Episode 2: J. Rex Tolliver, Vice President for Student Affairs and Academic Support

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Shonta Sellers: Hello, and welcome to Spur of the Moment, a Podcast for the Curious. This is your hostess, Shonta Sellers, and welcome to conversations that pique your curiosity through genuine questions and reactions. Our guests are not given the questions first for the most unique answers. So away we go.

Today our Vice President of Student Affairs, Rex Tolliver, has joined us. Welcome!

J. Rex Tolliver: Well, thank you very much. Glad to be here and looking forward to this curious conversation.

SS: So we had a successful Aspire & Advance Conference, yes?

JRT: Yes we did. It was a wonderful conference, and I was so pleased with the content that we had, and the presentations by our keynote speaker Hilary Lichterman did an excellent job helping frame what it means to be curious in this day and age. And I think it's important for us. So I was excited with the conference, but I was more excited with the engagement that the staff had pre-conference with the book and reading and talking about it.

SS: Yes, lots of curiosity and lots of conversations in all of the areas. So we'll just start there and talk more about "The Workplace Curiosity Manifesto." So the book encourages intentionality in curiosity. How can we actively and deliberately nurture curiosity in our day to day?

JRT:  I think the important word there is intentionality, because curiosity without intentionality is chaos. And you want to make sure that you are advancing a program, an office or a function with your curiosity. So that's where the intentional aspect of it, what are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to accomplish? Especially given the paradigm that we exist in today that wasn't the same yesterday or two years ago or five years ago.

And I think ways in which we do that is creating a framework, a fertile ground to encourage it. And that's what embracing the book and letting that be the theme of the conference was about — us creating a great foundation that encourages curiosity.

And people will be able to approach it differently because some people will be more curious, and some will be less curious. But whatever that degree is that we should foster that, we should water that and let that grow because ultimately we will benefit as as a division.

SS: So that leads us into imagine Carolina, which is coming up in September. It's been since 2022 since we've hosted it here on campus, and this time we're focusing specifically on getting feedback from students. Let's talk a little bit about that. 

JRT: You know, one of the aspects of when I first arrived in 2022, the president first had the idea of his first imagine Carolina,about providing the space for students to imagine a university for themselves. And now it's been a few years since we did that initial one. Again, this whole aspect, though he had not been in any of our conversations around curiosity, curiosity is what leads us to a place like this where we would do this thing again.

Because the students have changed since 2022, sSo the students coming in in the fall of '25 were different. So we're going to have another Imagine Carolina and asking students to to simply imagine, imagine this place as it would be to best serve you, to get you to your intended outcome, your involvement, your engagement and how you see it supporting you as you matriculate through school, but also being this place that supports you post-graduation. So that's what the whole aspect is about from the students, because the perspectives are going to be different, because the backgrounds of the students are going to be different. So again, providing that framework, that architecture for students to just be able to think about this place, the University of South Carolina, and how it could be best to serve them.

SS: And so many good things came out of the last Imagine Carolina event. Can you talk about some of the few things.

JRT: Yes so, two in particular I think that have always been at the forefront of students, mind in their time at the institution. One, has to do with, advising and what happens in that space in our colleges. And we retooled our advising function at the university in order to better serve the students and meet the needs where they are, and Dr. Claire Robinson and her team did a great job in working with the college partners in developing, changing the process in the way we do it because students imagined something different. And our curiosity led us to a better place to better serve them, and now they received awards and so forth for the work that they're doing in that space.

The other, that we often hear a lot from students about is: parking! And, of course, we are retooling our parking operation, and our new parking, director is doing an excellent job in that, you know. One of the pieces that has come out is students say how difficult it is to park on campus. Reality is how difficult it is to park on the campus in the space they want to park in because they all want to park in the same space, but that's a podcast for another day.

But we did upgrades into our parking, functions with signage and then in Bull Street now we have the new, parking infrastructure with a little lights to let people know and the digital screens tolet people know what's open in a space. So that helps save time for our students, and so those are the kind of things that came out of it. So I'm looking forward to what the students are going to come up with this year as well.

SS: One particular audience within our student base, males, and we're seeing a lower go to college rate for males in general, but we want to see more men in leadership. How are we going to accomplish that? Get them curious in specific.

JRT: I think much like the conversation around curiosity and the aspect of dealing with intentionally is that we have to have students — regardless of sex — feel like it's a place, an organization that supports them, that understands, that will value their voice. And that requires some intentionality on our part. Well, if we want male students to be more engaged, are we talking to male students about what matters to them?

And then not only are we talking to them, are we willing to do some of the things to help them be more engaged? To feel like this space is welcoming for their voice, for their leadership? And so I'm happy with the work that we're doing in the division in this space already to try to improve. Male engagement is a priority of the university, of the board that we increase our engagement of our male students because, again, what we're seeing, in our numbers, not only at the university, but it's a nationwide problem.

And I'm glad that we are embracing it and working to try to try to address it. So we will continue to do things based on what we're hearing from some of our male students, of what we need to do in order to alter some of our outreach, the way we do outreach, as well as some of the offerings that we have to make available for them.

SS: So you are a grabatologist, aren't you?

JRT: Well, I don't know, because one would have to know what that is.

SS: A grabatologist is a person who is an enthusiast of bow ties.

JRT: So yes, I am fascinated with bow ties, and the fascination has very little to do with bow ties in-and-of themselves.

SS: Really?

JRT: So let me tell you the great thing about accessories. You can wear a suit, plain suit — black, whtie shirt, red tie — looks one way. You can wear a blue suit, white shirt, yellow tie. Looks one way. You can do that for 12 months, you look nice. You can wear those same clothes with a bow tie, and people would notice you totally different.

So the whole aspect of me getting into bow ties was actually about changing the way you look wearing the same clothes. That was the whole thing. It was it was nothing other than I can wear the same clothes, wear a different neck piece, and people think you had a whole new outfit.

A I started work, I really did like them. I think it was distinctive. And so I actually started wearing more because it really started out I would wear ties for 12 months, then I would wear bow ties for 12 months. And again, I had to buy fewer clothes because people thought I had a new outfit.

SS: So thinking about change we have Ambra Hiott who is coming in as the new AVP of Student Life. Good change there. Very excited about her leadership in that area. What do we expect to see there?

JRT: I too am looking forward to the great work that she's going to do. She has a great passion, for students and giving her the ability, and the opportunity to be able to serve the students in a broader way, again, with her experiences — unique to her as a person as well as the experience that she had before coming to USC — again will benefit our students.

The great thing about changes in leadership is that it does spark something. It sparks something in the person because they see things that they would like to do and would have loved to do, that they now have the opportunity to be able to implement some of those. And she's excited about it.

SS: That's going to be about do it. You have any closing remarks you want to share with everybody?

JRT: Well, I would only say that everything happens in the spur of the moment. So we should embrace it. We should enjoy the ride, and we should always remember that whatever we're doing, we're doing it for the students. So  don't pay much attention to how many bow ties or tie I may have, I want you to just best serve students, enjoy the journey and Forever to Thee!