Beeson Podcast, Episode #519 Susan Doyle Oct. 20, 2020 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla, and this week we’ll be wrapping up our series on Christian Faith at Work. I know that many of you have been blessed in your daily work and witness because we’ve heard from some of you by listening to the guests in this series. I’m sure that today’s conversation will prove to be a major blessing in your daily lives as well. But before Kristen introduces today’s guest, let me remind you to tune in each week for chapel on Tuesdays at 11:00 AM. We look forward to the day, we yearn for the day, when we can welcome guests back into Hodges Chapel in person for community worship. But for now we want you to know that you’re welcome to participate with us online. So, please tune in on Tuesdays at 11:00 AM at BeesonDivinity.com/live. Kristen, would you tell us a little bit more about our guest on the show today? >>Kristen Padilla: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. We have on the show Susan Doyle. She is the Director of Parent and Family Programs at Samford University. Susan is a graduate of Samford University and is a member of our advisory board at Beeson Divinity School. She is also a member of Covenant Presbyterian Church. We’re so grateful that Susan has agreed to come on the show to talk about the intersection of faith and work in her role at Samford. So, welcome Susan, to the Beeson Podcast. >>Susan Doyle: Thank you, Kristen. Thank you, Dr. Sweeney, for inviting me. >>Kristen Padilla: We always like to begin learning more about you, so could you share with us your story? Where are you from? How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ? >>Susan Doyle: Yes, thank you. I’m an Alabama girl. Parents from Alabama. I was born into a family of believers. I came to my own acceptance of faith in Jesus as a young child. My dad is 91 years old and would tell you he is still a southern Baptist minister. So, I grew up as a PK in a small town where everybody knew everybody. I always said I felt like I grew up in Mayberry. But he was a graduate of Howard College and had always told us, my sister and me, that he wanted us to attend Howard. Well, of course, by then it had changed to Samford University. But today, even still, he would say, “No, we attended Howard College.” His loyalty runs deep. So, I did come to Samford and there was no such thing at that point, I’m telling you a little bit about my age but there was no such thing as career counseling at that point. And so I floundered a bit when I was in college. I got to my senior year and realized that what I had studied all those years really was not what I wanted to do as a career. Fortunately, during those years I had spent every summer working at Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center. God put it on my heart that the world of communication was something that he wanted to lead me into. So, I graduated and ended up getting a job at Women’s Missionary Union. I wanted to do something with my life that I felt was eternally significant. At that point in my life I didn’t understand that if I answered God’s call to whatever it was he would lead me to that it would be eternally significant. But I wanted it to be a job that I didn’t have to imagine how it connected. It was easy to see. And so he gifted me with that. The funny thing about it is that I was the worst speller on the face of the earth at that point. And I got a job as an editorial assistant on a publication. That was before the days of spell check. I had the most used dictionary in the editorial department. I just was terrified I was going to send something to print that had not been checked. So, God used that to teach me to spell. He used it to teach me to write more clearly, just a lot of things. Anyway, ended up staying there for almost 13 years and then I began freelancing and doing that same sort of work as we raised our daughter. And after she went to college I had the opportunity to work with a state policy group in video production. So, I learned something – another angle of communication. What that whole journey taught me that I so love sharing with college students is that when you get to this point in life and look back you could have never planned how those steps would all lead from one to the next. But when you look back you can see how it was so perfectly lined up that God did have a plan of how that would all connect. And every experience along the way just added to what I was going to need to know for the next step. So, it’s been a fun journey, and he’s been with me all the way very clearly marking that path. That’s the journey. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s a great segue to the next question we wanted to ask you. Of course, we’re going to get around to talking in greater depth about the ways in which you try to be a faithful Christian day to day in the workplace. That’s the main theme of this series on Christian faith at work. But it might help our listeners to understand how it is you’re trying to witness faithfully as a Christian on the job if they knew a little bit more about your job. Could you bring us up to date with respect to your career? Now you’re the Director of Parent and Family Programs here at Samford. I believe you started in that role in 2014. Tell our listeners how you got here and what your job is here at the university. >>Susan Doyle: Again, it was not a job I had ever intended to pursue. When our daughter who also came to Samford left home and was a student I got involved as a parent, volunteering. I took part in a leadership council program that was for parents. About the second year she was at Samford I realized that it was time for me to do something different. I started searching and it took awhile to work through that process. It is the only, maybe twice in my life that I really felt like I could almost audibly hear God say, “This is what I want you to do.” And it was so bizarre that I knew it had to be from him. He instructed me to go and talk with the Vice President of Student Affairs and to just say, “If you ever need somebody in this role, I would love to be considered.” And at that time there was a person who was in the role, but I knew that she was working part time at a distance, and I had worked with her as a volunteer. I thought it was a really strange thing to do, but it was so clear God saying, “Go do this,” that I did. What I didn’t know was that she had just resigned. He was preparing me for this position. So, the position is, as you say, Director of the Office of Family and Parent Programs. And what we do is we work with parents and family members of Samford University’s undergraduate students to support student success, to provide meaningful and appropriate avenues for engagement for those parents and family members with the university, and then to provide ways that they can build connections with each other. It’s a very different sort of landscape today from when my parents took me to college. Parents are very involved and want to be connected. They’re connected on a daily moment by moment basis with their students, and they want to continue to advise them and help them. So, what we do is we’re here to help them do that with the information they need and to help them navigate and troubleshoot when it’s necessary. >>Kristen Padilla: Susan, as I mentioned before we started recording, I hear people sing your praises all the time in different offices, which I think is such a testimony to the work that you do and the degree to which you do it here at Samford. I want to talk a little bit more about your work and just hearing you share about your background in communications. I find it interesting as someone who does communications for Beeson how that background, how all those skills that you honed as you were working with the Women’s Missionary Union and as a freelance writer, and the many other ways – how has your background in communications been useful in your current work here at Samford? >>Susan Doyle: Kristen, that’s such a great question. You must have been at our dinner table at some point. My husband and I talk all the time about how, as students way back when, we would have just never dreamed how important it was to learn to write well. To be able to speak well. Students take those communication arts classes and I know they’re just trying to check off something, but wow, to be able to write and communicate and to spell correctly and put a whole sentence together and a whole paragraph, is not a skill that I take lightly anymore. And that has been so useful. Because I do find myself sending emails, sending updates to parents, all the time. Every time I hit that button knowing that that email is going to go to 10,000+ people I just sort of cringe, thinking, “Ooh, I hope that was all correct.” All of those experiences just prepared me to be more confident, I guess, and able to do that work. Even the little bit of video production, working with our creative services department here on campus to understand how a video goes together, because we do some of that kind of work from time to time. Running a social media effort. It’s just amazing how all of those skills do come together in order to help tell the story. And to keep parents informed. That’s the bottom line. We want them to know what’s going on, on campus, and to be able to understand where their students are. One thing I didn’t say earlier that I do want to back up and say ... Samford parents are some of our most credible recruiters and most generous benefactors. So, we want to do all we can in order to equip them to do those things at the level that they do them so beautifully now. >>Doug Sweeney: What a big job, Susan. Those of us who are Samford insiders know that you do it with excellence. Let me ask you, though, at this point just to speak directly into the theme of this Christian Faith at Work Series. How is it that your Christian faith informs what you do? What difference does being a Christian make in the way that you relate with Samford parents, and even with colleagues here at the university? >>Susan Doyle: Because Samford is a university that is faith-based, was founded on Christian principles, I think that most of our families know coming in that that is going to be the experience and the vantage point from which their student will receive their education. I’m reminded, frequently, that not all of the students who come here, nor their families, are believers. And I try to keep in mind that I would want to be treated ... that I need to treat them like I would want to be treated – is the golden rule. You know? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I’m always aware that I’m representing not only Samford, but I am representing Jesus as a believer, because they expect that from us and have high expectations. It’s a point from where I try to do all of my work and to build the relationships. >>Kristen Padilla: You mentioned being at a Christian institution, and our last guest on this series was Clark Watson who also works at Samford. He talked about the positives and the challenges in working at a Christian place, organization. I wonder if you would just speak to that. How has being at a Christian institution really helped you to live out your faith in your work? And in what ways has it been perhaps challenging in some of the things that you do? >>Susan Doyle: I’m going to base my response on one word: Expectations. Because Samford is a university with that foundation in faith and Christian principles, it is such a gift to be able to work from that point. I know what the expectations are and it really is just a privilege to be able to come to work, to know that we are praying together, we are working from that perspective. There are initiatives and projects that we can undertake that we wouldn’t be doing in other places. I’m a member of an association of other para program professionals and attend a yearly meeting. It just always, I guess, surprises me, shocks me back into reality to realize how much freedom I have to come from that perspective. We’ve done things such as organize prayer groups. We have parents who that’s their heart. They want to know how to be praying for Samford from an informed perspective. So, we’re doing things like that. We had a parent who’s dream was to organize parents to pray. This was several years ago. And she said, “We need to design a prayer walk that parents would participate in when they come to orientation. So, she and I together designed that, wrote it, and to this day that is something we do with parents. It’s on our website. We tell parents you can go there, download it, and be praying for Samford. It gives a very brief outline of how to pray for the university. I would say that the expectation that we can work from that perspective is a privilege and a gift. But it also gets hard because of expectations when a person is unhappy with the way we’ve handled things. Maybe their student has to struggle through something. And then they pull what I call “the Christian card” and will say, “I cannot believe a university that’s a Christian university would do _____________.” And then you’re reminded, okay, we’re on eggshells here, and I’m representing something eternally significant, not just something that’s for the here and now. I would say expectations make it easy and make it difficult. >>Doug Sweeney: I imagine I’m not the only one listening to this and thinking about the kind of job you have and wondering how hard it has been to lead well from your office during COVID-19. As the person in charge of relating to the parents and the families of our students, my goodness, you must face a lot of pressure week in and week out as we try to figure out how to keep students safe here on campus. My hunch is that your office gets lots of calls from worried parents. I’m not sure what the question is here, but could you talk a little bit about what difference your faith makes, even in the way you deal with crises like this? And you try to provide assurance for families and you try to make it clear that we really, because we’re followers of Jesus, are especially strongly committed to caring for your children and doing business in an ethical way, a COVID safe way here on campus. >>Susan Doyle: It has been an interesting semester. I know that all across campus we all have been doing things differently and facing ... doing things in ways we would have never dreamed. Some of them easier than we might have dreamed and seeing some silver linings, and others maybe more difficult. I would say that this semester has been probably most trying for the families of our freshman class. Those students lost a lot with their senior year. College has been very different for them this beginning semester. I think that students probably realize that those differences, to some degree, but I’m not so sure it’s not the parents who feel those losses maybe stronger than their students do, because they know what they’ve missed. And so it’s almost like when we answer the phone we know we’re probably going to be dealing with a parent who is grieving the loss of the normalcy that their student would have had. So, there’s been a lot of that. Surprisingly, parents don’t seem to be as panicked about their students being on campus in the middle of a pandemic as I think I probably would have been. It has made me realize that I would have tried to be too controlling with my own child. But it has been trying. It’s made us aware that there is a lot of loss of expectation, there’s a lot of stress, tension, but God has used it to remind me that it’s just another opportunity to rely on him. We certainly can’t do this on our own power. There are days when I do answer one more phone call and I just can feel the stress building and maybe I’m feeling like I’m not going to be as nice to this next person as I was the last, or the first this morning. God just uses it to remind me that that’s when I’m trying to do it myself and not relying on him. >>Kristen Padilla: Just listening to you, Susan, I am reminded that in many ways you serve as a minister, a counselor, and function as a chaplain to these parents who are going through some difficult time and may not have anyone else to turn to. I believe that you’re in a strategic role here at the university on the front lines, serving for the Lord in his work here. Thank you for your ministry. As I already mentioned, you’re a part of our Beeson community. You believe in what we’re doing here at Beeson and involved on our advisory board. You come to chapel. At least before COVID (laughs) when we had guests in chapel. Could you talk to use about just why you’re involved in our work here? What gets you excited about what’s happening at Beeson and if it connects in any way to the work that you’re doing? >>Susan Doyle: Kristen, I would say that transition can be exciting. It’s been exciting for me to transition into this job that I would have never dreamed. It’s been exciting for me to watch the transitions through the years at Beeson Divinity School. Dr. Sweeney, you and I both are the second in our university roles. You and I both have inherited a program within a university that had a firm foundation and had great administrative support. And maybe within most areas, a sky is the limit potential. So, I’ve been privileged to watch Beeson from a close vantage point for more than 20 years and the way that God has blessed and grown the school from just the handful of students and a couple of staff members who were housed in a room that looked like not much more than a closet. To what you have today, it’s nothing short of miraculous. Dr. Sweeney, I’ll have to say that when I attended the first board meeting that you hosted for us, I was so excited to hear the vision that you cast just the fresh approach and the excitement in your voice, not just for the potential but even the challenges that you were acknowledging that are there. So, I’m encouraged and excited about the way you’re approaching those and it’s a privilege to be able to watch it up-close. I’m excited to be a supporter of Beeson Divinity School because I’ve also benefitted from Beeson Divinity School. There have been several ministers through the last 20 years who have shared their ministry and I was a part of in my church and locally. So, I’ve seen the very deep gifting that comes through your school and the way that you’re training them. And it’s a privilege to be so close to the Divinity School. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, it’s a privilege to have you so close. Our regular listeners know, Susan, that we always end these interviews by taking a couple of steps back and asking our guests what God is doing in their lives these days. You’ve already told us you’ve been a Christ follower for decades, for many, many years. So, thinking about what God is doing in your life is probably not an unusual exercise for you. But is there anything that you might say by way of encouragement to our listeners as we conclude? That the Lord is teaching you these days? That the Lord is doing in your life or in your circumstances these days? >>Susan Doyle: This is a little embarrassing. But I would say, as you said, I have been a Christ follower for decades, and you would think that I had learned this by now. But I am so grateful that God never gives up on us and that he just keeps working to teach us things, maybe from a new angle each time it comes up in our lives. So, I mentioned this, or briefly mentioned it earlier, but the thing that he is dealing with me most frequently now is that I have the choice to do things in my own strength or to depend on him. I have the choice to grumble and complain or I have the choice to give thanks in all things. That has been, over this last year that has been a very powerful lesson that he’s been trying to teach me. And he’s done it through some interesting ways. A year and a half ago I was walking across campus and I’m a klutz. I can’t do two things at one time. And I fell and broke my ankle. He used that ... it was so funny, so many verses and everything that I read afterwards reminding me that he could keep me from stumbling, he could keep me from falling, yet he allowed me to do that. But the reason that he allowed me to do that was he took me to a place where one day this was one of those other times, I almost audibly heard him say, “You have not thanked me for this.” And I said, “God, you’re right, I haven’t.” So, I started thanking him for that broken ankle and for what he was going to do in my life because of it. And it became the most wonderful break that anyone has ever had. He used it in some amazing ways and it was a very sweet time. So, now in trying to be there for parents to help them through this stressful time he’s reminding me, “Instead of grumbling and complaining, you need to be thanking me for the situation in which I’ve placed you. You need to be thanking me for this pandemic and for all that I’m going to do through it. You need to be depending on how I’m going to provide for you.” I’ll close with one other illustration that just will be with me forever. In the early days of this job it was only about three weeks into the job, we were looking toward hosting family weekend, which is one of our largest events on campus. We invite all of the families who are undergraduate students to come and spend the weekend and participate in activities. And I was in the middle of trying to learn not only how to use my new email and what the systems on campus were, but I was trying to figure out this event for 8,000 people that was going to happen. And how many trash cans do we need to have out and just all of the logistics. One morning I read, in my Bible, about God’s provision and I can’t even remember, I tried to go back and find it and couldn’t find ... in the Old Testament he told one of the leaders of the Israelites, “Stand back and just watch what I’m going to do, and I’m going to provide.” And so that morning I said, “God, I need music at this breakfast we’re going to be hosting. I don’t even know how to turn on my email yet, how am I going to find musicians who can provide the music for this breakfast?” I kid you not, two hours later there was a tuba quartet that showed up on the quad, playing the most beautiful music you’ve ever heard. And I just had to laugh. I mean, God not only did you bring me musicians, you brought me tuba players. A tuba quartet. Who would have ever gone to find a tuba quartet? I walked out and told them my story. And asked if they would be willing to play at the breakfast and they thought it was really fun and said, “Sure, we’d love to.” And they played for the next two years. I’ve remembered that through this time to look back to that as God saying, “I’m going to provide. I’ve called you to do a job. You may not know how to do it. You probably don’t know how to do it. But I’m going to provide what you need if you will just look to me and it will be all the sweeter if you do.” >>Doug Sweeney: What a wonderful testament to God’s faithfulness among us. You have been listening to Susan Doyle, the Director of Parent and Family Programs here at Samford University, a member of Covenant Presbyterian Church, just down the street, from Beeson Divinity School. Thank you very much, Susan, for being with us. We are so grateful to you for reminding us that the Lord is faithful and his mercies are new every morning. And even somebody who’s got a job that’s as difficult as yours is during the COVID epidemic, can rely on him, can count on him, can trust on him and his providential care to see you through the day. Our listeners, we love you and we are praying for you. We covet your prayers. We thank you for tuning in. We wish you all the best and we say goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.