This is a transcript of the Spur of the Moment episode “Becoming a university for the people with Dr. Timothy Mottet.” It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.
Timothy Mottet: Your pathway to being a president is you’ve gotta do the hard work. There are no shortcuts.
Jocelyn Hittle: Welcome to “Spur of the Moment,” the podcast of Colorado State University’s Spur campus in Denver, Colorado.
Timothy Mottet: She said, “I cannot believe you’re paying me “To do what I love to do.” And I said, “That’s called a career, “And that’s different than a job.” There are institutions that are Hispanic enrolling institutions and there’s Hispanic serving. And I’m very proud to say we are an Hispanic serving institution.
Jocelyn Hittle: Hello, and welcome to “Spur of the Moment,” the podcast of Colorado State University’s Spur campus in Denver, Colorado. On this podcast, we talk with experts in food, water, and health about how they are tackling the big challenges in these areas. And in some episodes, like today’s, we focus on members of the CSU community across the state of Colorado, and their contributions to solving big global challenges. I’m Jocelyn Hittle, and I am joined today by Tim Mottet, the President of Colorado State University, Pueblo. Welcome, President Mottet.
Timothy Mottet: Thank you Jocelyn, I’m happy to be here.
Jocelyn Hittle: Thank you for being with us. I will keep my introduction very brief today, since we’ll talk more about your trajectory later, but I will mention that President Mottet became the president of CSU Pueblo in 2017, coming to CSU Pueblo from Northwest Missouri State, where he was provost. Prior to that President Mottet served as dean of the college of fine arts and communication at Texas State, and chaired the department of communications at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Between 1998 and 2007, President Mottet was a professor of communications at Texas State. It is wonderful to have President Mottet as now part of the CSU system for the last four years. The CSU system includes CSU Fort Collins and CSU Global, as well as his campus in Pueblo. And we also have a campus in Todo Santos, Mexico. And of course the new Spur campus that’s coming online in January in Denver. So President Mottet, I wonder if we can start with some thoughts from you about CSU Pueblo, what brought you to the university, and what should we know about it?
Timothy Mottet: What brought me to the university was actually my spouse. He found an advertisement in the Chronicle of Higher Ed for a presidential opening at CSU Pueblo. And he grew up in a migrant farm family, and they traveled the United States as migrant farm workers. And a part of their journey was to Rocky Ford, Colorado. And he and his family have always told me that throughout their travels in the United States, the one place that treated them with the greatest amount of respect was in Pueblo, Colorado, because they journeyed through Pueblo. And so he said, it’s an Hispanic serving institution, and that’s the type of institution that I wanted to be a part of. And he said, I think you need to take a look at this. So it was through his browsing through the Chronicle of Higher Ed, which is always on our coffee table. And I really had no idea that he reviewed that publication, but he did and brought it to my attention. So that really started it.
Jocelyn Hittle: I’m curious, once you did start digging in, and learned a little bit more about CSU Pueblo, what tipped you into throwing your hat into the ring?
Timothy Mottet: That’s a great question. And it happened very quickly. So I’m attracted to regional comprehensive universities. I like universities that are embedded in communities, but I also learned early on that CSU Pueblo has a curriculum that’s a very practical curriculum. I think today, a lot of universities are working hard to be practical. And I was joining a university that was, also had a very practical curriculum. We prepare young people for work in industries, and in jobs, and all of the degree programs that were a part of CSU Pueblo, are degree programs that I was trained to get at other universities. So I was walking into a university that had the degree programs that resonated with me, and degree programs I think that are needed to drive economic development.
Jocelyn Hittle: That’s obviously something that the CSU system is also interested in. You know, you have CSU Fort Collins, as the land grant, with that focus on outreach and taking the best in class information and putting it into people’s hands. That’s part of it. I think the Spur campus also has that as part of our ethic. It certainly is consistent across CSU. And while obviously CSU Global also has incredible reach in terms of really making it easier for people to engage and to do really practical work.
Timothy Mottet: The other piece of this, which is the larger kind of philosophical piece, is the experiential learning. That comes naturally at CSU Pueblo. The faculty take great pride in involving students in a very, what John Dewey talked about in “The Democracy of Education” was a very pragmatic approach to education, keeping them involved. And something that I quote often, it’s, what’s important to students in their learning, it’s not the doing, but it’s the reflecting on the doing. And as I learned more about CSU Pueblo, that’s just a part of the ethos of that campus. And that also attracted me to the campus, was this built in ethos around experiential learning and the reflecting component on the doing.
Jocelyn Hittle: Wonderful, and so you’ve been there now for four years.
Timothy Mottet: Four years, yes.
Jocelyn Hittle: And what else have you learned about it? Maybe something that you wish more people knew about CSU Pueblo?
Timothy Mottet: I think though the one thing that I wish more people knew would be about the quality of our faculty. Our faculty, some are nationally recognized, many are regionally recognized for the research that they do and for the quality of their teaching. So I consider them to be teaching scholars. Or what I research infused teachers and scholars. And so they, they get students involved in their research early on. It’s how they advance their research agenda. But students self-select into majors, and they identify with faculty who are doing high quality and nationally recognized work across all fields. And I’m very proud of them.
Jocelyn Hittle: As you should be.
Timothy Mottet: You bet.
Jocelyn Hittle: Tell us a little bit more about the university itself, how many, roughly, how many students, and this might be a good time also to mention that it’s a Hispanic serving institution, as as you mentioned, and maybe say a little bit more about what that means.
Timothy Mottet: Yes, we’re very, we are a proud Hispanic serving institution and we, I like to lead with that, because that is a big part of who we are and the work that we do. There are institutions that are Hispanic enrolling institutions and there’s Hispanic serving. And I’m very proud to say we are an Hispanic serving institution. We have approximately 4,000 students at the university. 35% of them are Hispanic. 50% of our overall students are from underrepresented groups. A lot of our students come from more of a working class background, blue collar background. They are first-generation students, many are low income. They are hungry to learn and hungry for opportunities. And so two of the things that I’m proud of is, one, is they have access, we have access to resources, and our students have access to opportunities. And so the access to resources, as an Hispanic serving institution, we are eligible to apply for federal funding. And we do that regularly and we get those funds. Those funds then allow us to build capacity for our students in wraparound services and to provide unique opportunities for students. A couple of these examples would be we have a number of students who work every summer at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, and they engage in internships. They live there and they’re working there, and they are exposed to another world, a very international community. The other piece is that we have partnered with Harvard University’s School of Business. And we now have a number of our students taking courses throughout the summer where they get a certificate of readiness in, from the School of Business at Harvard university. So these are added value opportunities. And our students are looking for opportunities, we make those opportunities available for them. This is, the serving part, is making these opportunities available to them. And one day I had a young man from Pueblo who told me that he, his mom and dad wanted him to get out of Pueblo to go to college. And I told him, you know, if you come to our university, I will find an opportunity to get you out of Pueblo. We’ve got a lot of opportunities to position you in other countries and other cities and other states to do fascinating work. You will come back and you’ll get a degree from our institution, but if that’s what you’re looking for, we can make that happen. And he was convinced and he became a student with us. So it’s, yeah, I think we do a great job at getting people out of Pueblo and then I love for them to come back. And so that’s one of our goals as well.
Jocelyn Hittle: Right, of course, it’s broadening the horizons and then how you can apply that back at home.
Timothy Mottet: Yeah, I find that once they leave, there’s a yearning to return. And it doesn’t take them long. But sometimes, sometimes they, the myth is the grass is greener on the other side, and often, as we all know, that experience is invaluable. But it also allows you to be more discerning about where you’re from and your home.
Jocelyn Hittle: I know also that you all at CSU Pueblo have recently adopted a new vision, Vision 2028.
Timothy Mottet: Yes.
Jocelyn Hittle: So can you tell us a little bit more about that, what are the major pillars, and how did, how was that plan developed?
Timothy Mottet: Yeah, the vision 2028 was, when I was hired, the chancellor and the governors made it very clear that they wanted a bold vision for our university that they could get behind and support. And that’s another reason why I was attracted to this job, was just that’s an incredible opportunity for any president. And so I went to the campus, and we established a structure for how to do this. And something that I don’t think a lot of people know about is I, we formed a cross-functional group of our employees, and there was the lead, and our lead, I trusted our lead to lead this group. And the leadership team received the vision. It was a vision that our employees developed outside of our influence. We gave them guardrails. And we received it. And I remember the day, we had a cabinet meeting, where they came in and presented it to us. And we received our vision about where they thought we needed to go. And it was a very powerful process of them turning it over to us, and then us reading it and processing it. And that’s the vision that we adopted. And the vision is for CSU Pueblo to become the people’s university for Colorado and for the Southwest United States. It’s a bold vision because that was the charge, boldness. And so we did that. And so we want to be a university for all people. And in our community, Pueblo is Latin for people. It’s in our name. We are a regional comprehensive university, and in the sixties, regional comprehensive universities were referred to as the people’s universities, because these were universities that were embedded in more rural outposts in states that were responsible for developing nurses, teachers, and business leaders, individuals who could take care of the people of a community, that was the role of regional comprehensive universities. And then Pueblo in the late 1800s was referred to as the people’s town. It was a town that was receptive to immigrants of all walks of life to be employed in the steel mills. And so we took those three touchpoints and people became kind of the coalescing idea. And so, being a university for all people is what we’re about. Our mission statement is very practical. We prepare students, we develop students to navigate a rapidly changing world. Every employee, I tell them if you’re not doing that, you’re off track, but that is what we do every day. That’s the mission that we’re doing. And the pillars are, we’re creating four unique student experiences that will differentiate us, and allow us to be the people’s university. One is called CSU Pueblo pathways. It’s a comprehensive advising model, a professional advising model that also includes a heavy career exploration piece to it. The second one is called CSU Pueblo Works. A lot of universities, our students will have to work in order to afford to go to college. And it is my belief that in the past, we used to view students’ employment as an obstacle that we had to work around. We’re now putting their work at the center of their education, and we’re building an education around their work. CSU Pueblo Discovery is getting our students involved in early on in their academic career working with faculty on discovery processes. It’s creating and discovering, that’s what we do at universities. We want them to leave with the intellectual product that they’ve created, built, designed, uncovered, but that is, that’s the ultimate goal. And then CSU Pueblo Journey is to give our students a grant, a journey grant that allows them to expedite, first, it retains them at the university, and the second, it expedites their pathway through the university to graduate on time, by giving them an opportunity to complete a summer of intensive study at our campus at Todo Santos, Mexico, which really connects them, many of our students with their heritage, which is also important to us, or they can apply their grant to summer school on our campus to expedite their time to degree completion. So the people’s university is wrapped around these four large student experiences that we’re creating and launching.
Jocelyn Hittle: It’s amazing to me to hear you articulate it this this way, it feels like a business plan, maybe from the private sector, focused on customer, right, and in this case, what that really is, your students are your customers. And understanding what their experience is, and working backward from how you get to that experience is, I think, a little bit different maybe for some strategic plans for universities.
Timothy Mottet: Yeah, this is, this goes back to Hispanic serving. When you take a naturally occurring phenomenon, they work before they, to go to college. And so why not make that work for us? Pueblo is a community of hard workers, of people with a strong work ethic. They are gritty, scrappy, resourceful, determined people. And those are qualities that come to us by the nature of who they are, and that’s who we are as a city. So if you ask me, that’s the strength, that’s the best thing we’ve got going for us, is this hard work ethic. And rather than not recognizing that, we are tapping into all of that, and we’re doing that very intentionally.
Jocelyn Hittle: So can you give me an example of what that looks like?
Timothy Mottet: I can, there’s several examples, but one example would be a student has to work. We want them to be working in a job that relates to what they would like to do, versus just a part-time job. So we’re going to place them with industry partners in Pueblo. We’re gonna place them in a job, and we’re willing to pay half of their wage, if the employer partners with us, they pay half of the wage. Through that partnership, the student gets paid, and that payment goes to their invoice to make college more affordable. And the student gets credit for the work that they’re doing. And they do this in years one and two, versus years three and four. Three and four, they do internships and capstone experiences. If you leave it only to capstone experiences or internships, it’s too late for them to change their minds, if that’s not the right work for them. So we’re wanting to give them exposure to work early on to make sure that they, and that also creates relevance, if I’m in work, and it makes sense to me, it builds relevance of what a college degree can do.
Jocelyn Hittle: As you know, the Spur campus is focused on food, water, and health. A lot of that is STEM related. Can you speak a little bit to, how does CSU Pueblo look to increase diversity in STEM and maybe highlight a few areas specific to food, water, and health that you’re engaged in?
Timothy Mottet: I think first of all, food, water and health is important to me, I grew up on a farm in Iowa, surrounded by concerns related to food, water, and health. And so any time I can be a part of that, that’s incredibly important to me, but on our campus, we’re promoting students into the STEM disciplines or involved, I mean, just in closing the attainment gap, I think I want to start there. What CSU Pueblo does well is we complete students. We figured out how to educate a student, who, an underrepresented student, who is a first-generation, who needs more hands-on experience and more attention. And we have figured out the needs and the approach to the student where we’re completing them at a rate that we are for, just, a non-underrepresented student. And we’re doing that well. And I think we’ve figured out the needs and how to do that. So I think one of the things that is important to us is we’ve got to get this right, because in the state of Colorado, one of the largest growing demographics is the Hispanic population. And that is a group that we serve well. And I feel our ability to complete students who are Hispanic and involve them in their communities, their ability to make significant contributions to their workplace, their communities and their families is something that we do, and we do that well. And so I think by the numbers of students that were graduating who are underrepresented, I think adds to the state of Colorado’s ability to diversify the workforce throughout the state. I also think what’s important is that we have found ways that, nursing is a field that needs to, the diversification of nursing is important. And teaching, the diversification of teachers is important. There are, those both require field-based experiences that require students to quit their job to do unpaid field-based learning experiences. So if you’re from a lower economic status group, you self-select out of those majors because you can’t afford to quit your job to do these place bound, these field, these clinicals and student teaching. what we’re doing is we’re paying students, with some help from the government, we’re paying students for their student teaching, and we’re paying our nursing students for their clinicals. And that’s how we are contributing, I believe, to STEM education, first of all. Many of the teachers will go into STEM, they’ll be STEM educators, and nurses by design are STEM professionals. So we’re diversifying both of those high need workforces by paying our student teachers, and by paying our nurses who are doing their clinicals, we have found a way to do that. I had a student, a nursing student came up to me the other day and said, she thanked me for paying her funding clinical in the hospital. And she said, that has made the entire, that’s made a world of difference. And she said, I cannot believe you’re paying me to do what I love to do. And I said, that’s called a career. And that’s different than a job. And so she, the light went on. I could see that she’d made a clear distinction between a career and a job. And she goes, I got it. That opened my eyes and allows me to see the difference. That’s the work that we’re doing, yeah.
Jocelyn Hittle: So that story, I think, is indicative of the extra steps that need to be taken in order to really crack the nut.
Timothy Mottet: Yeah, you know, that’s a good point. That is the sausage making that no one ever sees higher ed do, but it is, it is what we do. And it is the policies, it is the policy decisions that we make that give the students the access, the affordability, the opportunities, and these are policy decisions that we are sensitive to. A lot of policies and procedures are designed that they keep people out versus bringing people in. They’re roadblocks, they can be roadblocks, they can be hurdles. And so a part of what we do is constantly remove the hurdles and we find other ways of making it work for them. But those are two examples of numerous ways that I think we’re contributing to STEM education, STEM disciplines, which ultimately really plug into what Spur is about through food, water, and health.
Jocelyn Hittle: Well, and I think we at the Spur campus can learn from your example of really thinking about the details. It’s not just about getting people through our doors and maybe introducing a kid to a career they hadn’t thought about before, but it’s also about what are all of the steps that it actually takes to get that kid from a sixth grader, to, you know, being a veterinarian or a food scientist, and the understanding all the potential barriers, like the one you just described removing, because ultimately what, I would love to be able to tell that kind of a story that you just told about the gratitude from that student who now has this new pathway that’s opened to her, that she wouldn’t have had otherwise, without that attention to the–
Timothy Mottet: And this is an underrepresented student who was going into these fields. And so when you look at these careers and they’re not diversified, you have to ask why. And if you, if you trace it to the money, there’s a financial implication that they’ve got to make a decision, that I can’t afford to quit my job, because I need the money, and therefore I can’t be a student teacher. So that’s a career path not for me. And so we have a lot of those. But it’s paying attention and it’s listening. It’s paying attention and listening to students to figure out the obstacles.
Jocelyn Hittle: You’ve talked a little about the city of Pueblo already. And I’m curious to hear a little bit more about how the university and the city interact, and also around the sustainability features of the university that I know are coming online soon, you have a big solar array coming online.
Timothy Mottet: We do, we do. So we are getting ready to flip a switch, which will, our university will be powered by the sun. And we’re very excited about that. And we will be, I believe one of the first universities in the state, if not the United States to be powered by the sun of our size. This is with the exception of, we have a few, we have three residence halls that are, I can’t say it’s going to be 100%, because we have three residence halls who are on a different grid. But we’re excited about this sustainability project, using renewable energies, this taps into our value systems that came out of vision 2028, our sustainability, this is where our students are. This is where we are. And we are proud to be able to do this, to lead the way and to do this, yeah, to lead the way in the state. The other ways that we’re connecting to the community is we’ve just funded an Aztlan Center at the university. And this is a center that connects us to the culture and the heritage of Pueblo, and the history of Pueblo being a border land community. We’re divided by the Arkansas River, which divided the country at one point. And our community is, we’re a very proud Chicano community. And so we’re celebrating 50 years of Chicano studies this year. And that is very important to our community. And the Aztlan Center is a center that can record our history and transmit our history and our culture to future generations. And I feel that’s one of the responsibilities of a regional comprehensive university is to do that level of work. And we’re proud to do that, and we’re excited about that. I think other connections to our community will be coming in the near future. And those are going to be related to our ability to, well, we’re already engaged in helping influence and drive economic development. Obviously that’s what a university does, but also engage the community in ways where we can add capacity to where there might be challenges in the community. How can we map resources to do that? And that’s a part of where I want to go in the future.
Jocelyn Hittle: So we’re going to shift gears a little bit from talking about your institution, to talking a little bit about you. So, as you know, one of the roles we are hoping that the Spur campus can play is to introduce young people to careers they might not have considered before. In our case that might be watching a veterinarian perform a surgery and asking that veterinarian questions, and seeing them at work, or a soil scientist at work, or a water scientist. But I’d love to unpack a little bit the pathway to university presidency. How does one end up a university president? Is it something that was on the horizon for you as a young person to be in academia?
Timothy Mottet: No, so when I graduated college, I went, I worked in the airline industry for 10 years. So a lot of people don’t know that, I did 10 years of airline operations work. So I developed a business acumen, and I developed my business teeth early on in doing that level of work. That’s 24-7, that’s a grind, I loved it. I had the best time ever. But I always tell people, I had, a friend of mine invited me for my birthday dinner. And one night in Boston, he said, is your work still meaningful? And it was that question at a dinner, celebrating my birthday. And I said, I, you know, it is, but I don’t think it’s going to be for long. And so he said, you probably need to go back to grad school. I went back to grad school, then I knew immediately that I wanted to be a teacher and a professor. And so I had good role models. I had good mentors, so did, went to graduate school in Boston. Then I ventured for my doctoral work at West Virginia University. And I became an academician for 17 years. And so all of this was in the state of Texas, I loved it. I enjoyed being a professor, and then was tenured and became a full professor. And throughout that journey, I had opportunities for administrative work because I was, my prior career. And so I was drawn to administrative work and I was pretty good at it. So I became a department chair. and I’ve always said that if I enjoy it, and if I’m good at it, I might be interested in looking at what comes after that. But I’m always mindful if I’m not good at it, if it’s not fulfilling, then I need to do something else. So then I had an opportunity to be a dean, then I had an opportunity to be a provost. And so, as I was going through this process, I started thinking about a presidency. And it was at the dean level when I realized I was a dean and I thought I was pretty good at it, and I enjoyed it. Then I started thinking more seriously about a presidency. I hadn’t until that point, but it was at that point that I thought that that might be what I wanted to do. So, you know, the one thing, your pathway to being a president is you’ve got to do the hard work. There are no shortcuts. And learning higher ed is a complex business, and learning every aspect of it, but it’s doing the hard work. And that resulted in this wonderful opportunity that I have now. So I’m very honored and proud is what I am to be here today.
Jocelyn Hittle: So there are a couple of things that I heard you talk about there, that I’ll just circle back to for a moment. One is that you don’t have to start out on the path that ultimately becomes the vast majority of your career, right. Airline operations to university presidency is bit of a right turn. But how fun, and what an insightful friend you had, who was asking you those questions at your birthday. I also heard you say the hard work part, that you just mentioned there, and applying that hard work at a very particular intersection of what you’re good at and what you love. And I feel like that encapsulates really great advice for young people, as they are thinking about their career path in front of them, that not every choice is of a job is forever.
Timothy Mottet: Right.
Jocelyn Hittle: And always evaluate that, whether you’re at that intersection. And then do the work.
Timothy Mottet: Yeah, I think that, I think as a student, you’ve got to be, you’re always a student, and you want to be receptive to opportunities. So when someone asks you is your work still meaningful, I think you need to listen and hear that, not brush it off, but give it some thought. And I did that, and I think hard work is really underestimated in many ways. There’s a lot of reading and studying that takes place outside of the nine to five in order for you to really become an expert at what you want to do. And so it’s not just the nine to five work, it’s all the other that it takes to learn and to master a field and to feel that you’re ready to do that level. And none of that comes easy, and it comes with some pain and it comes with failure. And the failure piece, I think, is often what gets ignored and overlooked. So when you look at someone’s pathway to a presidency, to an outsider, it might appear seamless, but the amount of mistakes and errors and learnings along the way that have been, those are also life altering. And you got to listen to those and learn from those. And there’s no way around that. And so you’ve got dive into that and not avoid that. Otherwise you’re not going to emerge. And the other thing that I’ve always said, Jocelyn, is I’ve never had a plan B. And I know a lot of people think that’s very naive of me, but when I go into something, I only have a plan A, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing the time or the energy to do it. And this is what I want to do. And that has always worked for me. And that may not work for me all the time, but it’s worked for me. So I put my heart and my soul into it, if I say, that’s what I want to do, I commit myself to that and I don’t have a backup plan.
Jocelyn Hittle: Well, I suspect that your plan A is not always rigid, right, so there’s some flexibility in the plan A. So thank you, that was great to hear a little bit about your story to where you are. So maybe you can describe a little bit what a day or week in the life of being a university president is like, what is the actual job?
Timothy Mottet: You know, the actual job, if you were to go through the day-to-day, it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of meetings, which is what most people do. If you kind of step back and take a look at a higher level of what is the work on a day-to-day basis, I think it is, for me, it is, it’s inspiring a team. Everyday, it’s inspiring a team, it’s supporting your team, keeping them focused, driving results, helping them problem solve, and connecting. So at a meta level, everyday when I wake up and I go to work, that’s what I do. Those are the higher level functions, and those are manifested in meetings. But every day I’m trying to remove an obstacle. I’m trying to support, I’m trying to inspire. I’m trying to keep people focused on developing students so they can navigate a rapidly changing world. And that’s a lofty mission. And there’s a lot to unpack about that, but that’s what we do, and that’s what I keep people focused on. So that’s what a university president does. And I think the inspiration is probably one of the most important things. You’ve got to believe in people. You’ve got to believe in what we’re doing. You got to believe in students. Because the people that you lead often don’t believe in themselves. And there’s a point when they do believe in themselves, you just gotta believe in people and encourage them. And before long they internalize that. And then the sky’s the limit.
Jocelyn Hittle: Well, in a lot of ways, the skillsets and the sort of things you are keeping in your mind as you go through your day, are maybe not entirely different from someone who is the head of a corporation. But you’re playing a long game. Outcomes are extended in a way that it’s not a sales cycle exactly, right.
Timothy Mottet: Not at all, and then there’s the, you know, the driving the results, there is the strategy piece, which is so incredibly critical. So every day it’s strategy. That is probably the most important piece is to think about the strategy, and working with my team to do that. And I surround myself with a team of kind of higher ed junkies who love talking strategy, like talking new ideas, who are innovative. I’ve surrounded myself with those, that group. And I enjoy them and I enjoy my time with them, and I’m honored to be working with them, so. I think I’ve hired well.
Jocelyn Hittle: An incredibly important skill. To have a great team.
Timothy Mottet: I enjoy my team, and they are, in many ways, incredibly smarter than me in so many ways. And I value that tremendously.
Jocelyn Hittle: So before we go off this topic, I do want to ask, because a lot of our listeners are potentially college students or university students, and maybe out there having a job, did you have jobs in college yourself?
Timothy Mottet: Yes, I did have jobs. I was a, people don’t, I was a DJ for my radio station at my university. I worked at a theme park called Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. And I directed traffic and parking lots for four summers.
Jocelyn Hittle: Okay, hot work.
Timothy Mottet: It was hot work. And so, and then I supervised parking lots and traffic control and did all of that, when I was in college, I’ve always worked. There’s never been a time when I haven’t been working. When you grow up on a farm in Iowa and you’re a son of a farm family, you’re a laborer and that’s what you do. So, but yeah, throughout college, I worked throughout all of college and then did internships, and all of that has served me well.
Jocelyn Hittle: So if you were a radio DJ, do you still have the radio DJ voice?
Timothy Mottet: I think I do.
Jocelyn Hittle: Can I hear it? Can we hear it?
Timothy Mottet: Really?
Jocelyn Hittle: Yes please.
Timothy Mottet: It would be something like this. It would be, I’m Tim Mottet KDLS campus radio. Ready to be with you for the next full hour of rock and roll music. Thank you, back to you, Jocelyn.
Jocelyn Hittle: That is perfect. That takes me right back to listening to the radio.
Timothy Mottet: That would be 1980, ’81. That’s how radio announcers were back in the day.
Jocelyn Hittle: If you ever need a fallback, which I know you don’t because you never have a plan B.
Timothy Mottet: I don’t, I want to be a president.
Jocelyn Hittle: Maybe there’s a way to weave that particular radio voice skillset into your current work, because it is quite a skill, I’m very impressed.
Timothy Mottet: Thank you.
Jocelyn Hittle: Okay, so we just have a few minutes left, I do want to talk a little bit about how you see CSU Pueblo and the Spur campus engaging with one another. What’s the opportunity?
Timothy Mottet: Yeah, I think the opportunity is huge. One is, you came down to our campus, you introduced Spur to our campus. I think you saw what happened. There was a lot of excitement. So anytime you introduce food, water and health to a group of academicians, they’re, regardless of what your program of research is, it all eventually leads back to food, water, and health, I would say in some form or another. So all of our campus, our faculty saw connections and want to be a part of Spur, because Spur is the hub. It is the distribution center where you can engage and connect with other people, you can share ideas. And so I think that’s very important. I think that the second piece is for us to be a part of introducing Colorado, to Pueblo, Colorado, and to our campus is also very important. And so for the thousands of visitors who will go to the Spur campus and to know that CSU Pueblo is a part of this, but more importantly, what is Pueblo and what is Pueblo mean in terms of food, water, and health. And so we are very proud of the Pueblo chile, and yeah, and that is huge for us. And there’s other food products coming out of Pueblo, Colorado through food projects. And so there’s an innovative, there’s innovation around added value to food products that are in the region, whether it’s cantaloupe, whether it’s produce, whether it’s the pepper, that is alive and well. And that I think is a part of the food story that the Spur campus can help us communicate. We also have an abundance of water in Pueblo that we’re also very proud of. And I would say an overall healthy lifestyle. So I think there are many connections, but helping get the word out on CSU Pueblo, who are we, what do we do? And really, we want to be a preferred choice for students who are looking at regional public comprehensive universities. We want to be on their radar screen.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s a lot of students in the Denver metro area that we could inform about what the opportunities are down there.
Timothy Mottet: I remember we had a group from Bruce Randolph School came to our campus, and it was delightful. It was a group of young people who, I don’t know, I connected with them. I felt that they connected with me and what we’re doing. And I thought, okay, we’re onto something here. So.
Jocelyn Hittle: We are thrilled to have that relationship with Bruce Randolph School, they’re a great partner, and.
Timothy Mottet: I would love for them to be on our campus one day, so that would be my goal.
Jocelyn Hittle: A very important question, is Chile Fest happening, is the Pueblo Chile Fest happening this year?
Timothy Mottet: It’s coming up. And you were part of that, I think it was two years ago.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yes, that is such a great event. I encourage folks to head down there for that.
Timothy Mottet: Yeah, the Chile and Frijole Festival, it’s really kind of the premiere event in Pueblo. It brings people from across the globe. And it’s all about the chile, and it should be.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, it’s a wonderful event. And it really showcases this regional specialty that’s.
Timothy Mottet: It does, the whole town smells beautiful. It’s the roasting of the chilies. And when I first arrived, there was a lot of hype around the Pueblo Chile, And I was always thinking, okay, let me try it. And is it worth the hype?
Jocelyn Hittle: Coming from Texas, especially.
Timothy Mottet: I was coming from Texas, but I, it’s hands down, it’s legit. It’s got a unique flavor, taste, culture and history, and the pride of the people who produce these makes you love them more. So it’s, chiles to Pueblo, it’s a cultural thing. And it’s very important to us.
Jocelyn Hittle: All right, well, President Mottet, we are about out of time. I just want to say thank you so much for your time today. This has been a wonderful conversation. Where can people find you and the university on social media, if they want to learn more?
Timothy Mottet: I’m on Twitter at TimothyPMottet, and I’m on LinkedIn.
Jocelyn Hittle: Right.
Timothy Mottet: But the university has all social media channels.
Jocelyn Hittle: All the channels.
Timothy Mottet: CSUPueblo, one word.
Jocelyn Hittle: Okay, we will also link to you and to the university in the show notes as well. So for my last question, this is a spur of the moment question, so you don’t know what’s coming at you here. So if I could give you a free plane ticket anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?
Timothy Mottet: I’d go to Paris, France.
Jocelyn Hittle: He answered that question so quickly. It’s like you knew it was coming. I promise he didn’t, so say more about that, why Paris?
Timothy Mottet: My family is a French heritage. I’m a Francophile. I’m fascinated with the country, the people, the culture. It’s where I’d like to spend my time. So if you were to give me a ticket, I’d go in a heartbeat. Is that coming?
Jocelyn Hittle: I wish, I wish that I had one in each hand. One for you and one for me.
Timothy Mottet: Is it under my seat?
Jocelyn Hittle: It’s not, it’s not Oprah. I’m so sorry. Well, thanks again for your time. And we hope that you will all join us again on the next Spur of the Moment podcast. The Spur of the Moment podcast is produced by Peach Islander Productions. And our theme music is by Ketsa. Please visit the show notes for links mentioned during today’s episode. We hope you’ll join us in two weeks for the next Spur of the Moment episode. Until then, be well.
