Darryl Holloman and Harding Royster

[00:05] HARDING ROYSTER: Hello. My name is Harding Royster I am 37 years old. It is November 2, 2019. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm with Darrell Holloman who is a family friend of my parents.

[00:21] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I am Darrell Bernard Holloman I am 51 years of age. Today's date is November 2, 2019. I'm at StoryCorps in the Atlanta area. I am being interviewed by Hardin, and we are family friends.

[00:39] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah. All right. It's all started off. Thanks for coming. Yeah. I thought it was funny when I was reaching out to my mom, because I was. I wanted somebody who was from Atlanta or who knew Atlanta pretty well because I moved away when I was 14. But what I found interesting about your background was you have. I mean, your career is in higher education. And I'm fascinated by that for two things. One, because I think there's so much talk now about higher education, and I think people are rethinking higher education, like, what is the role of higher education now? And, you know, not just, like, student debt and things like that, but, like, what is it? What can we use it for? But also, you're at Spelman, which is an hbcu, and there's been a lot of talks about, you know, the role of HBCUs now and things like that. And I think when I was, I mean, I want to say, like, 10 or 11, and I was starting to learn about the world and things like that, and I, you know, I think it was very clear what the genesis of HBCUs were for, because African Americans couldn't go to colleges, and so they needed their own path to higher education. But I guess my first question for you is, why higher education in the first place? What drew you to that? Because I think it's a very. It's a tough field now. I mean, it's never been easy, but it's a tough one. There's more challenges, I think, than ever. But what drew you to it? What did you feel like? Why did you feel like you wanted to get into that?

[02:18] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, well, I think I always, as a kid, wanted to be in a helping profession. I think, though, growing up underprivileged, you don't really know how to articulate that outside of, oh, I want to be a doctor. Right. That's the most thing, or, I want to be a lawyer. And so when I was in college, I really kind of struggled around with my major. I was a good student.

[02:43] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[02:43] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: But I just. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, which happened. It ended up being English?

[02:48] HARDING ROYSTER: Oh, I was an English major.

[02:49] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Were you an English major? Yeah, it was an English major. I was first gen student. So I was trying to really figure out what college meant and majored in English, intended to go to law school like your dad, stepdad. And then I decided, you know, I got scared. I didn't want to do that either. So I was walking across our quad on campus, and I had been a very involved student. And so I was homecoming king, I was president of my fraternity. I was an sga, Student Government Association.

[03:22] HARDING ROYSTER: Wow.

[03:22] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so did a lot. And so I was like, well, maybe I could just work on the campus because like everyone else, I had to pay, like student loans in like six months or something. So I got my first job on campus. I was departmental advisor. So I helped students determine their curriculum. And from there it really just blossomed into the most wonderful career that I could have ever imagined having.

[03:46] HARDING ROYSTER: Wow. Was there any. When you. When you first started getting into it, did you have an idea of, like, what the ultimate goal was? And has that changed a lot as you've gone through your career and.

[03:58] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I didn't. I just think, like, lots of people coming out of working in higher ed is very interesting, especially the work that I do in student affairs. It's just not a degree in higher education.

[04:10] HARDING ROYSTER: Right.

[04:11] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so. And in a lot of ways, it's not billed as a profession in the way that even a principal or a superintendent. Right. And so when I got into it, I was just trying to work and have a job. But I had this really significant experience with a student one time. It was a Indian student. He was second generation Indian student. And he came and he really didn't want to be at this student leadership experience. And he was a little disruptive in the session because he just didn't want to be there. We were all the way up in the mountains. Cell phones were just starting to come about. So he was really upset about that. And at the end he said, you know, this was one of. I'm so glad that I finished doing this experience. It just transformed my life. It was meaningful to me, you know, all those kind of things young people say. But he turned and he said, but it was because of Daryl.

[05:06] HARDING ROYSTER: Right.

[05:06] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: So this is even before I was Dr. Holloway or anything. He said it was because of Daryl. And he was really patient with me. I was a bit of a jerk, but he really stayed with me and he just made me feel comfortable. And that's when I thought, like, oh, this will be my profession. And I switched from this is a job to this is actually a profession and how you can contribute to that meaningfully. So then from there, I started being more strategic about what I would do.

[05:31] HARDING ROYSTER: What were some of the strategic things you did?

[05:34] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Just really thinking when it was time to leave. My first job, which was at my alma mater, which was Georgia State.

[05:40] HARDING ROYSTER: Oh, Georgia State University.

[05:41] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah. Yeah. I graduated from there, and I had been there for 10 years. I had graduated from Georgia State. So I spent my entire professional, early professional career at Georgia State. And I was, you know, although I had been in the military and so I had lived outside of the country, I was a little fearful. I had just met my husband and I was like, I don't know if I should stay. I want to stay in Atlanta. You know, Atlanta's a big place. It's a pretty great place for African Americans, Big African American middle class that you don't see in many cities.

[06:17] HARDING ROYSTER: Is that really important to you?

[06:19] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I think at that time it was. Right. It was very important. And so. But I knew it was time for me to go. There wasn't much room. I could go professionally, and so I moved. And I moved to your neck of the woods, where you are now in the Northeast. I moved to Newark, New Jersey. I know you're in New York. There's a huge difference between that. Jersey is better. There's a huge difference.

[06:37] HARDING ROYSTER: I'll say there's a big difference.

[06:39] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I had to make that decision to just move. And my parents were getting older. I had the great fortune knowing my grandmother and my great grandmother, so they, you know, they were getting older and I had to make that decision. And so that was one of the things. Right. I was a full time faculty member in the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, and I loved that. Even though it was the mid South. That's a whole nother conversation.

[07:09] HARDING ROYSTER: Mid south, yeah, I forgot about that.

[07:10] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Oh, my goodness. That's truly the Bible Belt. And I was doing well, but my dad got sick and so I had to move back to Georgia. Move back. One of my biggest things is when I moved back, I was in a. I had an opportunity to be a faculty member. I was a full time administrator, but I could also be a tenured track faculty member.

[07:33] HARDING ROYSTER: Right, okay.

[07:33] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: There's a huge distinction between that. Right. And I had done it. Been there for about three years, four years. I was just about to put in my tenure dossier and I got a call that they wanted somebody to come back to my alma mater, go back to Georgia State and build a multicultural center.

[07:50] HARDING ROYSTER: Huh.

[07:51] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so that was the hardest probably professional decision I ever did. I didn't.

[07:56] HARDING ROYSTER: Waiting for you.

[07:57] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: You're just waiting. Yeah. And I decided not to do it. I don't. I try not to live a life of regrets, personally or professionally, but that was one of those moments. I was just like, oh, my God. If I had just held on, I don't think I can tell you. But I thought it was a better thing to go to Georgia State and this space for this multicultural center that not ever done that before. And so it was. It was pretty. Pretty. What was it?

[08:19] HARDING ROYSTER: I mean, what was it like going from. Well, at least, I mean, you came back to the south, like, you know, being in a place like Newark and Rutgers and then like places like Georgia State. I mean, like, what are the differences that you saw or challenges or just what was interesting differences you saw?

[08:35] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think has moving around in the country really helped to inform the work that I do? Right. So one big thing, if you live in the south, there's always so much about a racial divide. Right. And so. And it typically will fall into camps of black and white. Right. When you move to a place like the Northeast. Right. Particularly New York and Newark, like North Jersey, then you have to think about ethnicity. So you can, you know, somebody is black, but they could be Puerto Rican. Right. Or identify as Puerto Rican, identify as Nigeria. And so it made me think more holistically about diversity and inclusion and who's in the room and to look for who's not in the room.

[09:27] HARDING ROYSTER: Right.

[09:27] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: That was professionally, personally, it was just great not to have to say, you know, hey, how you doing? I hope you're doing okay. Like, you don't have to have these empty conversations in the Northeast that I miss so much.

[09:38] HARDING ROYSTER: Maya, it's funny you touched on that. My fiance is. She was born in Soviet Ukraine, and her parents are hilariously named Boris and Natasha.

[09:47] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Oh, wow.

[09:48] HARDING ROYSTER: And very Russian. I mean, Ukrainian techn, but Russian. And they. They live in the Brighton beach, the Russian part of Brooklyn. And she'd never really come to Atlanta before. And so when I had taken her down here and then we would sometimes with my friends go to Asheville and like, you know, you walk into a store and you say hello. And she couldn't. Yeah, she's fully Americanized, American accent. She just didn't understand why I was.

[10:09] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Saying she wasn't Southernized.

[10:11] HARDING ROYSTER: Hello to people or even driving around a neighborhood. When you wave to someone who's walking Their dog. It was so funny that she just didn't. Because Russians also don't smile.

[10:20] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah.

[10:20] HARDING ROYSTER: They're not supposed to smile at each other. So it was really, really funny to bring her there. But it's interesting you touch on the ethnicity, because I do. That is definitely something I noticed when I moved up there. Because I think the other thing about New York that is much bigger is religion.

[10:35] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Absolutely.

[10:36] HARDING ROYSTER: You know, you have reformed Jews, Orthodox Jews, Hasidic Jews, you have various types of Muslims. You have. I mean, you just have so much more diaspora of those things and how much more of a. It's both. The religious part of it was important to those people. But the cultural aspect of that.

[10:53] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Absolutely.

[10:54] HARDING ROYSTER: Whereas to your point about the south, like, you know, there were divides, but the south is pretty Christian.

[11:00] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: It's pretty Christian.

[11:01] HARDING ROYSTER: And obviously there's a. There's Catholic and then there's, you know, you could be Baptist or Methodist or whatever. But it was interesting to notice that when I went up there because I felt like I'd mostly read about it in books or seen it on TV and only encountered people like that every once in a while.

[11:19] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah. Well. And I think the density of the area, too. Yeah, it's amazing because it. You get to experience so many things. Like, you can walk in down Manhattan and you can go anywhere from, you know, East Manhattan all the way down to, like, Wall street and just all these. And depending upon the side of the street that you go down. Right. So if you go down Broadway, go down another street, it's going to be a different experience going down. So. Yeah, I just. I love it.

[11:51] HARDING ROYSTER: And so when you were. When you came back and you. And you started doing these things and you're working, I guess, in what. What would be the technical term? Administrative. Not administrative roles, but like, what do you.

[12:02] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: So it's administrative roles.

[12:03] HARDING ROYSTER: Administrative. Is that right?

[12:04] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I always. I always call myself a college administrator.

[12:09] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[12:09] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Right. That's a term that I always use. It seem. Meaningly people can identify with. Yeah.

[12:14] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay. What, you know, what is. What do you feel like you really want to accomplish now? Like, I mean, you obviously want to help people, and that's great, but, like, is there any particular thing you see now? And I know you can only focus on where you work, but do you feel like there. You wish there was more of that, was there to help students with certain things or that colleges, you wish implemented more of something?

[12:39] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I think to your point earlier, college is now becoming so inaccessible to so many people, and people think it's underprivileged people that no, there are many middle class, staunch middle class kids that just can't go to college. And so we were talking about it the other. I think it came out in the Atlanta General Constitution. Yeah, it did. The 10 most expensive institutions in Georgia. And now the AJC, like the AJC will do in education. It just marred everything. And they didn't really do a good job of separating between public institutions. Private institutions have a little bias about the AJC because they just, they don't really compare apples to apples when it comes to education. It's always apples to oranges. Right. And so they'll compare the south side to east cop. Like, it's just so unfair. But anyway, sorry for that little.

[13:42] HARDING ROYSTER: No, I like it.

[13:44] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: It was what you talked. My institution that I currently work at, which is all women's institution, black women's institution is fourth, the fourth most expensive school in Georgia.

[13:58] HARDING ROYSTER: Huh.

[13:59] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so it was Emory scad.

[14:04] HARDING ROYSTER: SCAD is number two.

[14:05] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Mercer, I believe, and Spelman College. And so, you know, college affordability is a huge issue now. I think colleges in terms of mental wellness have created spaces for students to have strong, severe emotional challenges to come to college. But we're not really prepared or equipped. Equipped to service the students to their fullest capacity. More than that, I just think people are questioning now, do I even need to go to college? Right. Like I was talking to someone when I was driving earlier from a college event. I was working today and he was in graduate school. He works at Emory, but he's in graduate school. And he was like, I'm just so tired. It's like, I mean, I had planned to study all weekend. I don't feel like sitting here studying all weekend. I want to be out with my friends, you know, and so we look at that and we think those distractors are. Because people aren't just being intellectual. Like they just don't have the capacity to sit down. But times have changed. There's such a rapidness in culture now that I just don't know if like these full four year college programs, three years of graduate school, I just don't know how sustainable that model is.

[15:27] HARDING ROYSTER: That's a good point on rapidness. I mean, I, I work in advertising and rapidness is just, that's the, that's the currency.

[15:34] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Right?

[15:35] HARDING ROYSTER: And even in that it's, it's crazy how quickly everything has to be accomplished. It feels like.

[15:41] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Right.

[15:42] HARDING ROYSTER: Because I even remember when I was in college, I graduated in 04 and I felt like it was kind of, I feel Like I got out just in time before it got really just weird.

[15:54] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Right, right.

[15:56] HARDING ROYSTER: And to your point of just this quickness of having to get everything done so quickly. I feel like one of the things I constantly hear about is people talk about either like community colleges or vocational or things like that. But then I always wonder how that would work in America because we, I feel like we tend to, I feel like that's always based on a European model where. Because the way they go to college over there is very different. But I don't know, I mean, it's just, you know, I don't even have an answer for that. But I just. It's so interesting to see kids now. And to your point, it was interesting to hear you talk about trying to help the students holistically, because I remember when I went, it was just academics, you just went and it was to study and that's all it's for. But you know, you are by yourself around your peers and, and you're young, you don't really know anything.

[16:47] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, you don't know, you're like, I'm.

[16:48] HARDING ROYSTER: 37, I still don't really know anything.

[16:52] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Well, and it's interesting that said about, that's my next goal is to be a president of either a two year school or a community college or a technical school. I just think that is just the wave of the future. Like, I just think we have to create another space that is on equal footing with learning. Right. And so because you go to a, to your school does not mean you weren't academically prepared or you're not ready. I think people have, and I hate to use this term, but kind of guitarist to your education. I get it very dissimilar from the European model. So in one way we try to follow that European model, but we don't. So in Europe, and I've gone over there, done study abroad, studied over there a little bit, their school systems are, you know, you really are kind of tracked in the college much sooner. Right. And almost elementary school, these children are taking these tests that kind of track them. And then for everyone else, you can go into a technical college or you know, or some school that builds that skill set. And when I was over there studying and I took students over there and they were so upset about that and they felt like that was just an injustice. But then I wonder what's the greatest injustice that you track a child later? Because we definitely track children in America. We don't formalize it, but we do it. This person gets to 18 years old and then you say, oh, okay, you have the ability to go to college like everybody else. And then they go to college. They do horribly, and by the sophomore year have incurred all of this debt and have not graduated.

[18:49] HARDING ROYSTER: Right, right.

[18:51] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And then they get out, they have all this debt that impacts how they can, you know, get a job and how they're going to get a house, how they're going to buy a house, how you going to have your car.

[19:01] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[19:02] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so that's a long way around to say, I think there's just this wonderful land to explore into your colleges that I'm very interested.

[19:11] HARDING ROYSTER: It's a good. It's interesting because I feel like I've had this kind of conversation with people around. It's a very. I guess it's a very American thing to assume anybody can achieve anything. Right. Like, we just. And it's a nice thought and like, we certainly want people to have opportunity. But then, like, I've known quite a few British people and it's funny to hear them talk about it because they don't think it's a bad thing to. To say that, you know, to identify someone maybe at 14, 15 years old to say their aptitudes are not going to be for Cambridge and Oxford. They're just not. But that's okay because life has a lot of different paths for different people. But I feel like in America, sometimes we're told. Because even I remember my first two years of. I didn't love school. I'm just. I'm not a terrible student when I. When I try.

[20:00] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, yeah.

[20:02] HARDING ROYSTER: I remember my first two years of college. I didn't do great. And my parents, like, what are we doing?

[20:06] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, yeah. It's on you. And.

[20:08] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[20:09] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And that's a lot of pressure.

[20:10] HARDING ROYSTER: It is a lot of pressure. And I'm, you know, I'm 20 and I don't know what I want to do. And you feel like, you know, you have to declare your major, which I knew I wanted it to be in liberal arts, but. Well, actually, on that. On that subject, because that's another one is like even more specifically on, like, liberal arts.

[20:25] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, yeah.

[20:26] HARDING ROYSTER: It's under fire. I feel like I tell people. So when I tell people I majored in English, they're quick to pull up the barista jokes.

[20:33] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And.

[20:33] HARDING ROYSTER: Well, I am working in advertising and an ad agency in New York City, and they. That kind of shuts them up. But I mean, I feel like even liberal arts, I feel like people question, like, do you get that?

[20:46] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Oh, no. Still now. Oh, absolutely.

[20:48] HARDING ROYSTER: Do students even say to you like, oh, I don't know about liberal arts, that's I gotta get a STEM degree.

[20:53] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Or they absolutely still do. Right. And so they feel, you know, that they have to get a STEM degree. Even for those that do what I'm finding they don't articulate it in this way. At my current institution, they'll do liberal arts, but they'll be like a double major.

[21:11] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah, okay.

[21:11] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Or like it's always this assurity.

[21:13] HARDING ROYSTER: I think I even had like communication and media and writing.

[21:16] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Exactly. Like this balance of. And this balance of kind of just learning for learning's sake. Or the liberal arts, which really teaches you to think very analytically.

[21:25] HARDING ROYSTER: Yes, it does.

[21:26] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so I majored in English. I was. My concentration was in creative writing.

[21:32] HARDING ROYSTER: Oh, okay.

[21:33] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I did well in that. I struggled with like 19th century literature. Not because I didn't understand it, but my instructor was trying to get me to think about literature from an analytical standpoint. And I had no clue. I was like, I'm just reading especially.

[21:50] HARDING ROYSTER: Like, I remember I actually kind of like some of that stuff. But I remember, I mean, that's. You're talking about poetry. That's very technical.

[21:56] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: No, absolutely.

[21:56] HARDING ROYSTER: Things like that.

[21:57] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: It's almost like statistics.

[21:58] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah, like Shelley in those days.

[21:59] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, absolutely.

[22:00] HARDING ROYSTER: I mean, some of it's well done, but I remember reading some of that stuff and thinking this feels more technical than beautiful or spontaneous.

[22:07] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: No, absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely.

[22:09] HARDING ROYSTER: That's interesting. Have you seen. I actually don't know the statistics, but I mean, do you see more shifts of students trying to go into what they perceive as more lucrative degrees or is it still pretty balanced out there?

[22:24] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: So I don't have the numbers for that directly, the statistics to quantitative even.

[22:30] HARDING ROYSTER: If what you hear.

[22:31] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: But definitely. Right. And yes. That people, you know, you See in the 80s in higher education that you go to school to get a job.

[22:44] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[22:45] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Now that's always been the thought, right. That you, you know, that you. There would be something lucrative if you get a four year degree. Right. So in mass, students start to go primarily working class. White men go in higher education in the 40s from the GI Bill and they're going, of course, to get job. And Interestingly, in the 40s and 50s, a lot of the men would go into advertising. Right. They were jobs. Right.

[23:09] HARDING ROYSTER: Anybody could join, anybody could go.

[23:11] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: But you went to college to learn. Right? It's about reading.

[23:15] HARDING ROYSTER: It's about the experience and kind of almost exploration. It's almost exploration in a positive way.

[23:21] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yes. Yeah. And you don't hear if you look at old movies on TCM like I love. You know, when people talk about college before the 80s, they don't talk about major. They'll say your area of study. Yeah. Or what are you. Right. What are you, what were you interested in? What, what types of books did you. They described their college experience in the 80s, in the Reagan years. You were going to get a job. Right. You went to college to go to.

[23:49] HARDING ROYSTER: IBM to support that economy.

[23:51] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: To go. To support that economy. Absolutely right.

[23:53] HARDING ROYSTER: You had to go get a car.

[23:55] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Get a car, get a house, get all this. Right. And so there was this need for college to feed this private sector engine. Right. Well now the private sector engine has really pretty much given us the finger because Google and Amazon and all these companies are now saying, I don't think you need a college degree to do.

[24:21] HARDING ROYSTER: It's funny you mention that because I know, I remember when Google, this was, I mean, we're talking like over a decade ago, but it used to be to work at Google they wanted you. You had to submit your SAT scores and they wanted 1400 and above, which is what it used to be. Out of 1600. I can't. It's so funny when kids say they got a 2000 or more.

[24:41] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, right.

[24:43] HARDING ROYSTER: But yeah, they got people from Stanford and Harvard and stuff. And now it's so different with that. You know, a lot of times it's the technical expertise.

[24:51] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Absolutely.

[24:52] HARDING ROYSTER: If you learned it at home, they were fine with that. It's funny advertising, just as a side hint, advertising is a funny one because most of the people have college degrees, but I've actually worked with a decent amount of people who don't have college degrees because it's a field, I think that still appreciates the ability to produce something that's good and if you can do it, great. But it is interesting to see. I have seen and I'm kind of one of those people, but I wanted to go into advertising even when I was a senior. Someone came and spoke at school and I thought it sounded great. But it is an industry that I feel like a lot of people do fall into. And I feel like that's happening more and more as these people go to college and then fall into something. Unless they have pre med or law as a track because I mean, I'm sure you've probably seen this, but I even feel like I've seen people go to a law school, but if it's not one of the very top law schools, they may not end up making all that money. Back I see this with, we see this with a lot of our clients are mba, get an MBA and if you don't get one from like the top 15, you just go do whatever. So it's just, it's always interesting to hear about, like to hear it from Yalls perspective because I feel like every three months I see an article questioning the validity of a college. A four year degree.

[26:23] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Absolutely. And I think though early I said Google is not looking for us to be that feeder engine anymore. But I don't think that's Google or Amazon's fault. I think it's higher education not thinking how to be nimble and that's in its greatest totality. Right. And I think faculty members have not thought, not all, most, many are changing and doing but there's still a standard set of you're going to have a lecture or you got to go to school for 14 weeks. Why can't you think like wow, we're going to do a certificate to program with a liberal arts college. Our college now are looking at how we create these articulation agreements with two year schools that could serve as feeder schools which would help with the cost of a liberal arts education. And liberal arts education is extremely expensive. But if you can build these articulation degrees and not get into a sense of I'm at this very elite school and we only have these type of students who have this type of sat. So I think these questions about inclusion and who's at the table as much as colleges talk about inclusion and diversity aren't really being addressed in a systemic way. And so it begs the question does higher education which was created out of a bunch of men coming back from the war to feed the economy. Right. And colleges and universities for many years fed a war economy. Right? Because they're building ships, they're creating people who can build ships and war and you know all these things.

[28:10] HARDING ROYSTER: We bombed all the other factories.

[28:12] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Exactly.

[28:12] HARDING ROYSTER: We had to build industry.

[28:13] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Right? We had to build industry. Right. And so now the question becomes since we've moved so far away from the essence of college is to learn into this industry feeding. But we didn't keep up with industry. So now do you become archaic? Right. And it's almost as if, wow, the very thing that you tried to build yourself into you it's turning on you, right?

[28:38] HARDING ROYSTER: In a sense.

[28:39] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: You know what I mean?

[28:40] HARDING ROYSTER: We're an information society now. Even advertising is this way. I mean I think that advertising used to be a lot more craft. So art directors were very good at drawing. They Were very good at typesetting and, like, very hands on. Now it's all done on computer. And a lot of art directors, and no offense to any art directors out there, they can't really draw. We hire illustrators separately to draw things if we want to animate. So it's interesting how it's become so compartmentalized. But circle back. You were talking about inclusion and the right people at the table. I mean, you're at an hbcu, and my only knowledge of them is that they exist. And as I said, obviously, they started out of. There was no other way for black people in America to get a higher education. You weren't allowed. I know that it's not a topic I follow constantly, but I just know that some of the headlines say, oh, people question it now. And I think some people feel like, oh, well, colleges will let anybody in now, so why do we need these things? And obviously, you're working at one. And so what do you feel the importance of these institutions are?

[29:49] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Well, it's interesting because I didn't attend one myself or I had never worked at an hbcu. This is my first experience, and I have found that Absolutely right. I think that all spaces for learning are good, and I think there is still room for all black institutions. I think there is room for all women's institutions. I think there's room for all male institutions, because as students come out of college, they want to figure out the best way where they can belong. And if that's in an all males college or all women's college or a diverse college, I think that they have to still have some relevance of existence. I think HBCUs are more diverse than people believe. I think we assume, because we use that nomenclature, right, that it's just, you know, all black people, but it is all black people from different experiences. Many of them are also now being international. There's a school, Morgan State, has a huge Indian population. Right. And at where I work, Spelman, you know, we have people from all regions of the country. And you talk about, like, roommate conflicts. Like, it's just that, like, it's people from the south meeting people from the north, and now they're living together. Right.

[31:15] HARDING ROYSTER: It's like a sitcom.

[31:16] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: It is, right. And a lot of religious diversity, although mostly Protestant. Within that is a space and a really, really important LGBT community. Right. And so I think that they should. They should still exist. I think if one of before this, I would have maybe if one of my children had said, you know, I think I'm gonna Go to hcci. Oh, no. Maybe you need to be more diverse and go there. But now one of my sons, he goes over to Morehouse all the time. Okay. He definitely is going to Morehouse. Like, oh my God, he is. He has definitely drank all of the Morehouse Kool Aid. My other son is like, oh, no, I'm never going over here. It's too much. I don't need all this. And they're just nine. He's like, I'm going to Georgia Tech.

[32:05] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[32:07] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: But it kind of just the way that their personalities are at nine could be totally different ten years from now. Right.

[32:14] HARDING ROYSTER: You never know.

[32:16] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: But my point is both of them need some space to go to. Right?

[32:19] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[32:20] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so if it is, if it's the HBCU or if it's at Georgia Tech or if they start a two year school, what I think higher education has done is it has tiered these experiences. And so there are many children who will say, oh, I want to go to an hbcu, but that school's not good enough. It's not as good as Georgia State. And so they feel they have to go to Georgia State, even though their experiences may have been better at Spelman or Morehouse or Clark Atlanta or Morris Brown for them. The same with two year schools. Right. If you go to a two year school now, people feel like you can get into a four year college and they don't look at it from even the thought of affordability. Right. So if my sons decide, oh, I'm going to go to Atlanta Metropolitan for two years, I'm going to do my very best, I can pay for that out of pocket.

[33:15] HARDING ROYSTER: Sure.

[33:16] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: So then you get to really go to Emory.

[33:19] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[33:19] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: You know what I mean? Because then the money that we've saved for you for college, you can go to Emory or you can go from there and say you go to Clayton State. These are all state schools for our StoryCorps family. But if you decide to go to Clayton State, guess what? The money that we save for you now, you can go to nyu. Right. And so I just think we've got it in our culture, do a better job of just. It's about learning at the end of the day. Right. And get out of this feeding industry mindset and go back to our original roots is what I'm ultimately trying to say.

[33:57] HARDING ROYSTER: Do you think they have any idea of what they want to do, what they would want to study?

[34:01] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah. One is already talking about being a gamer. That's all he talks about. He was the one with Pokemon cards.

[34:08] HARDING ROYSTER: It's crazy. Like when I was growing up, the only path was to make games. But now it's oh yeah, you can.

[34:14] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Make a billion dollar industry. There is some wacky gaming show. It comes on Disney FX or something that we. I just, I had to watch it last night. I was like, this doesn't make sense to me. I'm watching other people play games. He was trying to explain. He was like, no.

[34:31] HARDING ROYSTER: And it's just someone in front of a monitor that you're watching.

[34:33] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Absolutely, absolutely. My assistant who has the same name as your mom.

[34:40] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[34:41] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Her son is a gamer. He is working on his PhD.

[34:46] HARDING ROYSTER: Wow.

[34:46] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: He's doing that. But she said he made almost $30,000 last year just gaming. Just playing video games.

[34:54] HARDING ROYSTER: I miss part time.

[34:56] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: That's $30,000 part time. So my son who wants to be a gamer, he says Georgia Tech. Cause he's taking some class over there. He kind of likes Georgia Tech, but he might end up going to, I don't know, Georgia Perimeter College.

[35:10] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah. Yeah.

[35:10] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And. Or some other two year school and just make way more money than his dad.

[35:15] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[35:15] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah.

[35:16] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay. Wow. That's great. Yeah. Gaming is again, as an aside. I mean I. I'm a big video gamer.

[35:22] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah.

[35:23] HARDING ROYSTER: But the whole switch to egg, like esports and all that stuff, I was even skeptical. I was like, no one's gonna want to pay to watch.

[35:29] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I kind of thought the same thing.

[35:30] HARDING ROYSTER: All these people. And now. And now we. I mean even for my job, we've actually reached out to some of the top personalities in that industry. Yeah. Because we created a. So I work on the anti. Get teens to stop vaping smoking Anti tobacco for teens. And we partnered with. The guy's name is Ninja. He's basically the top.

[35:55] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah.

[35:56] HARDING ROYSTER: One of the top professional gamers. And it was. There's quite a bit of money to procure his talents just to get him to sort of promote the game that we had developed for one of our campaigns. So. But it's interesting because I remember when video games started showing up at college, I thought it was one of those just wacky side courses. But I guess, I guess, I mean, do you see a lot of change in curriculum at colleges as well? Is it. I mean, the core stuff is still there, but is a lot being added? Are there certain tracks that are really getting expanded upon that used to be.

[36:28] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: No, absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, the generation of faculty members that are coming now.

[36:35] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[36:35] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Would have played Pac man and all those kind of things. Right. So it's not foreign to them. And so they are willing to teach it.

[36:45] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[36:45] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And so yeah, we are. Spelman is looking to create at least a major, but maybe a minor starting out data science, which is all about gaming. We actually did away with intramurals last year because it really wasn't taken off and we introduced gaming and it is huge. And my thought behind that. And they came up with a slowly, you know, black girls game because, you know, that's empowering because from a gender perspective, because people would assume that's gonna be a very male dominant.

[37:22] HARDING ROYSTER: It always is in the industry.

[37:23] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And we wanted to give this women on our college who game an opportunity to really come together and bond. And so that has been pretty significant. And you know, I'd like to even grow that maybe to like we have living learning communities on our campus. A gaming living learning community would be really amazing to do. But yeah, he definitely. And he sees it. So there was the kid that won all these millions of dollars to be a gamer. And the first thing my son said when he saw this, he's like, see, I told you. I told you I can make money gaming on gaming. So he wants to be a gamer. My other son, he's kind of all over the place. But I, it's. God, I hate to say this, but it's my biggest fear in the world. And I think he's going to be an actor.

[38:05] HARDING ROYSTER: Oh, no.

[38:06] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Goes to alliance every summer. He loves theater.

[38:10] HARDING ROYSTER: He's gonna have to get used to know a lot.

[38:11] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, yeah.

[38:12] HARDING ROYSTER: But you never know. You just gotta get that one break.

[38:15] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: But yeah, these are risky.

[38:17] HARDING ROYSTER: I just, I've only tangentially known, I mean and I've only known some of the actors that live in New York. But wow, that is a tough gig.

[38:28] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: So maybe his brother that's a gamer.

[38:29] HARDING ROYSTER: Can they care, man, that's a tough gig. Before we go, because you are an English major and I talk a little shop. Who are your favorite authors to study? Oh, that's really good. English majors are always so interesting in their responses.

[38:42] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: No, no, that's a great thing. So what I wish I had paid more attention to in College, I love 20th century, mid 20th century American literature.

[38:54] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[38:55] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: That really resonates with me. And so I really, really love. Oh, goodness gracious, I'm having a brain moment. Give me a second. Goodness gracious. Streetcar Name Desire.

[39:13] HARDING ROYSTER: Tennessee Williams.

[39:13] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Tennessee Williams, yeah.

[39:15] HARDING ROYSTER: Southern Renaissance kind of stuff.

[39:17] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Oh my God, yeah. That really just speaks to me.

[39:19] HARDING ROYSTER: Are you like a Faulkner fan?

[39:20] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I like Faulkner, Yeah. I. Flannery O'Connor.

[39:25] HARDING ROYSTER: Okay.

[39:26] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I love that. But I also love, you know, Zora Neal Hurston. Love her work, Richard Wright's work. Yeah, I love. And so I really. I really, really, really love Southern literature.

[39:41] HARDING ROYSTER: Really.

[39:41] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: It is really fascinating to me.

[39:43] HARDING ROYSTER: It's very layered.

[39:44] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: It's very layered and complex.

[39:46] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah. Because I do think it taps into. I didn't start to discover it till my senior year of high school. And it's a rich tapestry because it weaves in all the stuff about the south, of racism and segregation and the weird class structures that existed and the customs and antebellum and just all sorts of. There's a lot more stuff that. Because, like, I remember I can't read Beowulf one more time.

[40:14] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah.

[40:14] HARDING ROYSTER: I can't. I can't do that. I can't do the Norman anthology. So when I started to get into that stuff, I did like some of the 18th or 19th century poets just because I thought it was kind of funny. I mean, I could tell those guys were just trying to impress the ladies, but it's funny. I always go back to. I'd never really had a favorite era. I always feel like I just had. Had, I guess, favorite stories. No, I like certain Dickens stories because he just writes such an interesting way. Who else did I like? I liked. I liked Shelley.

[40:51] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: See.

[40:52] HARDING ROYSTER: Like, it's funny. Like, I didn't. And it's not English, but, like, I didn't like reading Dostoevsky.

[40:57] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Oh, yeah.

[40:59] HARDING ROYSTER: It's just.

[41:00] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah. It's hard.

[41:02] HARDING ROYSTER: But I think I always was gravitated to particularly stories like, for instance, I like certain Kurt Vonnegut novels.

[41:08] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah.

[41:09] HARDING ROYSTER: But I don't like all of his.

[41:10] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[41:12] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah. It was funny being. Because when I. There was a class I took, actually, that was. You would read the book and then watch the movie. So it was kind of fun. We've. We. So like Lolita.

[41:23] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Oh, yeah.

[41:24] HARDING ROYSTER: You read the book and then you saw the Kubrick version. And then there was actually a movie version of Portrait of an Artist, if you can believe it. It was really boring. Like the book. There was a few other ones, though, that I think that was the thing that I always kind of liked about. I think part of the reason I liked advertising is because it's a different. It's a story that starts in someone's head and on paper and then it's translated into moving pictures.

[41:49] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: No, absolutely.

[41:51] HARDING ROYSTER: I don't know if I'd ever. You know, it's not movies.

[41:53] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah. Well. And I think for me, I probably. If I had to do it over again, I would have either probably majored in sociology or history.

[42:03] HARDING ROYSTER: History is a good one. Yeah.

[42:05] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: And the reason that I'm drawn to those that genre is because it's all about, you know, it's all about sociological impact, people and systems or it's from like some historical perspective. And so I probably would have done either. I probably would have double majored because.

[42:20] HARDING ROYSTER: I really, I feel like I would have done something English ish. But I would have, I would have had a more historical bent. Like, I think it's really cool when people are, I mean, if you're into Russian literature, like people that are really focused in a very particular kind of thing. I did the classic English major if I scanned all the different primary things. Britlet one Britlet two, all that stuff. But because I feel like getting deeper on something maybe would have. Sometimes I wonder about that in college. Should I have gotten deeper on things versus a little bit more. I wouldn't say superficial, but.

[42:56] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Well, but no, that's a part of it too. Right. And so, wow, what would be better? If you do a year of gen eds, right?

[43:05] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[43:05] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Like English 1 in the spring, English 2 in the summer, and then spent three years immersed in what you want to do.

[43:13] HARDING ROYSTER: I had a friend who studied French and he focused on a certain type of, not just learning the language, but like some certain type of French literature. And he went to France and I was always jealous of him because he was just so focused. And even history, like he was even focused on the history part of it. So it was really interesting to see how he could really focus in on.

[43:29] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: That and go really deep and kind.

[43:31] HARDING ROYSTER: Of gain an expertise and get an expertise. I was jealous of that.

[43:35] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: It's back to the European prince, right? So you're almost doing like an apprenticeship, right. If undergrad was like an apprenticeship and then to go to be the master of your craft, right. Then you really go into advanced studies, which might teach you more of the technical part of like, wouldn't education be so. Higher education would be so much more fascinating if you didn't feel at 18 years old that you have to come and make this choice at the end. Right. And that it has to be a major and this major has to be 1 of 150 when you're still trying to formulate what you really want to do. Like, I think my college experience would have been if in college I could have, like I said, spend a year, learn that stuff. Right. Don't take statistics. Why not take statistics? I hate statistics. Right. But I spent like a year in New York or out of the country or in Appalachia mountains, which is so different from me. Like, how much more rewarding would that be? Right. In terms of life and the quality of life. I think earlier, and I know we have a little bit more time, but we talk a lot about the mental impact that our students are facing now. Mental illness, and it's because they are really stressed.

[44:59] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah.

[44:59] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I'm reading this book right now by. The author's name is Du Moore. And she is talking about. I think the title of the book is Stressed out. And she's talking about the impact of stress on girls. Anxiety and stress on girls, and how long systemic stress creates chronic illnesses that last the rest of your life. Right. Your body is meant to be stressed. Right. Because it's kind of our old flight and fright. Right. From our prehistoric days. But now we live in a culture where both of us are from Atlanta. To drive from the south side of Atlanta to the north side of Atlanta can absolutely probably put you in the hospital. Like, it's such a stressful experience. Like, you need a psychologist.

[45:44] HARDING ROYSTER: I don't know how people even do it because New York has traffic. But I can most mostly take the subway.

[45:49] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: You can take the subway?

[45:50] HARDING ROYSTER: I can bypass it if I need to. But in Atlanta, it's unfair. I. I had to. There's a time I was having to go from, like, Midtown up to Dunwoody.

[46:00] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: Yeah.

[46:00] HARDING ROYSTER: Back and forth for a while. And like, at 4:30 in the afternoon, I just. I felt like just pulling the car over.

[46:07] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: I'm done.

[46:07] HARDING ROYSTER: Yeah. So anyway. All right. That's time.

[46:11] DARRELL BERNARD HOLLOMAN: All right. Have fun.

[46:13] HARDING ROYSTER: Thank you very much. It.