PE: What made you interested in working in education?

Dr. McQueen: Well, my mother was a teacher, and then she was in school administration as a school principal. So I had a love of education from a very, very young age, generally, because I got to see the quality of life that she had. She has loved teaching for years and years and years, and then she loved being an administrator. So I caught that early. I think the second reason is, I've always had a real passion for helping students grow, whatever age. So I've liked teaching lots and lots of different ages and so that sort of connected to my mom, modeling her experience as well. It has been one of those things that I've probably never grown out of. I was one of those kids who was teaching the stuffed animals in our room as a young child, and she went home and gave me- you don't even know what this is. [Do]you know what an overhead projector is? Well, those used to be where you put a transparent sheet on top of it and write on it with a marker and you could project it onto the screen, and there was an old one from her classroom that she brought [home] for me one time. And so I would use the overhead projector to teach my animals. So yeah, it was a love from a very, very early age.

PE: What's your least favorite part about working in education?

Dr. McQueen: I don't know if I have a least favorite part. I probably don't sometimes enjoy the paperwork as much. As a teacher, we always had a lot of paperwork related to making sure that we were following a lot of state and federal policy, and so you had to document everything. [The paperwork] took you away from students, and you didn't have the ability to do that as quickly as you wanted to. That was never my favorite, but it also felt necessary, and so it was an important part of the job. But I would guess if you ask any teacher, they would probably say that's the part that they like the least.

PE: Do you get to interact with a lot of students now?

Dr. McQueen: I do. I do, and it will be a priority certainly for me as well. I think you do what you prioritize, and so I have prioritized listening to students. This week, I announced that I'll have a President’s Student Advisory Council for university students, and that will be a group that will take nominations, and they'll have a selection process where they will be able to connect directly with me on things that we're developing as part of our strategic plan. So that will be an important part of connecting with students. And then through the university’s Student Government Association, I got a chance to connect with them this past Saturday at their retreat, and really think through how we will work together. And then we have a variety of other student groups on campus that I have been connecting to and meeting with to see how we will grow together as a community. So my priority will be to continue to listen and learn from students.

PE: So you've had experience teaching in classrooms, higher education leadership, state government, and nonprofits. Which of those has been your favorite and why?

Dr. McQueen: Probably the ones where I had the opportunity to be closest to students, honestly. I love the ability to hear their voices and to make sure that what we're doing actually fits their needs, and to connect that to what we know they're going to need in the workplace or what they're going to need in their families or in their careers. As I have had jobs where you are further and further and further away from students, they're just not generally as enjoyable. Although, I have to admit, I've loved them all. But you know, this past experience I had, as a commissioner, I was fairly far away from students, doing a lot at the state level and worked a lot with legislation and policy, although I connected with students occasionally, much more so with teachers, much more so with adults, than I was connecting directly with students. And so that may have been the job where I felt like I was farther away from students that I wanted to be. We did a lot to try to get a student voice in decisions that we made, but I always enjoyed positions where you got the student voice in the conversation.

PE: What was your favorite part of school when you were growing up?

Dr. McQueen: I love everything about school: loved learning, loved to read, I loved connecting directly with other students in group projects or field trips or things that we were doing collectively. And as I said earlier, because I was always somebody who loved education, I was a person who would watch the craft of a teacher, even at a young age, [and ask] how was the teacher doing that? The teacher made that very interesting, and I would study decisions that they made, which was probably another reason why I went into education, because I really enjoyed seeing how they would develop lessons and the ways that they would engage students. So anything related to school I enjoyed. I never wanted to miss a day of school. I was one of those kids who had perfect attendance, and I've always really enjoyed learning from teachers as well.

PE: What is something that most people don't know about you?

Dr. McQueen: Ooh, a fun fact, let's see. Probably a couple of things. So when I was six months old, my parents, thinking of teaching, moved to the Middle East. We lived in Tehran, Iran, for multiple years. From about six months to when I was four, they taught at the Tehran American school, and we were there right before the hostage crisis started in that part of the country. And so the reason we left- we would have stayed there longer- was because that situation meant that we had to leave and come back to the States. So my mother was in part of the Department of Defense schools when we moved back here, and so probably all of our life, we were somehow connected to the military, even though my family is not in the military, we had a connection to the military. So that's probably interesting. I have a lot of pictures of me on camels and doing interesting things in the Middle East, and heard lots and lots of stories. While I remember a portion of it, it was a very influential part of my parents' life, because they really enjoyed that, and probably would have stayed there a lot longer if we hadn't had to leave. The other sort of fun fact is, I was a big 4H-er. I don't even know if you know what 4H is, but 4H is a program for students who are interested in leadership opportunities. Certainly, it's connected to the extension agency, which is UT Knoxville and their agricultural program. And so as a part of that, I won a national egg cookery contest. I know, everybody laughs at that. You had to develop a recipe and then demonstrate it, and it had to have at least eight eggs in it.

PE: Is this like scrambled eggs? Omelet?

Dr. McQueen: No, I actually [made] a cheesecake that had at least eight eggs in it. And funny story, I literally moved up and won a national contest. That is a fun fact, probably very few people know.

PE: Did you really like it? How did you get into this?

Dr. McQueen: You know, I had a teacher, probably in fourth or fifth grade, who said, “You should do 4H”, and that was just a teacher who said, “You should do it.” And that's how I got involved. And they would come to our school, too, and they would have programs at our school. So you could get involved at school as well or after school. And I just continued to do it and up through high school.

PE: What has been your favorite part about working in government as the commissioner of education for Tennessee?

Dr. McQueen: Favorite part was getting to vision big ideas for the state. And really this connection between K12 and higher education was always a real interest for me. How do we make that more seamless, and so students move from graduation into a two-year or a four-year [college] with ease. Because there were a lot of issues probably 10 years ago where that wasn't as seamless. A lot of kids weren't going from high school to college. We put up a lot of barriers at the college level. And so I was excited to be part of helping with Tennessee Promise which allowed a seamless pathway for kids to go to a two-year [college] if they wanted to. I did a lot of work to help with technical colleges, so if kids wanted certifications in the technical field, how could they get that easier with their high school in their community college as well? And then last, how do we raise expectations in K12 so that they're ready to go to a college? And I had experienced that myself when I was a teacher here at Lipscomb [University]. I saw students who had gone to large high schools across the state, and they would come to get into the education program and they didn't have appropriate credentials. They didn't have a high enough SAT or ACT, they did not have a GPA that would allow them to seamlessly go into a college experience, so they were taking non-credit math, non-credit English, and spending lots of money to do that. And so when I went into the role as Commissioner, one of our number one priorities was to raise expectations, so kids were coming in college ready to take credit bearing coursework. And we tried to remove barriers for a lot of kids who were not seamlessly going into college, and Tennessee Promise came out of that, some dual enrollment and dual credit work came out of that. As well as, while I was Commissioner, we had the highest ACT across the state because we allowed two free ACT opportunities for every student in the state. And so students would then be able to take a second ACT if they needed to. And usually your second one's better than your first. And we would see students really rise to the occasion and take advantage of that and did a great job.

PE: As a high school student who’s had to take the ACT, that's really cool that you've been able to give that opportunity to everyone.

Dr. McQueen: Well, that was legislative. We had a fight in the legislature, right? Like we need some budgetary funding to make sure every child has an opportunity to pay for the ACT through the state and to do it twice. We're the only state in the country who does that, and so we're very proud that we've been able to make that happen.

PE: What has been one of your biggest challenges to date? And how did you overcome that challenge?

Dr. McQueen: You know, I think for me, a challenge has always been from when I was young, making sure that there is balance in how you do your work. Because I am a person who can get all in on work. I was like that, as a middle school student, or a high school student, I can put my blinders on, and the work is really important to me, and I want to do a good job. And so I've had to really work on, even as an adult, what does that balance look like? And I read a book one time that said it's really not balance, it's always counterbalance. So you may not ever achieve balance. But when you realize that something is out of whack, you've got to counterbalance that with the things that are priorities and the most important, and so always keeping that in check. And the example they gave in this book is that all of the things you do are balls, and you're always juggling them, but your family, and your health and your faith are glass balls. And so if they actually drop, they break. The other ones, they could drop and they're actually not going to break. And you may struggle with them, but they're not going to break. And I thought that was a really good analogy of how you keep your family, your faith, you know, priorities for you, as you do your work. And to make sure that work doesn't become the number one thing that you think about. And while I'm going to put work in the top few things that I will focus on, it's really important to keep that counterbalance and priorities straight.

PE: What advice would you give to aspiring leaders?

Dr. McQueen: My mother used to say when I was a very young age, and I don't think it was until I was much older that I understood what she meant. She would say you need to hatch your own eggs. Okay, what does that mean? Well, she's grown up on farms, so I thought there was some farm analogy there. And the point she was making is: don't rely on somebody else for your happiness, don't rely on somebody else, something else to make sure things happen for you. And she had seen that in her own life where, you know, her mother had really relied almost too much on her husband or other family members, and she hadn't become herself and become who she needed to be. And that was her point: you've got to really develop who you are. You're never going to be one of your family members. You can't live out your life through your spouse or through children. You need to become you. And I think that advice is something I would give to anybody, particularly if they're thinking about being a leader. You shouldn't emulate another leader and try to be him or her. You need to be you in that leadership role. You watch them, you figure out what works for you. There's a craft to leadership. You shouldn't try to be somebody you're not. You're you within that leadership role. And you don't rely on somebody else to hatch your eggs for you. You need to create that pathway for where you can be yourself.

PE: Before being the Commissioner of Education for Tennessee, you were the Dean of the College of Education at Lipscomb. What made you want to come back to Lipscomb?

Dr. McQueen: That was a wonderful experience of working directly with the college and programs and students and faculty members. I had a unique experience in the College of Education where we grew our college, you know, fivefold. I mean, it was a very significant period of growth. We added new programs, we added the doctoral degree, and I had the opportunity to hire 30-35 new faculty members over a short period of time. So it was a very important growth period for college. And the Lipscomb community as a whole really grew during that time period, too. And so it's exciting to be in a growth period, and it's also exciting to see how you implement and create a pathway where that growth is sustainable, and I think Lipscomb is in a time period where we really need to create some pathways for sustainability of growth. And I like problem solving. I like digging in and figuring out how to make that happen. So I think it's a great time period for me to use the strengths that I have to bring to bear to Lipscomb. But also, I've always loved this community. It's a place where I've grown in a variety of ways, as a student, as a faculty member, as an administrator. And I think it's time for me to give back to that community in ways that they gave to me over a long period of time.

PE: What are you most looking forward to as the new president?

Dr. McQueen: Oh, everything. I'm not sure I could pin it down to one thing. I get excited about big things and small things. And so the daily making decisions about where we should go next with, whatever project it is, or program, or how we should think about our budgets or building a strategic plan, all of those things excite me. But at the same time, I also enjoy meeting students working with faculty members, thinking about our donors and our community and how we get better in those relationships and really drive the things that they care about. So all of that combines. There’s probably not one thing, but it combines to say: Are we all growing and moving in the direction that will keep us in a national pathway? I want us to continue to be nationally known even more so than we are. I want our faculty and staff to love being at Lipscomb and for this to be the destination for Christian education for them and their own growth. And I want our students to thrive and to say what I hope you would say. That this experience at Lipscomb Academy or Lipscomb University campus is where I’d want to send my own children, where I would want my own family to grow and have their community around them.

PE: Do you think that your past experience as a Lipscomb University student will affect some of the decisions you'll make as the president?

Dr. McQueen: Oh, definitely. I don't think you can separate your decisions from your past experiences. I know what, as a student, was very beneficial to me. And I would hope that we can continue to be thoughtful together with other people who've been students at Lipscomb in the short run and probably longer like me to say, “What are some of those experiences that we want to make sure we grasp?” I also know that students change, right? They're not always the same from year to year. So I'm doing a lot of listening about what our students like today, and how do we take our past and our present and our future, and really meld that into a trusting community of each other. Because we have a history, we have a future, but clearly, we're trying to also get through some of the challenges of the day, particularly the pandemic. And knowing how students are experiencing that will be important. I was not experiencing that as a student. But I do know it's real. And we've got to think through with them how to make decisions.

PE: The next couple questions are about the academy. What are your aspirations for the academy?

Dr. McQueen: The academy is a very special place. Certainly, I had an opportunity to be a teacher there, too, some years ago, but I've stayed connected to the academy because my children have been there, and I believe the academy has a path forward to even create greater connections among students. I'm seeing that with the advisory groups that have started and the real emphasis on students knowing each other and being more of a unified group of students. I think there's been pockets of that in the past, but I'm very hopeful that we will keep that moving into the future. I think second, there is more depth of academic programming that can happen in the academy, and some online programming that can happen with the academy that really provides you with more options, and whether it's AP or honors or how you think about a very specific interest area that you experienced a little bit in Ignite. But how do we broaden that up where you're getting internships even as a high school student.

PE: What do you see as strengths of the academy?

Dr. McQueen: I’d say two or three things. One strength is the people. That seems like a cop out answer, but I would say the people really are the heart and soul of the university and of the academy. So it runs across both. At the academy, you have people who are very much dedicated to K12 students and their growth. They're passionate about the spiritual emphasis that's connected to our academic program, and you have people that really know how to do that. And then our students, they're there for a reason. They want that type of programming. And so their investment is really solid. I’d say the second strength of the academy is the association with the university. That there is the ability to fall partner and to consider academics and the spiritual work and the physical work that we do with students. That shows that connection between K12 and higher education. Extraordinarily unique. There are very few places across the country where you can get all of that perspective on one campus. And you can make decisions that take that perspective into consideration. I’d probably say the third is you've got better and better spaces over time. So your actual space to work is getting to be much more state of the art for students in the programs that they're pursuing.

PE: What opportunities do you see for the academy?

Dr. McQueen: I think greater connection in terms of offerings for students, because of that connection to the university. More credit opportunities for students, because of the connection with the university. Other opportunities are how we think about service to our greater Nashville community. We've talked a bit about how do we get out of this bubble, in the shell, and really start serving in Nashville and serving in our middle Tennessee area? Because that's how, as we talked about in chapel today, that's how you actually get out of yourself. You start serving and you start thinking through, how does my career connect to service in my faith? Because that's the triad. Right now we talk academics over here, you have spiritual over here, and you may or may not ever talk about service. How do we connect the dots among those? That opportunity at Lipscomb is something we've got to develop a stronger way.

PE: Is there anything you want the academy students to know?

Dr. McQueen: Yeah. I want the academy students to know how much I love them. I mean, my own children went to the academy. I have worked at the academy. So they are very special in my mind. And I think when you're saying, “Oh, you’re the Lipscomb President”, you think, well, the academy is an afterthought. The reality is the academy is top of mind for me because of my relationship that I've had with them. And so I hope they will see a president who loves and cares for them and makes decisions that are in their best interest as well.