COMMON GROUND: ADAPTTITUDE

Art by Miradieu Joseph. He is the head Track & Field Coach at Grand View University.

There are a few things you should know about the President of Grandview College in Des Moines, Iowa. Dr. Rachelle Karstens Keck likes inventing new words. She’s also reinvented herself a time or two, and now with a concept she calls adapttitude, she’s helping to reimagine a college and help its students believe that they are the CEOs of their own lives. 

She has trademarked her new word, which will have its own chapter in a book she’s writing.  Adapttitude, is a mashup of attitude, adaptation and aptitude.  “When you adopt adapttitude,” says President Keck. “You choose an attitude of adaptation, an attitude that you can shift and change and tweak and do whatever is necessary to thrive and grow. You also pre-decide that you already possessed the aptitude, the ability, to grow the skills, characteristics and experiences necessary to reach your goals.” 

Tom called me from work in March and said, “Do you know Rachelle Karstens?”

“Of course, she was one of my students many years ago. She was probably 14 or 15 the last time I saw her.  She lived a few blocks from us on Henry Street.”

“Well, now she’s president of Grandview College and I’m having breakfast with her next week if you’d like to join us.

”

We had a lot of catching up to do. Unlike many of my students in Mt. Pleasant who stayed there to work and raise their families, Rachelle moved with her family to Clinton her senior year in high school, and I lost track of her. She’s not a student you’d forget, however. Two words to define her then and now: self-possessed and determined.  

SHE KNEW WHO SHE WANTED TO BE

She knew who she wanted to be and had a plan to get there. She knew it wouldn’t be easy. She’d have to be resourceful, because it was clear her family didn’t have the kinds of resources available to the families of her friends. She was going to have to make her successes happen on her own.

Rachelle had seven siblings including adopted twin sisters. They lived in a sprawling house that once belonged to a family doctor just across from the lumber yard where her dad worked. Her mom was a homemaker. To make extra money she started a snow shoveling business with her dad. They heated their house with a wood stove, used cloth diapers and she remembers helping to pay for a family outing to Adventureland by “walking beans”. No one in her family had graduated from college. She did not consider her family middle class. 

Between her junior and senior year in high school she worked for her neighbor, Seleta Bainter Thomas, in her law office. That’s when she decided to become a lawyer.

For most people, moving when you’re a high school senior would be daunting, but Rachelle saw it as an opportunity. Tom Lowe, high school principal in Mt. Pleasant called his colleague, Mr. Howe, in Clinton to let him know Rachelle was coming. She joined the choir, the band’s flag team, tried the swim team and landed a part in “Kiss Me Kate.” She took Advanced Placement classes that opened new possibilities. She had a guidance counselor, Mrs. Ulrich, who was instrumental in helping her chart her course to college at Wartburg, which led to law school at the University of Iowa. 

SHE STARTED SEVERAL BUSINESSES IN HER SPARE TIME

For eight years she practiced law in Montezuma, Iowa. She was married and had two children, Clara and Alec. She also started several businesses in her spare time and for several years managed life as a single mom. Still, she found time for all the community volunteerism expected of multi-tasking small town leaders. During that time, she started noticing that many college presidents in Iowa were also lawyers, so she charted a new course. That meant selling her law practice in 2014 and gaining the kind of experience that would put her in line for a college presidency. She made quick work of that. 

She gained experience in fundraising with a job in planned giving at the University of Iowa Foundation. At Indians Hills Community College, she oversaw fundraising and alumni. It was in Ottumwa that she met her current husband Jim, who now refers to himself as the “first dude” of Grandview. When they married, she added two sons to her family. She took a job as Chief of Staff and University Counsel at Briar Cliff University. When the President left unexpectedly, she became Interim President leading the institution during the recent pandemic. Somewhere in there she defended her dissertation for her PhD in Education at Drake University. 

Dr. Keck says her competitive advantage throughout her career has been her ability to adapt to changing situations. She also thinks that is Grandview University’s competitive advantage in the rapidly changing world of higher education.  

A SCHOOL FOR LIFE: SHIFT AND CHANGE

She says Grandview has been about adaptation since its inception. The only Danish college in America, it was founded on the idea that everyone deserves an education, not just the upper classes. The founders called it a “school for life,” which is appropriate since the university now serves a diverse student body spanning traditional college- aged students to mid-career students looking to reset. There are students from 40 states and 50 countries enrolled at Grand View and 78% of them remain in Iowa. 

 

Before the existence of community colleges, Grandview offered two-year degrees, specializing in nursing. In the 2000s they began offering nine master’s degrees. Two of their most “robust degrees”, according to Dr Keck, are social work and mental health counseling. They plan to add a masters in speech pathology. They still rely on their largest majors, nursing, business and education, but that might not always be the case.   

Dr. Keck says Grandview has flourished because they’ve continued to “shift and change,” often intentionally and sometimes they’ve been forced to make changes because of situations beyond their control, like the pandemic.

 

One issue she’s adamant about: more than 60 percent of the good jobs in Iowa in the near future will require a bachelor’s degree or higher. The Pew Center says that nationally 45% of the best jobs will require at least a BA.  She’s frustrated at the media, who, she says, “has a piece of leather in its mouth and won’t let it go. They keep saying that a college education is no longer a necessity.” 

Dr. Keck predicts, however, that the bachelor’s degree will no longer look like it once did. There will be a strong emphasis on STEM learning. This will help students immediately in finding a job, “but it’s the humanities that will take you long term,” she insists.  Her psychology degree from Wartburg has helped her in every job she’s had. She’s committed to helping students, parents, and the public understand how important an education based on the humanities is. 

It doesn’t take her long to get back to the idea of adapting. She searches among her office shelves for a book called Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory by Tod Bolsinger. The book relies on Stephen Ambrose’s account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in his best-selling Undaunted Courage. 

Dr. Keck explains that the author uses Lewis and Clark as examples of adapters. They were trained as water navigators and prepared for a trip that would involve paddling to the Pacific Ocean, which worked until they hit the Rocky Mountains. Then they had to become mountaineers. 

YOU HAVE TO ADAPT

“You have to pay attention to the world around you, and if what you’re doing is no longer relevant you have to adapt,” says Dr. Keck.

It takes self-confidence to share a rough draft chapter of a book you’re writing with your 9^th grade English teacher. Maybe she remembers that I love rough drafts. That’s where you see the seeds of ideas and the experimentation before you admit that half of it must go, and you hit delete. I’m sure the book will resonate with the kinds of students who are attracted to Grand View and other forward-thinking colleges and universities adapting to meet their needs.  It will appeal to anyone who wants the recipe for Dr. Keck’s secret-sauce zest for life.  

My final takeaway from getting reacquainted with Rachelle: it took a lot of old-fashioned personal fortitude to accomplish her goals. In her own words it took adapttitude. But it also took a well-funded commitment to K-12 public education and an equal commitment to funding public and private higher education here in Iowa.  

She is Iowa-made. She benefitted from a strong public-school education, followed with a small private college BA, and a JD from a publicly funded law school. Her PhD in Education is from another premier Des Moines private college and her career ladder involved working at a community college, a university and two small private colleges.  

We should all be proud of her as citizens who supported her successes. But, as she would be the first to tell us, to keep up we must keep adapting. We owe it to her to do just that.