(bright upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up a little bit later in the show, We'll profile Moorhead, Minnesota filmmaker, Raymond Rae.

But at first, our guest is a retired Dean at NDSU, who is now an author of a book.

"We Are Called...to Do the Right Thing" Prakash Matthew.

Thanks for joining us today, sir.

- Thank you, John, thank you.

Thank you for having me here.

- As we get started, we always ask, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background, maybe where you're originally from.

- Okay, I grew up in India, Southern part of India, and one of the smallest states, that's very in a coastal area, that's where I grew up.

I was there, in that particular state, for about 16 years.

And then I went to college in the Northern part of India and Christian college, a small college, but is an agriculture college.

And, then I came here after that in 1971.

So, it's exactly 50 years ago that I came to North Dakota.

And there's a great story about that, and we can talk about that, if the time allows.

I came here for graduate school at North Dakota State University and completed that.

And soon after I completed that, I was offered a position and then moved up in the ladder.

I have had used to as a joke about that and say to people that I started mopping the floor all the way into the Vice Presidency, I think, ended my career as the Vice President for Student Affairs at the North Dakota State University.

After retirement, a week prior, not even week, three days prior to my retirement, I got a call from the President and asked me to step in as the Athletic Director, when Gene Taylor left here.

And I was, I did that job for about six months.

So, long career, higher education, 38 years at NDSU 34 years.

And if I were to count my student days it is lot more than that.

- Well, of course, you're here today to really talk about the book "We Are Called...to Do the Right Thing" so we're gonna get to that in just a few minutes, but before we do, you mentioned your journey to Fargo was quite I thought unexpected back in 1970-71.

And I guess, well, what I understand, it changed your life.

Can you tell us about that?

- Absolutely, that's an amazing story.

It's an amazing story.

And a few blocks from here, there's a church called the First Presbyterian Church and the pastor of that church, his name was Reverend Ross Robson.

He came along with a team to visit India and one of the universities they selected happened to be the college that I was going to at that time.

And so the president of the college selected half a dozen students to meet with this team of people from the United States.

And I was paired up with, I was one of the students who got selected to meet to the team from the US.

And I was paired up with Ross Robson from Fargo, North Dakota.

We spent the whole day together.

He had all kinds of questions.

He was learning about the culture, the political system, the educational system, you name it.

And during that time, I can remember only one question probably alluded, he asked me where I wanna go to, where I'm thinking about going for graduate school.

I said, "I never thought about that."

And, if I do my graduate work, chances are, it will be in India.

That was the end of the conversation.

He said, then later, before he said goodbye to me, he said, "If you get an opportunity to study abroad would you be interested?"

I said, "I'm sure I will be, but I never thought about that."

That it was the end of the conversation.

My advisor, this is a very unique college, is a private college, and my professors were from abroad.

In fact, my advisor was Dr. James Warner from British Columbia.

And from that was he was not an Indian.

So, Ross Robson he working with my advisor and for whatever reason, we fell in love with each other.

And he said, he made the decision at that moment that he wanted to bring me here but he never told me anything about this.

He worked through my advisor and then he came there in 1968.

This visit was in 1968.

So, he kept it quiet until 1970.

1970 he disclosed to me that we have been making plans.

And he came back here and talked to the people in the church.

They had been praying about it.

They bring it up, we're gonna bring this man.

And, I was a young boy and/or a young youngster, at least.

He was gonna bring me here.

And 1970, he disclosed that to me.

And he sent me three applications for three universities.

One of them happened to be North Dakota State University.

I got admitted to all three universities.

And when I told Ross that I got admitted to all three places, where do I go to school?

And he said, I just did that just for fun.

I just wanted to see how good you are.

If you can get admitted to all three places.

And since I'm here, you, of course, you're coming to North Dakota State University.

So, I came here 1971, and how this all happened, it was impossible to explain.

And in the book I said, it was definitely God's plan.

It was God's plan.

- Well, with that said let's talk about your book.

- [Prakash] Yeah.

- Your book has various chapters.

- Yes.

- And we're gonna talk about a few of them here.

Let's start with upholding values as guiding principles.

And what that means.

- Well, I strongly believe that we all talk about the values.

For mine, the guiding principles come from my values.

Where do we get our values?

Start with the, I think the book starts with talking about where do we get our values?

I think most of my, I can look back and say, that majority of the values were instilled to me by my parents.

And then as we grow older, we get some of them from the schools, the teachers and the society.

And we develop values during the process.

But for me, my parents were my heroes, particularly my dad.

He was an outstanding leader.

He was a pastor when, for 40 years.

But the same time, he was much more than that.

He was much more, he was a servant leader, an inspirational leader, an outstanding speaker, but he was my hero.

The reason for being, he was a hero, was he practiced what he preached.

Everything about servant leadership, everything about the values I learned from my dad.

My dad also had the opportunity to work side by side with Mahatma Gandhi.

And that is before he went to the ministry.

He was one of the very, very few Christians, worked with him on the side and through the independence movement.

And, because you know that India is a country where 85% are Hindus about 10% are Islam and only 3% are Christians.

And he was a Christian pastor.

At that time, he was only a pastor.

He was one of the very few Christians worked side by side with him.

So values.

So in early stage, we all talk about the values.

And but the same time we, if somebody asks you, "Okay, what are your values?"

Well, we know there are certain things that we shoot from the hip as to we know that certain things are important to me.

So, one of the things I encourage, in the book, is how people identify their core values.

So, when they make the decisions later, we can talk about the decision-making process, and they can reach back and say that whether that is 80/20 principle which, I think, I really talk about there in the book and then they can reach back, and say these are the values that I'm not gonna sacrifice in my decision-making process.

And maybe I might dig deeper into it and say that, dig my heels there, in some of those.

And that it can be good or bad and in some organizations.

So, that's what I'm talking about as the values, the core values that become your principles and values.

- Discuss, practicing.

What is the 80/20 principle?

I mentioned that.

- Well, that's what, the reason that originally talk because somewhere in the early 90s, I developed this principle, this is my own original.

I think I left here North Dakota State University and worked in Mankato State University.

During that period, I felt that there was some struggle deep within me.

That the values of the institution wasn't not 100%.

You never gonna find 100% match, but it was I wasn't 100% sure, it was the right fit.

Great university, great people.

And I was in the upper level position where I could change all that and made everybody else miserable and say, "Okay, this is the way to do things."

Which I didn't do that.

And, but I was somewhat struggling.

That was the time that I started thinking deeper into it.

And how do you know that you're the right fit for an organization?

That's what 80/20 is all about.

So, my principle talked about if your personal values come in conflict with the institutional values, organizational values, more than 20% of time you are in a discomfort zone or a void zone.

And you go home somewhat stressed out, not somewhat, some.

And if particularly if the organization and if that conflict is happening consistently, and more than 20% time, that is not the right fit for you.

And so you need to do something about it.

So, the book talks about how, what can you do, independent, when you were looking for a job.

Majority of the, particularly when you're looking for the first job or you lost a job, and you're looking for a second job based because you don't have a job, then what happens and you on the job so bad, you will sacrifice your values.

You will do all your preparation based on your skills, knowledge, and experience.

And same way the employers are looking for, not necessarily looking for the right fit, they are looking for the skills and knowledge we want the right person but not necessarily anything about, very few questions maybe about, who you are as a person.

That's where that conflict is going to really gonna come from.

Majority of the time, you go through interviews, 90% of questions are about skills and knowledge.

And, so I talk about, in this book, encouraging people to find out what the organization is all about, and their values, their mission statement, and then find out as to if they are really practicing what they say, who they are.

And in fact, I can talk about examples at NDSU.

When they come and interview with me and the lots of employees they will come.

So, I asked them, why do you want to work here?

And what prompted you to apply for a job here?

And they will say, "Oh, I read your mission statement.

Oh, I'm so inspired.

I'm so inspired because this is the right place for me because I love what you say in your mission statement or vision statement."

And I said, well, give me an example.

They will say that your institution say students are number one.

Students are paramount.

And you are a student-focused land-grant research institution.

And I say, "Yeah, that's who we are."

So, how do you know that?

How do you know that we are practicing that?

How do you know you're practicing that?

Because, I'm in student affairs area.

So, I know I wanna believe that we are but you are coming as a new employee.

How will you know that we are doing that.

So, I sent them out to, I gave them one hour, during the interview process.

I sent them to the student union and say, you find six to eight students.

Talk to them, talk to them and interview them and come back and tell me that if they are feeling they are number one at this institution.

And if you come back and tell me, report back to me and the bad news, give me the bad news to say that.

And the majority of the students they don't even know what the heck you're talking about.

And then it is a different story.

Then that means we are not practicing what we're preaching.

So that's what it's all about, right fit.

- But and you mentioned the decision maker and I wanna get through some of these chapters.

What about being a decision maker?

You talked about that briefly.

- We all make decision, some people make the decision, some people sit on it and that even the 80/20 principle applies to that, also.

One of the chapters, I think I talk about supervision aspect of, one of the frustrations a lot of the employees may have is the everything get bottle necked.

And they will say, "Oh, we have to talk to my supervisor, my supervisor's supervisor.

I'm waiting for an answer."

So they cannot make the decision and/or they are not empowered to make the decision.

So one of the suggestions I make is, every employee every employee should have authority is not the right word, responsibility to make 80% of the things identified in the job description.

So if I'm hiring somebody, I'm gonna say that this is what I'm looking for.

These are the qualities I'm looking for, and I hired somebody and bring them there.

And then they don't get any responsibility to make the decision.

Then why did we want that person to be there?

So I say to them, all the employees there was one time I always thought about 400 some employees.

And so I went to a staff meeting, I told them, take a look at your job description.

If you are not making 80% of things identified in your job description.

That means we are not putting you to use.

And their supervisors were listening to that come in to, so that means if they do that, then they want only 20% that they need to get help from.

Out of that 20%, 10% of that, is all still, there may be a coaching taking place between the supervisor and that employee.

So that leaves with only 10% and very little.

So, again, empowering the employees to have responsibility for certain things, and they can make the decision.

- Let's go to another one, to your title "To Do The Right Thing" sounds pretty general.

But can you explain that chapter real quick in your book?

- Yes, I think that's an area where I was also struggling with.

I think there are three principles I gave about making the right decision.

And number one, we all know what is right and wrong.

And I talked about the values developing the early stage and the children know, my oldest son, the first word that he ever spoke was not dad or mom.

He said hot, the word hot.

That means he knew, you are not supposed to touch a stove.

That's going to be hot.

So we learn in a young age that what is right and wrong.

Number two principle, is, it has to do with the legal or illegal.

So we know what is law, guiding us.

Number three is doing the right thing for the right reason.

And majority of the time that means, for most people, it's a gut feeling.

You may be doing the first and two things right but then when it comes to third factor you're making this certain decision based on your gut.

Gut decisions are not always right because you're influenced by other people is based, gut decisions are based on the perceptions.

And that is not your value because you wanna make a popular decision because that's what other people want you to do.

And you wanna be popular another bit.

So what happens is, you make the third factor is.

That's the reason why I wrote the book and said, to put, that gave that title.

And I put an essay out to people and I gave them three questions to people across the nation.

Six people I selected.

And asked them to identify what is doing the right thing for the right reason?

What is doing the right thing for the wrong reason?

What is doing the wrong thing for the right reason?

Come back and tell me and what that is all about.

There's a chapter from a prospective from six different people.

And I also give a start the chapter with the failure that I had.

And it is a powerful story that I went to India, took my children and I failed miserably.

And I'm so, not a success story.

And so that's how I start that chapter and giving them some template as to how do you make the right decision for the right reason?

- You've got other chapters in the book.

I don't know if you have any you wanna highlight in general, but I've got one in there.

You talked about your dad being a servant leader and you've got a chapter about to be a servant.

What's that one about?

- Well, I think again, in the beginning, I mentioned about my dad is my hero.

And he had the opportunity to work with Gandhi.

- [John] Yeah.

- Gandhi is not my hero.

I think I respect him and my dad is my, because he modeled his behavior for, he was a servant leader.

Serving others was the number one priority in his life.

So when I came here and started working in higher education, I tried to instill that philosophy in my leadership and my management.

And I never liked people calling me boss, end of quote.

And I wanted to be a servant leader.

And so who did I serve?

The students.

I learned from the students and they were my love, they were my love.

And so the litmus test was if the students would testify and say that he was here to serve us and he did his job well.

And, if that's the testimony I'm gonna get, I'm grateful.

That's what servant leadership is all about.

Serving others, come number one.

Everything that we do is serving other people.

- So what's been the reaction to the book so far?

- Overwhelming.

I thought maybe, (chuckles) a few people hear about it.

The first signing process, it was NDSU.

There were 200 people stood in line until finally.

I was just in tears.

I think it was, I was overwhelmed.

Zandbroz down the street here.

There were about 60, 70 people were there.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be at DMF Dakota Medical Foundation.

They are hosting an event from 2:00 to 4:00.

So if you blow, I'm also doing a presentation there at three o'clock.

So it has been overwhelming.

- Okay, well, we're about out of time.

So, if people wanna get a copy of the book, where can they go?

- Locally, they can get it NDSU Bookstore.

NDSU Press, Zandbroz down the street here and Amazon and some other major other bookstores, yes.

- Well, we thank you for taking your time and this is gonna be interesting to read, hopefully having success with it.

- Thank you, John, thank you.

Thank you very much, thank you for having me here.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat guitar music) Raymond Rea is a brilliant filmmaker who specializes in personal documentary and experimental movies.

Also, an instructor in the film studies program at Minnesota State University, Moorhead.

Ray's personal journey and his films are often intertwined.

- It's important to say that I'm a filmmaker first and a transgender filmmaker, second.

(Somber piano music) My venture into making movies was, I had a best friend who lived two houses away from me in small town Massachusetts.

And, she was given a super eight movie camera.

She used to ride a unicycle.

So we ended up making like an epic, super eight film about somebody riding a unicycle down the long driveway.

I went to one summer semester at NYU, in New York city taking a cinematography class from a cinematography instructor named Bella Bhakta.

And I learned so much in that cinematography class.

I swear I'm still using that information to this day.

(Rapid electric guitar strumming) Third was really, I think the first time, I really started making films within the LGBTQ community.

There was a third gender character and their girlfriend, so really a lesbian couple in San Francisco.

I had a slow fade into being a trans man, in the sense that like many transgender people, especially from my era, I made a really valiant effort at first to like fit into the gender that was assigned to me at birth.

And it just didn't work at all.

At this point in my life, I've definitely lived more than half of my adult life, as a man.

- [Person] I know, I'm a trans person, but I don't, I guess I don't think about it that much.

It's just me.

- [Raymond] I had so many friends come up to me and say, "Wow, we're not sure if this is right for everybody but Ray, it's like, obviously, right for you.

- Looking across the body of his work you start to see a lot of different aspects of his own life.

Even when he's telling stories about other people in the LGBT community or personal docs about his family.

- [Raymond] You are a target.

- It's really fun to watch his projects as a whole.

(ethereal synthesized music) One of the pieces I really like is "Cat's Cradle" which is an experimental animation project.

And part of the reason I like it so much is the sound design in relation to the imagery because it's done in stop motion using a Xerox machine.

It has just a really interesting aesthetic.

- The way that in general, I described my filmmaking is it always ends up being experimental hybrid.

No matter what I try to do.

(marimba plays) - As a filmmaker, he has kind of opened a window for students to see different kinds of work to see a different life perspective.

- So that's your great uncle looking very dapper.

And I would say that's in the 50s and all this stuff is, this is in the Grove, clearly, these photographs, crowds and crowds of the young gay men.

- [Raymond] When my great uncle Warren died, my parents came to me and said, we've got this photo album of Warren's.

Do you want it?

And it ended up just being amazing.

I think the photographs speak for themselves or at least that's what I tried to have happen in that film.

(piano plays softly) - How are you?

- I am pretty good - I think that he's a very approachable instructor.

As far as professors go.

It's also really important that he shares his work as a filmmaker with students.

Ray has done many things for our program and for our students.

One of the things that I've seen is we have a more diverse student body because of his presence in the program.

- I just am so inspired by young people getting into film.

My ultimate advice to many students is after you graduate you are not gonna see a want ad in the paper for film director or cinematographer.

(chuckles) It just, just not gonna be there.

You are gonna have to be scrappy as hell.

(bright upbeat guitar) - Well, that's all we have this week on Prairie Pulse and as always, thanks for watching.

(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008 and by the members of Prairie Public.