“Using Power To Empower” with Robert Khayat

Show Notes:

It’s not always easy to treat the people and world around us with respect, but  Dr. Robert Khayat seemingly does it with ease. His parents showed him how to live a life respectful of people, places, and institutions, and the importance of respect followed him into his professional life.

Robert’s list of professional accomplishments is long: former NFL player with the Washington Redskins, a graduate of the University of Mississippi Law School and Yale Law School, a successful lawyer and professor, and the fifteenth chancellor of the University of Mississippi. Robert’s mission while chancellor was for Ole Miss to be, and to be perceived as one of America’s great public universities, and his legacy of greatness continues to impact the school and the state of Mississippi today.

Resources:

Buy Robert’s book, The Education of a Lifetime

Transcript:

Eddie Rester 00:00 I'm Eddie Rester.

Chris McAlilly 00:01
I'm Chris McAlilly. Welcome to The Weight.

Eddie Rester 00:03
Today we get to interview one of our friends. We are fortunate to call him friend, the 15th chancellor of the University of Mississippi, Chancellor Robert Khayat.

Chris McAlilly 00:14

Dr Khayat was Chancellor from 1995 to 2009 and oversaw a tremendous period of flourishing for the university as one of the great leaders of our state, and we're so grateful to have an opportunity to visit with him today.

Eddie Rester 00:31

We talk a lot about family and the people we surround ourselves with. We talk about love and respect, which undergird his I think, his vision of leadership and how to be in the world, and it's just an opportunity for us to talk about his life and leadership. There are a lot of things we didn't get to. We didn't get to talk about his time when he played professional football. We didn't talk a lot about his time playing football at Ole Miss, but we talked a lot about his life and leadership and the ways that he has chosen to impact the world.

Chris McAlilly 01:05

Yeah, it's not an easy time to be a leader in the United States of America if you're leading any institution of any size, any shape, any kind. If you're seeking to do that from a Christ-centered perspective, perhaps it's even more difficult. The things I hear in the conversation that I'll take away are the importance of character, having, identifying what it is that you have deep affection for. For Chancellor Khayat, the state of Mississippi, it's the University of Mississippi. It's people.

Chris McAlilly 01:35

We talk about times where he was faced with great criticism, and the way in which he dealt with that, not taking himself or his critic too seriously. That's a great story. And you want to listen to that. And then we just talk about the importance of building great teams that can help you navigate, set course and navigate, you know, the turbulent moments. What's your takeaway? Eddie.

Eddie Rester 02:00

Well, you know, as I think about some of those turbulent moments, because as an Ole Miss graduate, I got to watch a lot of that unfold. And, you know, I think the thing for me is that when you have to take, whether it's a courageous stand, make a hard decision that you know is going to make people upset or mad or frustrated, that there, you know you do that with others that you have brought on board, helped make the decisions, and to help you take the blows that come after those hard decisions.

Chris McAlilly 02:30

Yeah, one of the things that I'm so grateful for is an example of someone who took excellence and diversity as two high values that don't have to be in competition with one another. I think that's a hard thing. Sometimes people say, you know, you got the Republicans over here saying you have to do it one way, the Democrats over here saying you got to do another way. In Mississippi, we all love one another. We don't always love one another, but Chancellor Khayat helped kind of model a form of leadership that I think is uniquely Mississippi and ought to be exported far and wide in terms of how you love one another, how you deal with, you know, the mess in your family, without discarding people and ultimately trying to set a trajectory as a community, as a family, as institutions towards our highest and best potential.

Chris McAlilly 03:26
And so for that, I hope you enjoy the conversation. This is a great one, and we're always grateful to have you.

Eddie Rester 03:33
Like and share it with a friend.

Chris McAlilly 03:35
Yeah, share it with every Ole Miss graduate that you know in the country.

Eddie Rester 03:39
And some Mississippi State graduates would be good.

Chris McAlilly 03:41
You want to share it with State graduates?

Eddie Rester 03:42
I will share it personally with State grads.

Chris McAlilly 03:44
Oh, I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will.

Eddie Rester 03:45
But yeah, enjoy this one, and we'll we'll see you next week.

Chris McAlilly 03:50

[INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise. It requires deep wisdom to navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and unwarranted hope to inspire durable change.

Eddie Rester 04:06

As Christ-centered leaders in churches, nonprofits, the academy and the marketplace, we all carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.

Chris McAlilly 04:17
But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.

Eddie Rester 04:28
That's why The Weight exists, to create space for the conversations that challenge our assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.

Chris McAlilly 04:37
Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness and tradition, and responsiveness to a changing world.

Eddie Rester 04:46

So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a non profit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of Christ centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Eddie Rester 05:01

Well, we're here today with one of my favorite people, one of my favorite folks to visit with, one of the great leaders of Oxford, Mississippi and Ole Miss, and so Dr. Robert Khayat, thank you for being with us today.

Robert Khayat 05:15
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Eddie.

Eddie Rester 05:17
It's always a joy to get talked to you, and we're gonna cover a lot of ground today.

Chris McAlilly 05:21

I've got a funny story to start with. First I moved to town 2014 first Sunday, walk up this fine looking man walks up to me to introduce himself, and just, you know, I walk up to him and I say, "Hello. My name is Chris McAlilly. Who are you?" Which in Oxford is a strange thing to do, because Chancellor Khayat, his reputation precedes him. He was incredibly gracious, and has always been gracious to me. I'm so grateful.

Robert Khayat 05:48 Well, thank you.

Chris McAlilly 05:48 For your friendship.

Robert Khayat 05:49

Well, you, both of you, have blessed our community beyond measure, and particularly our church. It has come alive. It had period... My first appear, first time I went to Oxford. It wasn't Oxford University Methodist Church. It was Oxford. When I went there, 1950... Let's see I was... Let me think about this. I was five years old, and my Daddy took a job. We lived in Moss Point, and my father took a job in Oxford teaching second lieutenants during World War 2, 1943, teaching them to do hand-to-hand combat. He was a coach and a teacher, and so we lived on Faculty Row when I was five.

Chris McAlilly 06:36 Wow.

Robert Khayat 06:36

Yeah, and we went to the Methodist Church. Walked on snow. I remember the day vividly, because it's only day I remember going to church, but it snowed, and we walked that sidewalk to town from Faculty Row.

Eddie Rester 06:53 Wow.

Robert Khayat 06:54

And then walked back after church, and it's a vivid memory from them. I checked the calendar to make sure my memory was correct. It was June the third, 1956 was my first time in your church building.

Chris McAlilly 07:06 That's amazing.

Eddie Rester 07:07 Wow.

Robert Khayat 07:07
Yeah. And then I came back when I was 18 as a freshman, and went back to the Methodist Church on June the third, 1956.

Chris McAlilly 07:17

Yeah. And you were there on Sunday. And that's a long tenure. Not as long as Mrs. Wanda Poole. Mrs. Wanda Poole has been there longer than most. She's probably our oldest member at 96.

Robert Khayat 07:29 She's a world record holder.

Chris McAlilly 07:30
She is the world record holder. She brings joy and enthusiasm every Sunday.

Robert Khayat 07:35 Every Sunday.

Chris McAlilly 07:35

And you know, but you've not only been a part of the church. You've been a leader in our community in a lot of different ways, but when you came to town as an 18-year-old to come to college, why did you choose Ole Miss?

Robert Khayat 07:52

I chose Ole Miss because I'd been a fan for many years of the football team and became a fan of baseball. And my high school football coach was named Earl Howell, and he was, his nickname was Dixie, and he could run like the wind. I mean, he was real fast, and he inspired us to be better. And so he had a lot to do with that decision being made, but just the familiarity I had with Ole Miss, and what I knew about the people who I knew who had gone to school here, told me that's where I wanted to go. I also thought I wanted to study medicine. And so the reason I came in June of '56 was to get ahead of the labs, because we had practice football. I was going to be number one in lab for a second. Only I signed up for freshman chemistry, and I had an awakening.

Eddie Rester 08:47 [LAUGHTER]

Chris McAlilly 08:47
Eddie had that same awakening.

Eddie Rester 08:49
A lot of people have awakenings in freshman chemistry. It's, yeah, it's something else.

Chris McAlilly 08:53
I avoided it like the plague. I took no math. I took very little science. I was an English major. I went the other direction.

Robert Khayat 08:59
I wish I'd followed you. Anyway, I went to church that first Sunday in 1956, June of '56, and Mary Ann Connell.

Eddie Rester 09:10 Yeah.

Robert Khayat 09:11

At that time was Mary Ann Strong, S, T, R, O, N, G, and she was in that class. And she was a sophomore. She was delightful. She was this much younger, but the same person she is today. Strong, honorable, smart, fine, great, everything you want somebody to be. And so we had a great class with Dean Malcolm Guess, who was sort of legendary at Ole Miss as Dean of Men when there was a Dean of Men and Dean of Women. I don't know if that's still so or not.

Robert Khayat 09:40
Not anymore. But when I was at Ole Miss in 1989, there was a Dean of Men and a Dean of Women students. Yeah,

Robert Khayat 09:46

Well, Dean Guess lived on University Avenue, and he was just legendary. He was like three houses down on the south side of University Avenue from the Methodist Church. But sometime when, I don't know when they would change the name to Oxford University, but I don't think it was that in 1943.

Eddie Rester 10:08

It was not. It was in the 1950s when they were building the sanctuary and the Annual Conference--this is my memory of the history--gave money to the church so that they would connect to the university.

Robert Khayat 10:20 Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 10:21 Interesting. I didn't know that.

Eddie Rester 10:22
Yeah. So that's when the university got added to the name.

Robert Khayat 10:26 What a great addition.

Eddie Rester 10:27

It really is, because of where it's situated. So I want to just, one of the things that I admire about you is that you have always exuded joy in different parts of life. I know that we don't get to see behind closed doors all the time, but part of your leadership has been just a presence of joy and confidence. Where did that begin to grow in you? Where was that during your days at Ole Miss or going back to high school or later, as you grew as a football player, leader?

Robert Khayat 11:04 How about earlier?

Eddie Rester 11:05 Okay.

Robert Khayat 11:06

Okay, so I was, when Lou Gehrig retired having ALS, some other jokes they tell about him is they named the disease after him, Lou Gehrig's disease, but that's not funny. That's sad. But he said at his day in Yankee Stadium front of thousands of people, and he was dying, "Today, I consider myself to be the luckiest man on the face of the earth." That became sort of my watchword. I just I felt that way all along, primarily because of my family. My mother was a stalwart. She was delightful. My father was much the same, and I had two sisters and a brother. So the six of us were poor little people in Moss Point, but we went to the Methodist Church, which is beautiful.

Robert Khayat 11:56

The building was beautiful by the way, built in 1914 by the gift from a Dantzler, D, A, N, T, Z, L, E, R, family, timber people, and it's a beautiful sanctuary. And I've been back in there for service this year, which was a really wonderful renewal, because there's so many memories with church, I'm sure for both of you and for me and Margaret, our family, because the leadership of our church was mostly very strong lay leadership, as well as from the pulpit. Off and on, we'd have a person who wasn't quite as capable as others in either respect, but there wasn't a lot of, I don't remember growing up in that church and feeling that there was much jealousy or backbiting or that sort of thing. It was a wonderful place to go to church, and we walked to Sunday school and church and MYF and Sunday night service and Wednesday night prayer service.

Chris McAlilly 13:01

One of the one of the things that you write about in your memoir is about one of the things that you learned from your family, from your church community just early on, and I think that you attribute it to your mother, is a sense of respect, respect for other people, respect for yourself, respect for property, and respect for God.

Robert Khayat 13:24 Well, thank you.

Chris McAlilly 13:24

Robert Khayat 13:26

Yeah. Thank you for picking up on it, because I feel that way. I think respect is one of the true values. I think love's the number one value. I think that respect is an incredibly important value for people to have. We're to respect all the things that Chris just mentioned, property, person, institutions, organizations, issues. Have respect. Treat life with respect.

Chris McAlilly 13:51
Where did you see that in your mom? You know what was...

Robert Khayat 13:55 Everywhere.

Chris McAlilly 13:55
Yeah, it was just part of who she was.

Robert Khayat 13:57

Yeah, my father was a very strong go, go, go person, busy all the time, and she was smart as a whip, very attractive, talented. She could sing. She could play piano. She read everything that she could get off the presses, the books and magazines and newspapers. And she took care of four children in a little bitty house with no money and managed it well. And one of her best friends was a Black lady named Althea Gibson. And she and my mother were friends for years. And Althea would come to our house and she would mess around and talk and make jokes, but she and mother were really, she and my mother were really pals.

Robert Khayat 14:38

And finally, Althea moved out on the West Coast, and she was replaced by a woman named Ava Gladney. And Ava was a member of the Apostolic Church for the life, for the faith of our life... Let's see Apostolic Church of faith in Honor of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And her whole family went to that church, and so she brought her religion with her, and she and mom became great buddies. But my mother had the ability to love us as kids and her husband and discipline us and do it gently, and sometimes not so gently. I mean, we knew the right shrub to pick for the whippings, you know.

Eddie Rester 15:25

Yeah. They're your words.

Robert Khayat 15:28

Yeah. So anyway, I would say the answer is a long answer to a good question. Thank you for seeing respect as a value, because it is a value, and that's one of the things I tried to do all of my life was to respect other people and respect the organizations or institutions or activities. I mean, when you're growing up, as you know, you have a very diverse life, if you're fortunate.

Chris McAlilly 15:52
I've got another question, but I'm gonna let Eddie go.

Robert Khayat 15:55 I'm sorry.

Chris McAlilly 15:55
No, you're fine. I'm pumped about it. I'm just like, ready to jump in now.

Eddie Rester 15:59

I guess my follow up is just across life, when you've seen a loss of respect in other people or people not respecting institutions or other people, what's the long term, in your mind, kind of damage that that does when we lose our ability to respect people and institutions? What does that do to us?

Robert Khayat 16:23
That's a really hard question, and so I'm speculating. Okay, I don't really know.

Eddie Rester 16:29 We'll let you speculate.

Robert Khayat 16:30

Okay, I'm not sure if I know the answer to that, but it seems to me that respect has a value for the person who is offering the respect, as well as maybe even more so for the person receiving the respect. And so it's a give and take, and it strengthens relationships, if it develops. I mean, sometimes you try to show respect and people tell you to go jump in the creek. I mean, that happens. I don't know if it happened to y'all a lot, but it happened to me a time or two. So that's okay, but I think it works both ways. I think it is an enriching value for us to embrace as a culture, as individuals, as a church, as a university. That's just the way I feel about it.

Eddie Rester 17:17 Okay.

Chris McAlilly 17:17
Yeah So I think that one of the ways, there are a couple of different things I would say there. I mean, so if love is the highest value.

Robert Khayat 17:25 Right.

Chris McAlilly 17:25

And that gets translated into the way that we respect ourselves and others and even the institutions that we're involved in, one of the ways you talk about that in the memoir is through affection and stewardship. So there's this one chapter, and I just pulled the language because I assume you don't have it memorized, but this is what you wrote: "I acquired one significant trait from my father, a deep, unwavering affection for the state of Mississippi." I wanted to ask you about that, that deep and unwavering affection for the state of Mississippi. Where did that come from? What did that look like for your father and what did that look like for you?

Robert Khayat 18:08

He treated with people with respect, men, women, young people, old people, Black, white, Hispanic, Middle Easterners, whomever. It didn't matter. He treated people respect and he was a public person. In fact, the doctors at the hospital used to joke him. He was a public, he was a county supervisor for 37 years. And, I mean, he was invested. And the doctors at the hospital said, "Mr. Eddie," they called him, "you spend more time at the hospital than we do." Because that's what he was doing. He'd go see the sick people, whether he knew them or not.

Chris McAlilly 18:46 Rght.

Robert Khayat 18:47

That's just the way he was. And so I think that that respect for people and for organizations was just so much a part of the lives that we lived that it just became who we were.

Chris McAlilly 19:01
Yeah, and it translated into public service is what I...

Robert Khayat 19:04

I'm sorry, yeah, right, it did. And he, he took that work as a county supervisor as his mission for being alive. And if you go there now, and I have a nephew who's a very good doctor, Matt Murray, Ole Miss graduate, good doctor, and he sees patients. And he sees sometimes 30 a day, and he says probably five or more of them will say, "Well, I knew your grandfather." And that's because my daddy spent his time helping people who needed help. If they needed a job, if they needed to go to the state hospital, if they needed help getting into junior college, it didn't matter.

Chris McAlilly 19:45
Yeah, so love and respect translated into service.

Robert Khayat 19:49 That's right.

Chris McAlilly 19:49

You know, and public service, public leadership and servant leadership. One of the things that you say in this chapter, this chapter is kind of at a hinge point in the book. You're in the middle of your 40s, I think, and you're recognizing that maybe you have the gifts and graces to be the Chancellor of the University of Mississippi. And this is what you write. You say, "As a product of the public education system in Mississippi, I long believed that we had not been good stewards of our public resources. We were poor, granted, but the potential to build a stronger state could be found in the extraordinary gifts and talents of native Mississippians." And you go on from there, it's just really awesome. "We export a bunch of wonderful leaders, but what if we could, you know, keep those folks in the state." And you begin to articulate the ways in which you would do that work, and at the end of the chapter, you say, "I believed I might be the right person for the chancellorship." I would say that's a resounding yes.

Chris McAlilly 20:50

But what I wanted to ask you about is stewardship, stewarding our public resources. That's a profound way of thinking about leadership, in my view. A lot of people think about stewarding their private wealth, building private companies, but you, intentionally, in your leadership, wanted to build and steward the public resources of the state to build a stronger state. How did that... Tell me about that. Tell me more about that.

Robert Khayat 21:20

Well, in my family, we were poor. We were poor. I'm not misrepresenting the truth. My father was a school teacher and a coach, and they had four children, and my mother stayed at home and took care of us and him, and our friends, mostly us and him, but we knew. We were aware that Mississippi was a poor state. We were aware that we had some sort of out of sorts arrangement between people we called Negroes, or colored people and white people. We had great friendships, great relationships, but it wasn't right. They went one way. We went one way. We went to one church. They went to another church. And we knew as a family that we had somehow had to be kind and respectful and show appreciation for all of our--and I don't want to sound, I want this... This is the truth. We were taught to treat people as sacred creations of God and that everybody should be loved and treated with respect--and disciplined, I might add--but get along, try to do well, as they say, by doing good and being kind to people.

Robert Khayat 22:48

And so we never, in my family, ever abused Black people or women. We accepted the rules of the day. We didn't try to change it. We weren't out parading for integration when it came. We didn't. We weren't out marching. My dad wasn't. He probably did more for black people in Pascagoula and Moss Point, maybe Mississippi, than most anybody I ever knew, because he was always committed to it. He was Lebanese, Lebanese American.

Robert Khayat 23:14 He'd been...

Eddie Rester 23:15
He'd been a target at times.

Robert Khayat 23:18

He'd been discriminated. He went to Millsaps and did really well, but he was never in a fraternity. He wasn't really accepted. He worked in the library, he mowed the yard, and he worked his way through and did well. So anyway, but that was his, sort of his manner of approaching life was to treat people with respect and love and support and try to help them be better. Am I answering your question?

Chris McAlilly 23:46
Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think that the what I am hearing you say is that this commitment to loving people, showing respect, and serving them became kind of part of the background for you in, you know, a lifelong desire to do that, you know, to replicate what your dad did. But in the new environment for you, that was education. It was in law school. It ultimately became, you know, a part of your work as a chancellor.

Robert Khayat 24:17 Let me...

Eddie Rester 24:18 Yeah, go ahead.

Robert Khayat 24:18

I want to add one thing to that. Let me see, I want to tell you that the book that I read before I became Chancellor, I think, was called "Good to Great." It's a really wonderful 1950s or 60s or 70s. I don't know when it was written, but a great book and a great guide for people going to your leadership positions, organizational or otherwise.

Eddie Rester 24:45 Still is.

Robert Khayat 24:46

Yeah, because it's got the... It's almost like step by step, what you do? You know, you move into a new church, you find out what is our mission. Number two, how do we achieve that mission? Who are the leaders? How do we get them to lead? It goes on. So it just builds on itself. But that's how we grew up in my family, with accepting responsibility. If you are on a team or in a classroom or had a job, you did what you're supposed to do. If you didn't, you weren't successful, and you got punished at home.

Chris McAlilly 25:21
Right. Yeah. And I think that those two values, kind of treating people respect in diverse settings, but also having a really high degree, you know, high commitment for excellence.

Robert Khayat 25:34 Excellence, absolutely.

Chris McAlilly 25:35
I think, where I learned that more than anywhere else was on the ball field.

Robert Khayat 25:38 Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 25:38
I learned that playing sports.

Robert Khayat 25:40 Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 25:40
And it was a place where, you know, I mean, it was, literally a meritocracy. If you weren't good enough to play, you didn't play.

Robert Khayat 25:48 That's right.

Chris McAlilly 25:49

But in Mississippi, the best kids that played may or may not look like you, may not come from the same neighborhood as you, and there was a set of values I learned in building a culture of a team that was diverse but also was committed to excellence.

Robert Khayat 26:04 Right.

Chris McAlilly 26:05

And I think that when you became chancellor, you really set the trajectory. The way that you articulate is you know you wanted a vision to be and to be perceived to be...

Robert Khayat 26:17 That's right.

Chris McAlilly 26:18
A great American public university.

Eddie Rester 26:21

And let me ask a question about that. Earlier, before we started recording, you said that you became chancellor at 56, 56 years old, which, in our culture today, people begin to look at people in their as I think about myself in their mid 50s and upper 50s as kind of past their prime. But for you, you were entering your prime era of effectiveness and vision. What were some of the things that led up to that ability? We talked about, you know, all the things of life kind of build to that point. And particularly for you, what were some of the key moments? Whether it was when you were playing football at Ole Miss or playing for the Redskins or going to Yale, what were some of those moments for you that just prepped you to really be ready in that moment, when that opportunity presented itself?

Robert Khayat 27:15

Thank you. Let me maybe broaden this response when I came to Ole Miss in 1956 and I enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts, I couldn't handle chemistry or trigonometry or so forth, but I loved English and history and sociology and psychology. I understood what we were--I thought I understood--what we were talking about, but after my classes in history and in English, freshman English and in sophomore literature, I literally wanted to applaud the presentations of those professors. I had a few good teachers in high school, junior high, high school, first grade, particularly, first, third, sixth, eighth and 12th, great teachers.

Eddie Rester 28:08
[LAUGHTER] That's exactly when they were, yeah.

Chris McAlilly 28:11 [LAUGHTER] That's awesome.

Robert Khayat 28:11

I mean, they were just great. But these, these people at Ole Miss were fantastic. And I really wanted to clap. I mean, when Margaret Moore finished her lecture on Elizabethan England or something, I want to go, "Yay, Ms. Moore! Way to go!" You know, I did. So I saw that excellence. That's where that idea about to be perceived as one of America's great public universities. That was, that's where that all came from. My family from, as you say, athletics from social organization, not social, but school organizations, Beta Club, stuff like that. But I also saw excellence at work at Ole Miss, and I knew we could be there again. And maybe we were there, we just weren't seeing ourselves that way. And so I added a phrase to be perceived as and to perceive ourselves, because you learn on teams that if you don't think you can score, you can't score.

Chris McAlilly 29:07 Yeah.

Robert Khayat 29:08 You have to believe that.

Chris McAlilly 29:09

So much of it is, yeah, belief, instilling belief. And if you have a superpower, that's it. I mean, you have a lot of superpowers, but the one that I have benefited from the most is... There's not a Sunday, and you could be blowing smoke, but there's not a Sunday that you don't come out and offer the most encouraging and affirming words. And it's the thing... You know, I know that you've been doing this your whole life. You do it. I've seen you do it for so many different people. It's your ability to help people believe in themselves.

Robert Khayat 29:44 Well, thank you.

Chris McAlilly 29:44

And you know, the thing that was amazing is that as chancellor, you did that not just for individuals, but you did it for the institution. And you know, I think you were a driver for helping the state perceive itself differently. And I think that was tremendous.

Robert Khayat 29:59
Ole Miss is a driver for the state.

Eddie Rester 30:01 Right, right.

Robert Khayat 30:02

Ole Miss was a very bright light in Mississippi since some very dark times, and we had some dark times here, and they were not easy, and we worked our way through them, and it was painful. And we picked up all that garbage that came along with it. But it took time, and it took focus, and it took attention. It took commitment. It took people. It took all of us working together. So it was not hard for me to come up with the idea, the phrase "to be perceived and to perceive ourselves," because I knew it took both. And then I knew what it took to get there.

Eddie Rester 30:37 Yeah.

Robert Khayat 30:38

It took some clearly stated goals. Who do we want to be? How are we going to get there? How do we adopt a positive idea of vision of ourselves? How do we communicate that? How do we sell it? How do we promote it? And I learned all that in my home without knowing I was learning that. My mother taught me that, and my daddy. I mean, we kept a clean house, we kept a straightened up yard, we took care of homework, we studied and always tried to listen to Lux Presents Hollywood on the radio, because we didn't have a television set, but some people did. We didn't. But anyway that's the way we lived. And so it just became who I became.

Robert Khayat 31:23

And you're very generous in your comments about me, because there used to be a guy on the Grand Ole Opry named the Duke of Paducah, and he'd come out, he'd go out big, big man, funny looking jacket and pants, and he'd do this big laugh, "hah hah hah." That was his laugh. And he'd say, "Lord, I feel so unnecessary." That's how I felt a lot of days of my life.

Eddie Rester 31:48
I was at Ole Miss from '89 to '93 so just before your tenure, my brother was there during your tenure. You probably had to deal with him at some point, I'm sure.

Robert Khayat 31:58
I don't know if I did or not.

Eddie Rester 32:00

But one of the things that I remember in my time at Ole Miss was that self perception was not good.

Robert Khayat 32:05 That's right.

Eddie Rester 32:06
You'd go to Bondurant Hall, which was an old building at Ole Miss, and you'd walk in on a Monday for an English class, and there'd be plaster that had fallen off the wall or the ceiling...

Robert Khayat 32:18 Correct.

Eddie Rester 32:19

Onto the desks. None of the buildings looked good. The campus looked poor. We knew that we didn't have the money to do a lot of things as a school. We were losing professors. I mean, there were so many pieces of that puzzle at that moment when you came on board at Ole Miss, how did you begin to say, this is the lever I'm going to pull, or this is a thread I'm going to pull first, to begin to move towards the perception, not just externally, but internally, that we were a great American public institution?

Robert Khayat 32:57 That's a wonderful question.

Chris McAlilly 32:59 Think about it.

Eddie Rester 33:00
You can think about it, yeah.

Chris McAlilly 33:01
You think about it while I'll give you some time to think about it.

Eddie Rester 33:04
Well, I'll say one of the things that I saw you do almost immediately was you began to build a

Robert Khayat 33:11

I mean, I could lay, I think I could lay this out. I think if I were coming to church as a new Minister, I would probably run through the same list. I don't know that, but I would hope I would have the same comprehension and understanding of the Bible and the Word that you all have, and the deep spiritual lives that you both have and have lived successfully. Now I would like that first. But first thing is, you know, self perception. Who are we? And then secondly, how do people, what do people who... Let's see how I want to say this... How do people... How do other people perceive us? What do they think we are? Are we a rich playboy, playgirl school, drinks beer and raises cane? Are we an academic institution? Are we a total, really fine, principled, strong university, a beacon of light, an opportunity for development and hope and and success and being rewarded for being successful as a university, not individually? So first thing was, who are we? How are we perceived? If so, how do we address that?

Robert Khayat 34:36

Then three, the next, I guess, the fourth one would be, what are our objectives. So my my first one was we were not well perceived. And here's how we found that out, we had lost 1,000 students, I believe that's the right number, between 1985 and 1995 when I became chancellor. We'd gone from 11,000 down to 10,000. So I knew something wasn't right. And so Gloria Kellum, wonderful person who did great work, still does great work. Gloria and I got together and we hired a firm out of the Carolinas to come in and do an image enhancement. And this firm came in and they talked to 1500 people between the East Coast and Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast down to Miami, and they asked them 20 questions. And the first question was, what do you think of Ole Miss? And the prevailing answer was, "We don't think of Ole Miss."

Robert Khayat 35:45

It got real quiet when we heard that answer. So Gloria and I, we'd have to just walk in half... You know, we didn't just need to be half smart. No, we gotta do something about that. So we did. We focused on changing the image. And there were some real positive things about that, lot of pooh-poohing and people doubting and hooting me for it and so forth. But we just kept saying it over and over and over.

Robert Khayat 36:09

And one of the days, I saw a professor out walking between the Lyceum, my office in the Lyceum and the library, where I could see the pathway, and he was kind of negative in the press a lot. And I went out there to see him. I said, "I'm Robert Khayat. I'm the chancellor." "Oh, I know you." I said, "Well, I know you too, because I read the newspaper and you are very unhappy man." And he said, "Well, I am. I just say what I think." I said, "Well, let me tell you something, right now. This is my first month as Chancellor. If you are still unhappy after I've been here for a while, I will have failed." He said, "Don't put that pressure on me." [BANGS ON TABLE] Excuse me. I banged the table.

Robert Khayat 36:55

Anyway. I said, "I'm putting it on you kid. I'm telling you right now. We're going to be happy here. We're going to do well." So he and I became pretty good friends, you know, and I admired him. He's a real good teacher. He became kind of a positive force in the community.

Robert Khayat 37:11

So anyway, that was just the attitude I came in with, and Gloria and Carolyn Staton and Gerald Walton, Don Cole Andy Mullins, Alice Clark, I mean, the list goes on. Donna Patton, just the list is very long, of people who made huge, huge contributions to the progress that we made between '95 and 2014.

Robert Khayat 37:39

Now let me say one thing that maybe I'll tell you one story. Okay, so when, when we adopted this business of an image enhancement, there was Bill Clinton or somebody had a program at the Fulton Chapel, and I went up on the stage after the show to shake hands and thank them. And this young woman named Jenny Dodson, who was 19, and she's editor of the Mississippian. And she comes up, she said, "Oh, Chancellor, how are you?" I said, "Fine, Jenny. How are you?" She said, "What do you mean by an image enhancement?" I said, "Well, we want to know how people perceive us." I told her why, and she said, "Is it going to include the flag?" Inexperience nailed me because I said, "Well, I guess so." Wrong comment. Explosion for nine months, you know.

Eddie Rester 38:31

And for those who may not, who are listening, who may not know what the flag was, was Ole Miss fans waved the Confederate flag at every sporting event. And so the question was, what are we going to do about the flag? Yeah. So keep going, Yeah.

Robert Khayat 38:45

And the band had a flag, I think it was like, 45 by 65 feet, rectangular, big, and they played at every game. And we loved. I loved it. I was Colonel Rebel, for crying out loud. I mean, so it was okay. Well, I didn't think about race, but a lot of people did, and it was killing us. Anyway, when I said that, "I guess so," that was like opening the door to everybody who was, whatever the percentage is, 35 or 40% or more people who don't want to change anything. You could tell them "Jesus is going to be at church Sunday." "No, he won't be there."

Eddie Rester 39:19
"I'm not giving up my seat to him."

Robert Khayat 39:20

That's right. "He'll have to find another place." So anyway, headlines, "Confederate flag to go." I said, Lord have mercy. Every day, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. For nine months. So finally we came up--we and, I mean, we, that got that team of leaders that I had done a doggone good job, I will say that, of getting really good, independent, loyal, smart, respected people, women, men, Black, white, young, old, whatever. We talk about a meritocracy. That's a meritocracy. I was for that. I wanted the best we could get.

Robert Khayat 40:02

And then I asked Rex DeLoach to come help me understand the budget. He was a CPA and a very successful Delta State graduate, but I liked him. I just barely knew him. And I said, "If you will, teach me the budget. I'm not a budget man, but I bet I could understand it broadly." And he did. And so we went to work on areas where we were spending. It was sort of like we hear Mr. Musk saying about the federal government. We were just spending money, and we had to change a lot of programs. And we did. We changed a lot. Bookstores, different. What we did with the forest lens was different. You know, we did a lot of different things, and every time you make a change, as you all know, somebody's gonna pop up. But that's okay. We stayed together. I got good advice from those vice chancellors and administrators, and we made good decisions.

Robert Khayat 40:58

And I mean, we. I really want to emphasize we, because it was a team effort. I had to be the one who would set the agenda, sort of, and set what they would add to it, but I had to be out front promoting it. So one of these loyal rebel flag wavers lived in Starkville, and he wrote me. He wrote me a note, and told me how, what chicken liver turncoat devil I was, which I got plenty of those. But anyway, he also sent me a box of women's satin under pink underwear, every article that a woman might wear under her dress or pants. And he says, "You're such a lily livered whatever these may fit you."

Robert Khayat 41:46

I wrote him by I said, "Dear John, I am so thankful you are so interested in Ole Miss, and I appreciate your friendship. I am surprised by your gift, but I will try these articles on, and I'll let you know. I hope you'll come see us. Your friend, Robert." I wrote those notes every morning to a lot of people, but I wrote him that one special. I didn't hear from him, and I saw Sue Kaiser put that box of underwear over in the corner of my room by my office.

Robert Khayat 42:20

And after nine months, we finally stumbled on, don't allow them to bring sticks in the stadium. No umbrellas, no sticks, no injured eyes, no flags.

Eddie Rester 42:33 Yeah.

Robert Khayat 42:33

So we got it done, and so we would kind of do it like that, and gasping. And I said, "Sue, bring that underwear in here, please." And she did. And I said, I want to send this to John. And so she left. She said, "You crazy." I said, "I know it, but the devil is making me do this." I said, "Dear John, thank you so much for your wonderful gift and for supporting Ole Miss the way you do. I have tried these articles of clothing on and they don't fit me, maybe they will fit you. We invite you to come see us at Old Miss. Your friend, Robert." I confess that was not... That was evil.

Chris McAlilly 43:18 Well...

Eddie Rester 43:19
You got to have some fun sometimes.

Chris McAlilly 43:21
You got to deal with criticism. And one way to deal with criticism is levity, for sure.

Robert Khayat 43:25
Yeah, that's right. You're right.

Chris McAlilly 43:26
And not taking yourself or the criticism too seriously.

Robert Khayat 43:31 Yeah, that's true. That's right.

Chris McAlilly 43:33 So. But yeah...

Eddie Rester 43:34 Let me say one quick...

Chris McAlilly 43:35 Go for it.

Eddie Rester 43:35

One thing, because for people listening, they may not realize what, at that stage of history, how significant that was, because this was well before any of the movements of 2020, 2017, 20, any of those moments for a fan base who is deeply ingrained in a mindset. And what happened, I'm going to say it from the outside, what happened was it went away, and there was grumbling, but then people realized it was better. And it took a lot of courage, and it took a lot of wisdom of how and when, and just that whole team that you put together, I think that's one of the important things I'm hearing, is the people around you matter because they give you wisdom, they give you courage, and they give you insight.

Chris McAlilly 44:26

And confidence. I mean, I think, you know, you make a mistake. There's not a leader on the face of the planet that hasn't made a mistake, a mistake that the team has to absorb the pain or the cost of. And that was, you know, in a journey towards becoming a great American public university, race was going to have, you know, race, the Confederate history of the school, was going to have to be dealt with. You know, ultimately, you put that to the front, the front burner, rather than the back burner, with the comment, as a young leader. And and then your team bore the way to that and was able to navigate it.

Chris McAlilly 45:04
You know, I think one of the things that I observe is that, you know, there are, you know... Having a clear trajectory matters, knowing where you're going.

Robert Khayat 45:15 Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 45:15

Being able to say this is an issue that we're dealing with, but where we're headed together, if you will, go with us, you know, and with this team, we're going to become a great American university. We're going to become Phi Beta Kappa. We're going to do these, all of these things.

Eddie Rester 45:31
Host the 2008 presidential debate, which is still...

Robert Khayat 45:34 Yeah, oh, go ahead.

Chris McAlilly 45:37
You may speak. And I will also...

Eddie Rester 45:40 He's looking up.

Chris McAlilly 45:41
Pull up just some of the achievements. So go for it.

Robert Khayat 45:44

Okay, so one of the ways I dealt with the Confederate flag critics, if they would talk to me one on one, I would say,"Well, let me ask you this, would you prefer your child wave a confederate flag at a football game or be a member of Phi Beta Kappa? Your choice. You can either go the high road or you can keep waving the flag, which may be your high road, but it's not for the good of the university or the state. We've got to change this image, and that may be one way to do it. That's the way we've chosen to go. But you have that choice. It can be Phi Beta Kappa or it can be a flag." That is not a hard question.

Eddie Rester 46:24 Right.

Robert Khayat 46:24

It may be difficult. It may be a hard question, but it's not hard to answer it. I just say that. It's a pretty easy answer for me.

Chris McAlilly 46:32
Well, you know, I think the thing that I hear you saying in that in terms of the question of executive leadership, it's the question of what's in the best interest of the institution.

Robert Khayat 46:41 Correct.

Chris McAlilly 46:41
That's the number one question.

Eddie Rester 46:43 That's it.

Robert Khayat 46:43 That's right.

Chris McAlilly 46:43

And it's not about what's in your best interest. It's not what's in the best interest of the guy sending you those notes. It's what's in the best interest of the institution that you're stewarding at the moment.

Eddie Rester 46:56
I would even say the future of the institution.

Robert Khayat 46:58 Yeah, there you go.

Eddie Rester 46:58

Because it's sometimes the future of the institution has to look different than the past of the institution.

Robert Khayat 47:04

And you know what, you have to be able to project what's possible. It may be extreme, but it's possible. And President, when President Biden announced that we were going to be all electric by 2035, I knew he was making a mistake. You can't do that. People don't like change, or some percentage do not like change. So you have to, kind of lawyers say, lay the predicate. You kind of have to lay the foundation, like you in a sermon, you say, here's what we're going to be talking about, and then you talk about it.

Robert Khayat 47:36

So you have to say, Okay, we're going for a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. We have got to do something about this racist image that we have. Unfairly. We're not racist. We're trying hard, but we have a history. We got to be honest about that. But let's stay focused on what we're doing.

Chris McAlilly 47:52

So let me just rattle off a few of those things. 1995 you come in and and you serve as the fifteenth chancellor. Enrollment increased by 43%. Research and development grants went from $17 million over $100 million annually. You secured Phi Beta Kappa and hosted the first presidential debate of the 2008 election year. I mean, there were many, many other things. You've told me tons of stories, of, you know, just little ins and outs, gifts that were acquired for a certain thing, the Croft Institute, the Honors College, you know. I mean, it's just, it's extraordinary. I mean, it's an extraordinary set of achievements.

Chris McAlilly 48:34

And, I think the thing that I'm so appreciative of everything that you did, and everything you continue to do, in terms of your friendship to me, to so many people in town and across the state and across the country, who you continue to encourage. When you were in leadership, you knew how to use power, and I think that that's an important dimension of leadership. You have to know how to use power, and there are multiple ways to use power, and what you did-- and this is not, this is a wise friend of me, helping me to see this about you--is that you used the power that you had in leadership to empower other people. That's what you did. You empowered your team, you empowered the students, you empowered the faculty, empowered the state, and you just continue to do that. And it's, it's such a gift, and I'm so so grateful for that.

Robert Khayat 49:28

Thank you. I mean, you're so generous, both of you all are so generous, as is my daughter, Margaret, generous about how you deal with me and what you say to me, and I am so grateful for it. But that night that we had that, I had that incident with Jenny Dodson about the flag, one of the people on that program was a man from the Carolinas who was President of a college, a Black man, and he and I went up shook hands after the show, and I said, "Are you hungry?" He said, "I am." I said, "Well, it's almost midnight, and the only places to go are hamburger places, where they drink beer and serve hamburgers. And I don't think you want." "No," he said. I said, "Well, I eat a bowl of cereal every night before I go to bed. Would you like to go to my Chancellor's house and have a bowl of cereal?" And he said yes, and we did.

Robert Khayat 50:26

And so he and I formed this friendship. We sat there and ate two bowls of cereal, talked about all the issues, and I didn't hear from him. I wrote him. He wrote me. That was the end of it. When we went to Phi Beta Kappa, we were in this place in Philadelphia, and there are 125 voters in there who'd been voting 80% against us, and they're getting ready to vote. And he walks in. He has paid his way to Philadelphia, comes in. He's a former president of Phi Beta Kappa, and he says, "I've been to Ole Miss. Things are different. You all need to approve them." The vote went 80% for, and we had the chapter.

Robert Khayat 51:05

So I wrote about him in the book, and he's a really powerful man. And I also tried to shine the light on Ron Vernon, who was English teacher, who was the one who sort of led because he was Phi Beta Kappa man from another school, and Mary Ann Connell was critical, because he wrote a version, and she helped edit it. So it was a really clean report that we made. And I'd gone to Washington when I first announced we're going to do Phi Beta, we were going to get a chapter on Phi Beta Kappa. I went to see the man who was this Executive Director of Phi Beta Kappa, and I asked. He said, "I thought you had a chapter." I said, "That's why I'm here. We do not have a chapter. We've been voted down three times in the last eight years." He said, "Well..." I said, "What do we need to do?" He said, "Well, you got to increase your library holdings."

Robert Khayat 51:58

I don't know what he'd say today about libraries, but anyway, he said that. He said, "You have to raise the faculty salaries in liberal arts. You have to have brighter students, better test scores. You have to have private support, and you have to do something about this image." Well, that was like throwing gold coins to me. I mean, I said, "Yes, sir."

Robert Khayat 52:21

So we came home and we and we had a powwow about how we're going to do that. And there were a lot of ideas. I'm not even sure who came up ultimately. We got into the fuss that went on for nine months, and then we got out of it because somebody in that group of leaders, and I'm not going to say it was me, could be and I don't know this, but somebody said, "We need to ban sticks at the games. They're dangerous." Heaven opened and the sea parted, you know. So we did it, and that did it. I mean, that's a team decision.

Eddie Rester 52:56
I want to ask, and we've taken up a lot of your time, and

Robert Khayat 53:01
I'd say I've taken up a lot of your time.

Eddie Rester 53:03

No, we're getting to record in your beautiful home at the edge of the Square, and what... You're retired, you're still writing. You're meeting with folks. What continues to give you joy in this season of life? What do you get up every morning and think of, "I'm excited about this today?"

Robert Khayat 53:20

Right down there, Margaret. My darling daughter, Margaret Khayat, gives me continuing joy. My son, Robert. My church gives me joy. My university and this community give me joy. The love of God gives me joy. My friends who have firm beliefs in the hereafter and can explain how they feel or why they feel, that brings me lots of joy. I love trying to write, because I have, you know, I have a few and, I mean, this is honest, I have some skills. One of them is I can tell a story.

Eddie Rester 53:57 Yes.

Robert Khayat 53:57

I can tell. Well, y'all can tell stories, too, and great stories, but I get joy from writing. Right now, I'm writing about this trip that my friends and I took. Dan Jordan, wonderful person. Bob Weems, wonderful person. Charles Overby, wonderful person. Robert Khayat, and John Grisham, and we got on a bus. And this, I have a great notebook that Dan Jordan, who's a scholar among us, put this notebook together. So I'm writing about that right now. And that brought me so much joy, because when I was a little boy, and I always I wrote this... My wife said, Margaret always said, "You always were 10 years old when you had that event." I was always 10. And so are a lot of other people. I bet you all think about your years when you were 10, too.

Eddie Rester 54:51 Yeah.

Robert Khayat 54:52

So anyway, I wrote this, what she said about me, and I said, and "I think I did always have good ideas when I was 10." And one was taking a bus trip, because I'd seen the hillbilly singers do it, and I liked it. And I'd see when they came in station wagons, which nobody knows what that is and I liked it. And I'd see when they came in station wagons, which nobody knows what that is anymore, or limousines, and then the Silver Eagles. I wanted to ride on Silver Eagle. I had the great blessing of lowering these wonderful men and women--I couldn't, we couldn't ask women to go on this bus trip. But we, the five of us, agreed to make a trip, and I could plan it, and they would help plan it, and they would help select people we would see.

Robert Khayat 55:35

So we rented a bus, five of us, we got on a bus. No alcohol, no girls, no drugs, none of that foolishness. And so we had, we left from Nashville, went to Charlottesville, and then we covered like seven or eight great cities and organizations, starting in Charlottesville. And then on to where the dig is underway in Virginia for the first group that went there in 1580 or whatever it was. And then we just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. All ended up in Boston. And along the way, we did things like visit with FBI, excuse me, with spies, Americans who had been Russian spies for 20 years. We went to the Spy Museum, and we had this great conversation. And then we went to Valley Forge, and we met with the person who was in charge of that. Went to Philadelphia by the Rocky Balboa statue. You know, we did a lot of good stuff.

Robert Khayat 56:36

The lady who was in charge of the National Endowment for the Humanities was there and anyway, and we went on and went to West Point and had breakfast with 4,000 good looking, healthy men and women in that great dining hall. It was a great thrill, anyway. And along the way, we met with celebrities, and people won't recognize some of those names, but we had a great breakfast with Jim Lehrer, who had been the McNeil Lehrer Report, and he was great.

Robert Khayat 57:04

Anyhow, we did that all the way up. And we got to New York and went up to a party up in Tom Brokaw's condo up on the like 40th floor. And I'm sitting next to Peggy Noonan, who I read every Sunday, every Sunday. I love Peggy. Anyway, we do that, and then we go to Boston, and we know we're going to get to go to the Red Sox game, and we don't know that Pomeranz, that Ole Miss pitcher, is going to be pitching for Boston. So that's the thrill that we have. But in addition to that thrill, yeah, we went out to the JFK Library on the Atlantic Ocean, overlooking, this is breathtaking. And we had three hours with Doris Kearns Goodwin, who can really write. She was great.

Robert Khayat 57:55
Now, we had agreed, since John Grisham was on the trip, we wouldn't tell anybody, because the bus would get mobbed.

Eddie Rester 58:01 Yeah.

Robert Khayat 58:02

So we didn't. So we got home, Bob Weems and I finally get back to Oxford, seven o'clock at night, his phone rings. It's Joyce Whittington from our law school years. And she said, "Well, Bob, tell me about your trip." He says, "What trip?" She said, "Bob, I know about the trip." He says, "Joyce, how do you know about the trip?" And she says, "Well, I have a friend in New Mexico, and she's friends with Doris Kearns Goodwin, and I talked to her today, and Doris said she had the best time with five great men. Five Great men from Mississippi." And I said, "There are no secrets."

Eddie Rester 58:39
There are no secrets in this world.

Robert Khayat 58:40
I'm sorry I talked too long. I'm sorry.

Eddie Rester 58:41
No. Well, thank you always gracious with your time and your stories, not just with us, but with so many people. So Chancellor Khayat, thank you for being with us.

Robert Khayat 58:52

Let me thank you all for your leadership, not only the church, but in the community and in your families and with your friends and your kindness to Margaret and me, and Robert and my wife. Y'all have been really great friends to us, and you've done great work with the church. You continue to do that. You're off to new territory.

Eddie Rester 59:11 Off to new territory, yeah.

Robert Khayat 59:12

You'll knock them out. I know that'd be great, and you're already knocking them out. I mean it. It's been wonderful for us, and I thank y'all. It's a high compliment to be interviewed by you, and I hope I've been responsive.

Chris McAlilly 59:25

You have been very responsive, and I'm just incredibly grateful for you, for your friendship, for your time, and thank you for telling us some wonderful stories.

Robert Khayat 59:33 Well, thank you. Thank you.

Eddie Rester 59:35
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 59:44

If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]