0:11:56.90 | 85.2s | Eric Sanford | Um, I think it might be a little bit of both. I mean, I'm not, I'm not an expert at this, so, but based on my experience and my observations, I think it's a little bit of both. Um, obviously, if someone comes into your office and they say, hey, where's the closest bathroom? Well, I want to give them advice and let them know where the bathroom's at, more questions. However, I also, if they're going to come in, an example I give in my session is a student came in recently and said, Hey, I need an a drop form. I need to drop some classes. So I asked a few extra questions to make sure I knew exactly what form I wanted to give him, and it ended up being a withdrawal form. Well, those are two different things in my office, in my world, at least at my university. So you have to have some of those clarifying questions. Um, historical knowledge is, it's great, but we also have to remember, if, if we've been there for a long time, we've also got to remember sometimes we might not have. The best answers and I know that's that's a tough pill to swallow. I, I've been there, I've been there, um. But to keep an open mind as much as possible, to tame our advice monster is the, is the key that I would say is important. |
| 0:13:22.64 | 7.7s | Alex Fronduto | And I think even in that scenario you just gave, asking why would have not been the most successful question to ask, as you've said. |
| 0:13:30.64 | 31.4s | Eric Sanford | Absolutely, yeah, because I mean, I, I mean, who knows what the answer could have been. I mean it could have been from anything from A death in the family, which, oh my gosh, now you're all of a sudden doing grief counseling to, you know what, I, the advisor that I have stinks. I mean the possibilities are limitless. But it was asking a few more questions to get to the probing answer that he that he needed so we could help him out the best way possible. |
| 0:14:02.28 | 18.2s | Alex Fronduto | And that like goes almost to like a customer service model, right? If you're thinking about a student interaction, and I do wonder, there are certain students that may be like, why are you asking me so many questions? So also like phrasing is important, so I'm curious, like, did you have any pre phrasing or did you go right to your question? |
| 0:14:21.46 | 31.5s | Eric Sanford | Um, based on that experience, I, I think I just went straight to my question. Um, it's Probably something you know that I've practiced a little bit, um, but I, I think given some other scenarios, someone might have just said, oh yeah, here, here's the a drop form, and then they would have gone. Filled out the art form and that would have been the wrong thing and the student would have come back and it would have been frustrated even more, you know, so it would have been a possible bigger issue. |
| 0:14:53.77 | 17.0s | Alex Fronduto | And I, I, I think you said it's everything situation specific. You're never gonna be able to solve everything and talk about every scenario, but as you see more situations and adapt and understand, I think that's what you're getting at is right, the more that you are practicing it is the more you're gonna keep. Use utilizing it. |
| 0:15:11.6 | 52.3s | Eric Sanford | Absolutely, yeah, yeah, I mean, my main thing as well in this session is you've got to maintain presence with the person and even as we're having this conversation right now and we have people walking all over behind us and the noise is getting louder. I'm trying to keep my focus on you. And I know we're kind of smiling and giggling about it a little bit here, but really it is, it's like if I turn my head one, the mic's not gonna pick me up, but I'm gonna be distracted completely. And there are oftentimes we have people that walk into our office or into our office space, and we still have our cell phones in our hands. And then someone's asking you a question or telling you something and you're like, huh? What? So maintaining that presence is important as well in asking those powerful questions, |
| 0:16:03.85 | 4.0s | Alex Fronduto | right, because you can ask the question and not be listening to the answer I think is what you're getting at, |
| 0:16:08.1 | 1.9s | Eric Sanford | uh, absolutely |
| 0:16:09.90 | 16.1s | Alex Fronduto | that doesn't solve anything if you're not. Actively continuing to listen, which is obviously what you're saying, like, you can ask all the questions, you can train yourself to ask the right questions rather than being the advice monster. But if you're also not doing the listening part, you're gonna, you're only halfway there. |
| 0:16:26.13 | 31.1s | Eric Sanford | Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think it, it also goes a little bit beyond just uh trying to have that maintaining that presence, listening and not, oh, I didn't hear what you said. But when we really start engaging people with some powerful questions from the get-go. We are automatically attracted. Vanessa Van Edwards, someone else I quote in my, in my session, uh, she's an author and she says you need to have some dopamine questions. |
| 0:16:58.21 | 1.4s | Alex Fronduto | There you go, Science. |
| 0:17:00.21 | 41.0s | Eric Sanford | What, like, instead of, hi, how are you, Alex? Well, that's general. A lot of us, at least in the Western world, we're gonna say, oh good, we're fine, you know, but Even when I sat down here today, you did a great job of asking a question. I'm gonna, you know, applaud you on this. It's like, hey, how have your sessions been or you ask, no, you even asked even deeper question. What has been one of the highlights of one of your sessions? And that makes you start to think as the person that you're asking those questions for. Um, really start to think and then the conversation could possibly get be taken a little bit deeper than it would have been on the surface level. |
| 0:17:41.52 | 32.2s | Alex Fronduto | And we all know, like you said, in the Western world, the hi, how are you? Like all together as just a hello. No one unfortunately usually cares about how you're doing and it's just, you know, upsetting in that regard, but I, I like that you use that as an analogy. So, as you're thinking about all of this, obviously we said like practicing it, but what other advice do you have for people that want to just like start off, they listen to this podcast or they went to your session, like, what are the tangible next steps or what is the best way to start really thinking about it? |
| 0:18:14.46 | 27.9s | Eric Sanford | Um, I, I believe that the best thing to do is remember. The power of questionings and even in my work as an executive coach as a registrar, it's a human to human experience. You need to have that connection with one another. You can start practicing this art of powerful questioning just by having a human to human experience with someone else. |
| 0:18:42.93 | 3.2s | Alex Fronduto | And you're saying it doesn't even have to be in the office. It could be with anyone. |
| 0:18:46.50 | 95.4s | Eric Sanford | No, that, that's the way I wanted to bring this session to Acro this year is like, hey, this can be done with your spouse, your kids. At your church, at a community event, it could be, it can be done anywhere. It's not necessarily the powerful questions in higher education. It's the powerful questions that we can have with humanity. That's what's important in my opinion. So remember that, so start practicing, just having great conversations with people around you, your sphere of influence. Um, if you're listening to this and you're in an office at a university, college, start having some powerful questions or just ask some deeper questions with your colleagues, um, not just, oh, how's your day going, but maybe it's, uh, hey, what personal passion project are you working on? Is there anything that you're looking forward to? What, maybe it's, what is your, what is your biggest challenge right now or how can I support you? Um, someone comes into my office, you know, and with, uh, a problem, so to speak, cause I'm the leader of the office. OK, listen to him. But then, OK, ask, and what else? And then say, how can I support you? That's the important piece. How can I support you? Now, if I'm gonna say, how can I support you and they tell me how they want me to support them, I need to make sure also that I follow up, right? Right, |
| 0:20:22.58 | 49.8s | Alex Fronduto | right, and listening, right? Like if you don't actually listen to what they're saying, and I think you touched on another piece there about like caring about oneself, especially in the office setting. I mean that can do a lot with your retention of staff, which we know is a huge thing across higher education, you know, we're still really kind of within a group. resignation still even post COVID, people are changing roles and so I, I, that piece of like being a human, right? The human approach I think is huge even from that standpoint, not just this, we were kind of talking a lot about the student piece, um. And so kind of thinking about final thoughts for people again that are listening to this, obviously they didn't get to see your session, anything that we didn't talk about that you're like, oh, they should know this. So this is a specific piece of advice we haven't touched on. |
| 0:21:12.68 | 94.8s | Eric Sanford | Well, I mean, I would say this, Alex, since this is for more admissions officers, I want to encourage and challenge the admissions officers out there, the people that are going to listen to your podcast to say, one, you can ask. Really deeper surface level questions even to your potential students that you're out there recruiting. You can ask some deeper questions to get to know that student a little bit better. It's not just, hey, have you filled out the FASFA, you know, it's like you can ask some powerful questions to get to know those students and make them feel like they've had that human to human connection at those college fairs that maybe some of the um listeners are going to be at. Um, I'd also say don't be afraid to ask those powerful questions as well to those parents of those potential students as well, um, and Lastly, again, practice it in the office place. If, if you could and you're a leader of the, of your office or even challenge your leader of the office. Start asking some deep, powerful questions within your staff office on meeting times. Um. There are a lot of times that I'll even try to do that with my staff and I'll start asking questions and I just let them go. You know, I might ask a deep question or just ask a, even a surface level question, let them go, and then you get to know them a lot better. And then you can ask a little bit deeper level question. So you're, you're getting to know your staff and the people around you a little bit more. |
| 0:22:47.64 | 22.3s | Alex Fronduto | And then like last example, it's almost like from a facilitation standpoint, right? When you're not one on one, there are other pieces that you're going to have to think about in that regard if you're not a one on one conversation because other people may be chiming in and things like that. So I like how you were just framing that of like, I'm still gonna listen, but there's going to be, you know, multiple conversations potentially happening. |
| 0:23:10.18 | 50.4s | Eric Sanford | Oh yeah, absolutely. And yeah, let's lets them do it in my session, um, I, I'm going to have a period of time that is based, I had a period of time that is, they're gonna just ask each other, their partner questions for two minutes straight and it's only questions only. So depending on how talkative the next person is that they're asking these questions to, it's going to challenge them. I most people's challenges a person to just ask questions. Again, that advice monster comes up and I remember when I was going through my coach training and everything else to get my certification, that first time we did that in my class was, whoa, oh, I, I have to only ask questions, I can't respond. But that's a practical way as well to get out there and practice it. |
| 0:24:01.23 | 6.1s | Alex Fronduto | Well, Eric, thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate you sharing all your insights and thank you again. |
| 0:24:07.59 | 1.5s | Eric Sanford | Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. |