The Transformative Power of Education: Laurence Alexander's Path to Becoming a University Chancellor

Victors in Grad School

Expanding Horizons Through Graduate Education

Graduate school can be an enriching yet challenging journey that adds immense value to one's personal and professional growth. During a recent episode of Victors in Grad School, host Dr. Christopher Lewis engaged in an insightful conversation with Dr. Laurence Alexander, the Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Flint. Dr. Alexander shared his extensive educational journey, offering valuable advice for those considering or currently navigating graduate studies. Below, we delve into Dr. Alexander's story, the decisions that shaped his path, and the lessons he learned along the way.

Initiating the Graduate Journey

Dr. Alexander's academic journey began with an undergraduate degree in Drama and Communications from the University of New Orleans. His early exposure to journalism through the college newspaper spurred his interest in pursuing deeper knowledge and skills in the field. Despite the University of New Orleans not having a specific journalism program, the broader Communication curriculum and experiences on the college newspaper cemented his desire to pursue a specialized graduate program.

Driven by the need to gain more in-depth knowledge in journalism, Dr. Alexander evaluated top programs across the nation, ultimately choosing the University of Florida due to their comprehensive fellowship package and the opportunity to work with Pulitzer Prize-winning editorialist, Dr. Buddy Davis.

Transitioning to Law

While pursuing his graduate studies in Journalism and Communications, an enduring interest in law, sparked during his undergraduate years, urged Dr. Alexander towards further education. His fascination with constitutional law and the judicial process fueled his decision to attend law school, aiming for a career covering courts with greater proficiency.

Dr. Alexander's law school journey led him back to New Orleans, where he juggled work and part-time law studies at Loyola University before receiving an offer from Tulane University. At Tulane, he received a partial scholarship and experienced a top-notch education, sharpening his legal acumen.

From Journalism to Higher Education

Dr. Alexander’s career took an interesting turn as he transitioned from journalism to academia, influenced significantly by his mentor, David Womack. After serving as a senior fellow during his law school years, his passion for teaching grew. Pursuing academia provided Dr. Alexander with the opportunity to have a greater impact, merging his journalism and legal expertise.

Moving through academic positions at Temple University and then the University of Florida, Dr. Alexander eventually recognized the need for a PhD to advance his academic administration career. This realization led him to pursue a doctorate at Florida State University under the mentorship of Dr. Joe Beckham, specializing in educational leadership and policy.

Navigating Educational Transitions

Transitioning between different educational stages—from undergraduate to master's, law school, and eventually a PhD—required Dr. Alexander to adapt and refine his approach consistently. Key to these transitions were the skills he developed early in life, such as goal-setting and methodical planning. He emphasized the importance of breaking down vast academic goals into manageable tasks, ensuring each step was carefully planned and executed.

Leveraging Diverse Academic Backgrounds

Dr. Alexander acknowledged that each educational experience—journalism, law, and doctoral studies—equipped him with unique skills crucial for his role as Chancellor. His background in journalism enhanced his understanding of media relations, branding, and internal and external communications. His legal training proved invaluable in logical reasoning, argumentation, and managing large volumes of information. Similarly, his doctorates' focus on leadership in higher education provided him with comprehensive insights into the complexities of university administration.

Tips for Aspiring Graduate Students

For those considering graduate school, Dr. Alexander advises a thorough self-assessment of motivations and goals. Understanding why you are pursuing further education can provide the necessary drive to overcome challenges. Evaluating practical aspects such as program affordability and accessibility and finding the right faculty to guide you can significantly enhance your graduate experience. Cultivating passion and grit remains essential, as these qualities sustain motivation through setbacks and tough times.

Conclusion

Dr. Laurence Alexander’s academic and professional journey offers a profound testament to the cumulative value of diverse educational experiences. His seamless blending of journalism, law, and academic administration underscores the importance of passion, strategic planning, and adaptability. Aspiring graduate students can draw inspiration from his story, understanding that each educational pursuit, though unique, collectively builds a robust foundation for future success.

TRANSCRIPT (Unedited transcript created with the help of CastMagic)

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]: Welcome to the victors in grad school, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]: Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, director of graduate programs at the University of Michigan Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. Every week, I love being able to be on this journey with you, and I call it a journey because it truly is a journey that you're on. You could be just starting to think about graduate school. You could be already you could have already applied to graduate school, gotten that acceptance letter, and and anxiously awaiting to go for your 1st day of class. You could be in graduate school right at the beginning, could be toward the end. But no matter where you are in this continuum, there are things that you can do to find success in that graduate school journey, and that's what this show is all about.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:52]: This show is here to help you, to provide you with some tools for your toolbox, to give you some insights into the journeys of other people that have gone before you that have done graduate school, been successful in graduate school, and can offer you some insights into things that they had to do as they went through that for themselves. So I hope that with every episode, you're able to take something, something small, something big that you can then put into action right away to prepare yourself for the journey that you are embarking on. Today, we've got another great guest with us today. Dr. Laurence Alexander is with us today, and Dr. Alexander is the chancellor of the University of Michigan Flint. I'm really excited to be able to introduce him to you to have you learn from his journey. Dr. Alexander, thanks so much for being here today.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:01:40]: Thanks, Dr. Lewis. Glad to be with you today.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:43]: It is my pleasure having you here today. Love being able to kind of delve into this, and I'm excited to learn a little bit more about your journey as well. I know that for every person, there's that origin story. And there's that point in time where you find that you want to take your degrees to the next level. I know you did your undergraduate work at the University of New Orleans. And while you were there, you got that bachelor's degree in drama and communications. But at some point during that initial education, something awakened in you that made you decide that you wanted to go on, and you did go on. But let's go back in time.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:23]: Talk to me about what was it initially that made you decide that you wanted to go to graduate school?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:02:27]: Well, thank you for that question. You're absolutely right. There was a moment in time when as I was going through my undergraduate years, I was also working at the college newspaper. In my senior year, I became editor of the newspaper. So I served for a year working as the as the editor in chief and with a staff of about 25 or 30 students. And we published a newspaper every week and with the help of a newspaper advisor, who was a full time faculty member. And he was a very influential person, I thought, because he ended up being a mentor to me for many years to come. But during that time, I guess I thought I was getting a good feel for beginning my journalism career in at the University of New Orleans, but it didn't have a journalism program specifically.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:03:19]: It had a broad based communications program that was heavily based in drama, theater, arts. And so I got some very practical courses in that program. A couple of them were journalism specific courses, but I wanted more in-depth study and practice of journalism. So I started looking at programs, graduate programs, that would provide me with the kind of experience that I would need, the kind of preparation I would need for a career in journalism. And I started looking at the top journalism programs in the nation that also had master's programs in particular.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:59]: So you made the decision to attend the University of Florida, and I'd love for you to talk to me about you you said you were looking at a number of different programs. You looked at those top programs. Walk me through that thought process for yourself as you were whittling down those choices. And what made you finally decide that the University of Florida was the right place for you?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:04:19]: Well, there were a couple of other programs, you're right, that I was applying to, that I was looking at. I was based in New Orleans, my hometown. And, of course, I looked at Louisiana State University, which is a large research university, public university in the state of Louisiana, and I had a journalism program there for many years. I looked at programs in surrounding states, Arkansas, Mississippi. They happened to also be at major research universities that had major athletic programs in the, Southeastern Conference, which I did like football and basketball, and I watched a lot of it. So I heard of these schools. They, you know, the name brand resonated with me. But I also knew that the consensus top journalism program in the country was at Missouri.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:05:05]: And so I did apply to the University of Missouri. And and to my great happiness and surprise, I was accepted at Missouri. And I also applied at Florida. Florida was in the SEC. Several schools across the South I applied to, and I was accepted at Florida as well. And interesting though, with the Florida acceptance came an offer of a fellowship to study there. So an offer that came with some finances, some financial support to go to graduate school there. Florida was also pushing that they were one of the top schools in the nation, and it was certainly and still is.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:05:43]: But it also had some other appealing aspects to it in addition to a fellowship. And during the recruitment process, I did let them know I was considering going to Missouri, and and I really was kind of focused on going to the top school. And then about a week later, they called back and said that they had an additional scholarship that would basically take care of other expenses that I would have. So, I mean, it became an offer I couldn't refuse. The financials were you can't turn down essentially a full ride scholarship to graduate school at Florida. But I did add one other condition that they met, and that was I asked they had a Pulitzer prize winning editorialist on their faculty, and I wanted him to be my supervisor. And so I asked, is it possible that I could also get doctor Davis, Buddy Davis, to be my adviser? And they spoke with Buddy, and he came back and said, of course, yes. He'd be my adviser.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:06:38]: So I got a lot of what I wanted and what I was seeking at the time. Although I didn't go to Missouri, I didn't have any regrets. I got a first class education at at Florida and enjoyed my graduate education there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:49]: Now I know that was not the stop of your graduate education. You went on, and after finishing the master of arts degree, you something else must have awakened during that journalism and communications degree that you decided that you wanted to go to law school, which is a whole another completely different type of education. And so talk to me about that. What made you decide after thinking that you were gonna be starting this journalism career to kind of move in a little bit different direction to then going to law school?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:07:22]: For sure. And the law school interest started while I was an undergrad as well because there was another strand going on. I kind of I guess I I took a lot of courses in political science. Several of those courses focused on constitutional law and civil liberties and so in the judicial process. There was a professor there. I'll mention him Professor Ed Heck. He was a scholar and he had done his work on, Justice Brennan and the Supreme Court. And he was dynamic.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:07:50]: I mean, he was a great professor in my mind, great teacher, great scholar. And I took every course he taught and really enjoyed learning about the judicial process, the supreme court, civil liberties, and how the court makes its decisions. So I've had a real interest in law as an undergraduate, but and this may resonate with some people. I saw that law school at the time I was coming out was a 3 year commitment. I was not ready to do another 3 years of school when I came out as an undergraduate. So I took the shortcut into the master's program. But it never never escaped me that I had this interest in law. And I was around a lot of friends at the newsroom who were in law school.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:08:32]: It's interesting that the editor and the publisher of the newspaper, they're both had law degrees at the newspaper, and it felt comfortable to move in a direction following my passions. Because I felt at the time I wanted to cover courts, I felt from the time I was studying it, oh, it would be wonderful to cover the Supreme Court. Oh, wouldn't it be great? And in my research, I found that many of the journalists who were at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, and they covered the Supreme Court had law degrees. So it it made perfect sense to try to extend my journalism career and to go into an area that I had significant interest in by pursuing a law degree and then moving forward in the profession.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:15]: And I know you did attend Tulane and went back to Louisiana. So talk to me about that decision because there's lots of law schools out there, and I'm sure that you had some opportunities to be able to go to a number of places. Was it just the draw of going home, or was it something else that drew you to deciding that Tulane was the right place for you?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:09:34]: Yeah. A couple of those things. I was already at home working for the newspaper. And so I started out looking for an opportunity where I could continue working and attend law school part time. So I wanted to go to law school as a kind of like graduate school, but it's professional school, but go part time and work full time. So I looked for opportunities, not just in New Orleans, but elsewhere. And they had several of those programs on the Eastern seaboard. You could work full time and But I would have to get a job in those places, a full time job, and go to law school as well.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:10:06]: Well, I was based in New Orleans, and there was a program there, that was part time that I focused on quite a bit, and that was at Loyola University in New Orleans. I applied. I was accepted. And I also applied to Tulane, and I I applied to just a couple of law schools because I I was based in New Orleans. Well, I I got it accepted into Loyola, and I was very happy with that. I sent in my check that I would be attending to reserve my spot in the fall class. And then I got an acceptance from Tulane as soon as I put that in the mix. And I really had to do some soul searching because I've always admired Tulane.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:10:43]: Tulane is a it had the prestige of being a member of the AAU. It's an institution that's well known and becoming more well known now because of its athletic programs. But its professional programs are top notch in business and law and medicine and and public health. Tulane is renowned for that. And I live not too far from Tulane when I was a teenager, so I could hear the roar of the crowds. And we knew we knew where we we all knew about Tulane in there. And it was a kind of a dream school that I thought I really Gee, I can never attend Tulane University. But I got an acceptance letter from Tulane and I said, Oh my, what am I gonna do now? So I went in, made an appointment with the associate dean in the law school and went in and talked with her about my decision.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:11:32]: And, of course, she put on a hard sell, and and the next thing you know, I was attending Tulane. Tulane did offer as well a partial tuition scholarship to help with the expenses, in law school. So I was very pleased to get that. And I thought, geez, this is fantastic. And so I got a first rate education there. But the decision of going to law school was really I think it was really hatched when I was an undergraduate, and it was solidified when I was a reporter and reporting on I did a lot of crime reporting, but I really wanted to report on the courts. The courts was really my focus point.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:08]: So you went through law school, got that law degree, and at some point during that whole journey, you started making a little bit of a pivot and looking at working in higher education and moving from being that journalist and moving into higher ed. And I know that after a number of years, you made a final choice, continued that education to get a PhD after being a assistant professor and being a professor and getting that type of experience as well. So talk to me about that next step, and what made you decide that you wanted to get the PhD?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:12:46]: There's a little bit of logic in there somewhere. A logical process because it meandered a bit because I did go to law after wanting to do that. And then I did interview with newspapers and got a couple of job offers actually to go back into newspapers after law school. But there were some competing offers on the table, and one of them was to go into academia. And that same mentor, David Womack, who I mentioned earlier, who was the adviser for the paper, was leaving the University of New Orleans, and he was going to Temple University. And he called me up and said, you know, that he thought I would be perfect for this job. It was a faculty job. It was a job that paid less than I was getting paid when I was at the newspaper, but he thought I would be good at it.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:13:29]: He thought I would love doing it. He turned out to be right. One of the things I found out in law school is I did love teaching, got the opportunity to do to be a senior fellows in law school, were 3rd year law students who worked with faculty members to help instruct and teach and and guide 1st year law students through the legal research and writing course, writing briefs and memoranda. And I got a lot of experience working with students and grading their work and under the supervision of a professor. And at the same time, one of the law schools writing competitions, writing on to one of the law reviews at law school. So in that process, I I I also after I wrote on, I I actually wrote a comment, which is a shorter which is an article for our law journal, which was published. So I got an experience of getting published in the law journal. And that was really, I mean, a coming together of things of, of sorts, of of the writing skills, of the wanting to write and be published.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:14:31]: Instead of being published in daily journalism, I was being published in an academic journal. At the same time, I was getting this teaching experience. So walking into academia was, was an easy choice in the walk, but I still was a little unsure about whether I would remain there or whether I would return to the journalism roots or or go to a different career. Well, I started it. And after 1 year there, there was an opening at Temple in the same day Womack. Doctor Womack called me and told me about an opening at Temple. And before you know it, I was on the faculty at Temple. Now I didn't just go to Temple just to go to Temple.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:15:08]: I went to Temple to get kind of what I got when I left UNO the first time, was to go to a place where journalism was on a larger stage, where I had colleagues who were in the journalism profession, where I had a real exposure to journalism and the profession and and the professoriate. And so that was an that was an important move for me. And I stayed at Temple for 3 years, then I made the move to to the University of Florida as a faculty member doing teaching and research. And then as soon as I about 3 years into Florida, I was tenured and promoted, and an opening came as chair of the department, and the dean encouraged me to apply for it, and I got the job as chair. I wasn't sure if I would love administration, but I did. Did like administration. But I found out something after several years of working in administration, that in order to move up to a dean or provost or president or something of that sort, I would need more than my law degree. That in order to navigate the universities successfully, I would need, I would need to get a doctorate, a PhD.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:16:19]: So I looked and searched and because I was raising a family in Gainesville and, and whatnot, I looked around the area, I didn't want to do it at the University of Florida, because I didn't wanna go to my colleagues, you know, over in education. So I looked around and and Florida State had a program that would meet my needs. But more importantly, there was a professor on the on on the faculty there, doctor Joe Beckham, who had a law degree, had that kind of background that could be my mentor, adviser, and and sponsor for the PhD program at, Florida State. And I only applied to one doctoral program, and that was Florida State. So I I was accepted, and as they say, the rest is history. But by then, I was fully involved. I was probably about 15 years into my academic career, and I was at a crossroads and needed to get the additional credential. And in the meantime, I was able to extend the the additional credential.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:17:10]: And in the meantime, I was able to extend the research that I was doing. I had done quite a bit of research. And my research was bringing together media and law all along, up and rising through the ranks. But I extended that to first amendment analysis as it relates to public colleges and universities and free speech on campus.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:28]: Well, I really appreciate you sharing that. Now I know that with all of these different degrees that you receive, you had transitions. There were transitions from your undergrad to your master's to the law school to your doctorate. In each of those different settings, you're taught in a little bit different way. The expectations are different. The way you have to think about things, process things, write about things is a little bit different. So can you and you found success in those transitions. Can you talk to me about what you had to do in each of those different transitions that you went through that you had to set up for yourself as you transitioned in, but also as you transition through that helped you find that success?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:18:08]: Oh, yes. I can talk about those. But I guess I hadn't reflected a whole lot on that on that point in particular. But as I think about it and as I think because you're right, I I mean, after undergraduate, I obtained 3 more degrees. So in order to be successful in those areas, I always relied on kind of some of the tools that I learned actually in high school in terms of goal setting and in terms of achievement. So I go all the way to the end product. What is it that I want to achieve? I want to obtain the degree and I work backwards. So what's it gonna take to to obtain the degree? And I make lists.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:18:46]: And I go through those lists, and then I break it down to to its smallest parts to what's it gonna take to be successful in this course. To get this degree, I need to get these courses. I need to get this dissertation. I need to get this thesis done. But to break it down to its component parts and say, okay. What things do I need to do to be successful in these courses? What things do I need to do? And then I proceed to make the changes in my life that are going to aid me in that process. Because at different stages in my life, I was in a different places. At one point, I was at the University of Florida where I got a full ride.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:19:20]: I was paying my own bills, living in a very tiny apartment off campus. But when I decided to go to law school, I was living in an apartment and working. And I gave up my apartment. I gave up my car. I gave up everything because I needed to make it as affordable as possible to go to law school. So I had to defer a lot of the gratification that many of my colleagues and friends had. So I had to make those conscious decisions that in order to achieve the goal that I want to achieve, in order to achieve the degree of success, I'm going to have to reorder my life and reprioritize some of those things that I enjoy doing so that, ultimately, I'm performing at a very high level with respect to my courses and classes, and that I'm I'm achieving the grades and the success that I need to achieve with that. At the same time, I'm keeping some sort of a handle on my life outside of school, but making sure that at the same time that the people around me understand, I'm in school.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:20:21]: I need to study. I'm gonna devote myself to this and making a conscious decision to achieve goals that lead to the achievement of higher goals all along the way.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:30]: With all of the different degrees that you've had, the teaching experience, the administrative experience, all of these pieces have made you who you are today. And as you reflect back and look back to the different degrees that you did receive and now the work that you're doing as the chancellor of the University of Michigan, Flint, how do you feel that these degrees have helped to prepare you for the work that you do on a daily basis?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:20:54]: Well, I think each and every degree that I've obtained has been essential to my success in even obtaining this job at U of M Flint. I think because going back to journalism, for instance, a lot of what the leader of an institution needs to be aware of and needs to have a an understanding of nowadays is media. They need to have even if they haven't studied media as a profession, but it's it was very beneficial to me to have a fuller understanding of marketing, advertising, promotion, and branding because that is what these institutions rely on. People see the block m, they see the m Flint, and they see that as emblematic of a great university, a great institution of quality in education. And so those notions stay with me constantly in in terms of how do we present ourselves or how are we perceived by the publics out there? And I did say publics plural, but in the very public arenas that are out there. Also, how we proceed in just daily journalism. How are we covered? Are we getting the information and messaging out? In communications, are we communicating both internally and externally to all of our constituents? And and I was reading something the other day that said university leaders probably communicate with more and diverse audiences than any other profession out there because we serve because of the population we serve and because of the status we hold within our communities. But it was vitally important.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:22:26]: The same with law. A lot of folks ask me, do you ever use your law degree? Oh, I use it every day. And not just using my law degree to I mean, I'm not arguing in court, but I'm framing arguments every day to in terms of advocating on behalf of the institution. Can you advocate without a law degree? Sure, you can. But I believe that those those skills that I learned in law school in terms of framing a quality argument versus just an argument or or improving on an argument or making it sharper and using more precise language in terms of that. I think those things are much learned behavior and all the other skills that come along with it, dealing with large volumes of material. Lawyers are trained in that way. We're sort of prepared for that.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:23:11]: And then decision making, I think the judicial process of reasoning, inductive and deductively, a reasoning of logical reasoning of of all of those things come together in law school to provide you with that kind of background. And in my doctoral program, well, that program was very specific to this kind of leadership position because it covered the entire range of things that I would face as a top administrator. I didn't know at the time that I would become a top administrator of a university, but those lessons learned are invaluable.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:43]: And as you think back to your own graduate education and you think of students that are considering going to graduate school or maybe at the beginning of their graduate school experience, what are some tips that you might offer to anyone thinking about graduate education and going to graduate school?

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:23:59]: Well, I think when I'm advising people who go to graduate school, I I want them to think through why they're going. Think through what is it that you want to do, want to achieve. Think about what is the driving mechanism there. Because at some point in graduate school, whether it's a master's degree or a doctoral degree, you're gonna face some challenges. It's gonna face some difficult times. And that's where the passion or the drive or the grit is gonna come from to push you and motivate you to continue despite setbacks and despite some difficulties you might face while you're in your program. I would advise anyone considering graduate school to be to look at the range of possible choices out there and to look at them with a realistic eye toward what is affordable to them, what is accessible to them. Look at the faculty who are in the area that you wanna study.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:24:54]: I think that's brought me the greatest satisfaction even in my first graduate degree where I requested to have a Pulitzer prize winning editorialist as my advisor. I mean, I was looking at the faculty and saying, hey. I wanna study with those people. When I look at the faculty at Tulane, there were lots of distinguished folks when I read their bios. And then when I looked at faculty at Florida State, I was able to choose one who was really and truly qualified to be my dissertation adviser and to guide me through the program. And so these are people who you have to think will will go on to be your colleagues in the years and days ahead. So you may not be thinking about that in choosing a graduate school, but that's something to think about because if you choose someone or if you choose an institution that has the faculty in place who can provide you with the background that you need, you are much more likely to, 1, be successful, to, 2, to enjoy and appreciate and get a lot of satisfaction out of your experience. And then more so, you're going to be successful within the program.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:25:54]: You're going to be successful after the program, as you go about your career.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:59]: Well, doctor Alexander, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your journey with all of us today. Thank you for giving all of these pieces of advice for those of us, for those students that are really considering graduate school. And I truly wish you all the best as you have stepped into this new role at the University of Michigan Flint and in the journey to come. So I truly wish you the best, and thank you for being here today.

Dr. Laurence Alexander [00:26:24]: Oh, I want to thank you, Dr. Lewis, for the, giving me this opportunity, and I wanted to give one final piece of advice to anyone out there who is considering graduate study. Please look closely at the University of Michigan Flint. Go Flint. Go Blue.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:39]: The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of masters and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [e-mail].