After graduating from PLNU, Dr. Jeff Sullivan became a certified athletic trainer, then taught at San Jose State and Oregon State before returning to his alma mater, where he has taught since 2003. His expertise is in the pathology of the shoulder and cervical spine. Sullivan previously directed the Athletic Training Education Program for eight years at PLNU, guiding it through a 10-year accreditation cycle. He has also served as an athletic trainer at PLNU and Stanford University with football, men’s basketball, track and field, cross country, men’s volleyball, and men’s and women’s tennis. Sullivan has been the undergraduate department chair of kinesiology since 2008. In 2015, he developed the Master of Science in Kinesiology program and now serves as the Dean of the College of Health Sciences at the Balboa Regional Center.
Listen to his Lomacast: A Point Loma Nazarene University Podcast below:
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Episode Transcript
Hello and welcome to Lomacast. A Point Loma Nazarene University podcast. My name is Jim Daichendt. I am the provost and chief academic officer here at Point Loma. And this week we have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Jeff Sullivan, who is the dean of our College of Health Sciences. We're going to talk about a bunch of fun things, and, of course, it's going to relate to his own career and the College of Health Sciences, but we'll also mix in some fun questions along the way, so I hope you enjoy the interview. Dr. Jeff Sullivan, thank you for joining me today.
Thanks, Jim. Good to be here.
It's so great to see you. We have worked together for a long time, ever since I feel like I've arrived at Point Loma, you and I have been part of meetings together initially working together with the Department of Kinesiology and then you launching the College of Health Sciences with all your great colleagues and so many new programs along the way. But I will never forget a workshop that we were part of. This must be six or seven years ago. And it was like a change. Do you remember this? We took a test about our personalities and how we reacted to change. And in the entire room, we were on the extreme left side of that room. And I remember looking over and going, all right, here's my friend right here.
I felt the same way. Change style indicator.
It was change style indicator. That's right.
And you and I were not change adverse.
No.
We love change.
Well, we were comfortable with change.
That's true.
We don't love it. But, yeah. And that's been really a good skill set as we've built the College of Health Sciences because we've changed pretty dynamically. And it's exciting to me.
Yeah, as it should be, as it should be. And I know your job has changed year to year. But before we get into the College of Health Sciences and your background, your professional background, can you give us like three fun facts about yourself?
Sure. You're going to surprise me with a couple of questions today. Three fun facts. I love fitness, but I'm much less fit than I used to be, just a few short years ago, so I'm trying to remedy that. And I built a church with a group of families about seven years ago that's thriving, and that was fun. Okay, a third. I'm going to sound like. The third is always the most fun. The third is always the most fun. In my spare time, I'm kidding. A third one. You know what? It's not very exciting, but I love my family in this season, having two college kids, and I love to see them. And so I secretly sneak onto this campus, to see them and then, you know, take them out to dinner and things. So that's a fun, fun thing about me.
That is pretty fun. So tell us more about your kids that are college age.
Yeah, I have two kids who are in college and one who's 14. So McKenna is a senior, and I know you've had kids here, too, so we share that. I'll say Jim, and you know this. Nothing like having our awesome colleagues pour into our own kids, right? I knew I loved this place, but now that I have a senior here and a sophomore, so Jacob is in business, we have incredible faculty, and I'm actually glad that Jacob went to business and not stayed in Kinesiology. McKenna is in Kinesiology. But now I get to see that whole they're fun. Phenomenal group, so all of our faculty. But just to see those faculty pour to my kids, what a blessing. So that's my family.
That speaks volumes about this community in the university because it you and I know we've been part of other universities, we visit them, we have colleagues around the country. And I can't say with a lot of enthusiasm that I would love my child to be at one of these other universities. But when it came for my first to come here, she chose on her own. She could have gone to a lot of other places. It just warmed my heart. And then I know the individual faculty that I was spoken into her life and how amazing that was and then to watch the trajectory after that. So you're experiencing that in real time, you know, and then it will have an effect after when they graduate. But I know, I know what it does for a parent. And that's, I'm speaking with parents who have kids here now that are not on our faculty or staff. I mean, that's why that's what they hope for. But we can speak to it as being pretty darn close up in how special it is. So I'm really happy for your family.
Yeah, thanks. It's a great place, right? But to experience it from that other angle, because you and I have poured into other people's kids' lives for decades. But now to have the blessing returned, it's great. I love it.
Well, I'm happy for you.
Well, and I hope that fitness journey continues to go well for the health science team.
Thank you.
I'm just trying to keep up with you. I'm not doing a good job, but I'll keep trying. All right. So, Jeff, I thought you would say, like, a fun fact is that you have a twin brother, that you're in the same field. I thought that's where you would go, but you did not whatsoever, which I think is very interesting.
You just put me on the spot. Yeah, I wouldn't. I would have come up with that eventually. If you gave me ten things. Yeah, Identical twin, we share the same DNA. So, of course we're going to share the same profession, right?
Yeah.
So that he does the same thing at Cal Baptist.
Yeah.
We do it better, though, Sean, if you're listening, Point Loma does it.
I don't know if Cal Baptist has the technology for a podcasts right now. So that's good. So we can send this to Sean via like a tape.
Yeah, yeah. Old school. Telegram, maybe.
Yeah, that'd be great. So maybe walk us through, how did you come to Point Loma? What'd that journey look like?
Yeah, great. Okay, short version . I was recruited to Point Loma while I was in my PhD at Oregon State by my mentor, Leon Kugler, who changed my life here. And I thought, you know what, when I'm 50, or so, which is ironic, I'm 51 now. But I thought, when I'm 50, I'd love to arrive at a place like Point Loma. But before that, I wanted to practice clinically in sports medicine for 20 years. It just so happened that I started at Point Loma. And so after my PhD. So that's how I was recruited. I had been in physical therapy for two years, had gone to Stanford for a master's degree in joint program with San Jose State, was traveling with their teams for football. You're a football player. And doing sports medicine. And then I was recruited by. Patrick Allen, our former provost, and Leon Kugler, and I thought, okay, Lord, let's do this. So that's how I arrived, much more quickly than I would have imagined, but it's been great. Been here 22 years.
That's incredible. And you think about being any place two decades. We'll often hear if you want to make a change here at Point Loma may stay a while, right? That's something, was that Patrick that came up in that phrase?
I think it was.
And then while Leon may have recruited you, you ended up being his chair.
Yeah.
And that's when I met you. You were currently a co-chair of the department, and then he maybe retired like eight years ago. Is that right?
That's right. Wonderful man. He developed all of us. You know, Nicole Cosby, Brandon Sawyer, myself, and hired us back and just incredible man. And so, yeah, that's that's how I arrived. And then, yeah, he was totally gracious. It's really weird and fun and a blessing, all of that, to be the boss of the faculty who have taught you. It's interesting. And they were so gracious. This place is gracious. So, yeah, yeah. And I did that for 10 years and then it was co-chair, yeah. And then, and then with you and your support became Vice Dean as we built the college just four short years ago.
Yeah, and now it's blossoming into its own campus with how many graduate programs right now do you have?
We have six graduate academic units. Programs, it's interesting. We're so dynamic and changing. You know, we built two new programs this year. I couldn't even tell you how many programs. I put six academic units on the graduate side, and then one, of course, undergrad our anchor program in Kinesiology, which still is thriving. And that is the anchor point from which we built all of our pre-health graduate programs. It's like, we have such incredible students here on the undergrad side. Why not keep them here with us? We've sent people out for decades, right? To graduate programs. Some of the top programs in the nation for physical therapy, medicine, physician assistant, all of that. And so it's been huge to build those programs. And then just, you know, when parents come and drop their kids off when they're 18, 19 years old, we say, we have a pathway for your students to stay with us if they want or go elsewhere, but now we've got graduate programming, that full pathway, undergraduate grad, with certificates and all of that fun stuff. Too.
Yeah, and top notch, top notch facilities, top notch faculty, you really don't have to go anywhere else. One could look, which we want them to look, but they want to compare with what's offered here at Point Loma. To build something like that takes a lot of leadership, teamwork, camaraderie, collecting the visions of many other folks and distilling it and trying to strategically implement what needs to come first and who needs to be where to get these things launched. And I know you're a student of leadership. That's something you take really seriously. So as you reflect back on all that change that you're very comfortable with and the type of leadership that you have served under, like, you know, when you're a faculty member, and how you were mentored by Leon, but also the folks you've been able to work alongside, because you have some great leaders that you work with. Are there some traits, some characteristics, some advice you would impart for leaders? And it doesn't just have to be academia. It could just be with working with effective teams.
That's a great question. We could spend five podcasts on that, and I like you, I listen to podcasts on leadership. I would start with good leaders build great cultures. So you and they put people first. And that's why I learned from Kug, we call him, Leon Kugler. And from you, Jim, as we've worked together and you know, from our former president, Bob Brower and from our current president, who was our provost, Kerry Fulcher, good leaders put people first, they build great cultures, and then they point them to a really compelling vision. And that's basic, but it's so true. So for us, I mean, our vision is to train exceptional graduates to transform the wellbeing of communities. I say that every time a microphone is put in my face. I love it. So that we align in that vision, right? And then, like you said, you've helped us to recruit incredible faculty. So you build a good team, you point him in a strategic direction with a vision, and then I just let them fly. You didn't ask for all this, but another, I think, really good thing for leaders to do is when you identify talent, just remove barriers to letting that talent fly. We have such, and this gets back to, we have such great students and faculty at Point Loma. I'm not under any illusion that I'm doing this myself, right, in the College of Health Sciences. So we hire incredible people and then I, my job, is to solve problems for them. And that's another thing I learned from you, by the way, working with you, is you're an incredible problem solver. I try to do the same and then I just free them up. To do their do their jobs. So but culture, oh my goodness. We've spent the last two years in the College of Health Sciences just trying to build, and we already have it, a dynamic, vibrant, healthy, loving culture. Those are words that we use. So yeah, those are my first thoughts.
No, I appreciate that. I'm 100% agreement with culture. I mean, we've talked about that. You could have a great strategy, but the culture will just tear it apart if it's not healthy. And you, the Department of Kinesiology when it was a department appeared very healthy, right? I mean, you had some really loving folks that were here for all the right reasons. And so we're really blessed in many ways of decades of some really healthy relationships that have been modeled for us by folks like K and many of your colleagues that are still here from that era. But are there things you consistently do as a dean to help maintain that culture or to allow others to shine or help lead it alongside you?
Yeah, great question. I communicate often and early about the culture. So today, getting ready to lead a leadership meeting where to encourage collegiality, we're going to celebrate. We're going to have a little party with treats about and celebrate some good things that a few of my colleagues have done at the very beginning. So that builds fun culture and it acknowledges good work. And just demonstrates to everybody that, yeah, that we see that, I see that good work. And so, yeah, that's the, I think the first two things is communicate often and then celebrate.
Good.
I think in the day-to-day, right? You and I wake up, we think, how do we run incredible programs, all of that, and we sometimes I do. I don't want to put this on you because you celebrate well. I forget how to celebrate all the good stuff we've done even this week or this last semester or these two new programs that we launched. And just to say that and recognize people publicly is huge.
Yeah. No, I hear you. And as you're talking, I'm thinking relationships. Is relationships, relationships. We heard that yesterday with one of our guest speakers that was on campus and how important that is because if you don't have good relationships, you can't, you don't have that opportunity to build trust. Things are going to go wrong. You and I are going to make mistakes. We're going to say something that's going to get misinterpreted. But if you have a relationship that's authentic and you've spent time talking and chatting and celebrating and doing all the things that people do with when they're in relationships, you can overcome those things.
Absolutely. As you were talking, can I add one more thing?
Yeah, please do.
Because I saw you do it yesterday. Transparency. So good relationships are honest and authentic and transparent with each other. So, um, I saw you modeled that yesterday well in terms of advancement and philanthropy. And so, yeah, I think, I think folks want, um, transparent, authentic. They don't want you to be disingenuous.
Yeah.
So that's huge.
And you can see through it. Right? And it's like, it's like how we feel like politicians whether they' on stage, right? And they're saying they care about X, Y, or Z, whatever it may be. And I know there's lots of stereotypes about that, but you can really feel it when someone looks you in the eye and how they communicate with you, when they're being transparent, when they're brain honest, and when they're really invested in you. Do they ask questions, right? Do they want to know more about that publication or that, you know, one of your colleagues just edited a special issue, which was super cool in anatomy, and I was really excited to see that as well. So there's those milestones, the big ones and the small ones are really important, but you only really pay attention when you actually know those things and you're aware of those narratives. And let me shift a little bit, because we could like like you said, we can keep talking about leadership and things of that and relationships. The college has done incredible work the last few years, and I know there's so many things one could highlight. Maybe give us an idea of things that you're looking forward to in terms of programs you're launching or maybe some recent accomplishments that have happened for that listeners may not know about.
Yeah. Okay, let me go recent accomplishments first. So, Joy Balta, the gentleman you referred to with a special edition of Anatomy Education, he just created a Master's of Science in Medical Sciences, which this is a masters for folks who want to go to medical school. And it's the foundational sciences. And he's a world class anatomist. So we're teaching, in case folks don't know, Gross Anatomy, medical education Anatomy, here on the undergraduate campus, and on our graduate campus when we build a new lab. That's just wild. And folks won't have to go to Stanford or UCLA or whatever for their post-back. If they want to go to medical school,. But maybe they don't have quite the GPA, you know, the 4.0, and they want to do all those foundational sciences, we have that program, as well as a bunch of other innovative stuff that we're doing for the external market and the anatomy learning institute. And then occupational therapy is in our second cohort, so that's our other kind of new anchor program, newer, right? Because it's in the second year. So that's where we've been in the last year. It's phenomenal. And then fresh on my mind is building a doctor of physical therapy. So we're, you know, in the beginning, this is an 18 month on ramp. And so folks don't know these things, but we hire a program director way before there are students in the program. So that's what we're working on. Physical therapy is near and dear to my heart as a sports medicine guy. It's the program that, you know, I love all of our programs, and this one is going to be great. How about that? And especially unique. And I think it will complement the rest of our programs. You know, we have primary care medicine in physician assistant, and we have traditional sports medicine and athletic training.And physical therapy will complement occupational therapy and we have and mental health counseling, which is mental health therapy, right? So yeah, that's what we do. We create interdisciplinary programs and health, medicine, wellness, and therapy. So this will round out the therapy arm of the colleges. It's exciting.
Yeah, and to use a business language here, it is really a complementary portfolio, right? And it's not something academics want to hear. And I feel, I felt a little dirty, actually, just saying that. But they do complement each other and one can see that and especially the various disciplines involved. And yeah, just I can't let me just express how proud I am of you, of your faculty and staff, of what the college has accomplished. It really is a shining star, and you're making a big difference in our community and health services. And we talk about faith being, you know, our service being an expression of faith, right? And you live that out within the college, and it's great to see and it's awesome to see so many graduates come from these programs and serve in the way they do. So thank you for that, Jeff. And please pass that on to everyone you work with.
I sure will. Thanks back to you, Jim. You are our fearless leader, so you've been a joy to work with these years. I love this new role. And I feel like leading the College of Health Sciences team is easier because we have you as a boss and we have Dr. Fulcher as President. And you all have never said no to good ideas. And so it's incredibly refreshing and freeing to lead in that environment. So thank you.
Thanks right back at you. Awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks for listening, everyone.