Ep. 64: College Tour: Princeton University, Gilbert Collins (Part 2)

On this final episode of our college tour, I wrap up my conversation with Gilbert Collins from Princeton University. In this episode we talk about

• what global health programs is
• Public Policy and International Affairs Program
• and how Jeopardy and leadership go together.

To learn more about PPIA Program, go check out their website at ppiaprogram.org.

Gilbert Collins began working at the Princeton University Center for Health and Wellbeing in 2016 and he oversees several of the University’s global health programs. Collins previously served as the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs' Director of Graduate Student Life where he directed academic and co-curricular programs, including the Junior Summer Institute, and offered academic advising and career counseling to students preparing for careers in public service. Before coming to Princeton, Collins spent eight years as the U.S. Peace Corps Country Director in Namibia and Associate Director in Botswana, focusing on HIV/AIDS interventions and other development activities. Prior to that, he served as the Evaluation and Planning Team Leader for the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, providing strategic guidance for relief and development activities in health, water/sanitation, nutrition, psycho-social support, shelter, and other sectors for seven years.

Collins received his bachelor’s degree in Government from Harvard University, a master's degree in Public Policy and International Affairs from Princeton University, and a master's degree in Higher Education from Penn State University. Born in Germany, he grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and speaks French, German, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese.

Chapters

• 1:19 What is Global Health Programs?
• 6:53 PPIA Program
• 17:12 Jeopardy and Leadership

Transcript

Kyla Cofer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Leadership School podcast. I'm your host, leadership and self-care coach, Kyla Cofer. Here at the Leadership School, you'll hear leaders from around the world sharing their stories and expertise on how to lead with balance and integrity. Our goal teach you how to be an extraordinary leader.

Welcome back leaders. Hope you're having a great day today. Thanks so much for joining us. So today we are talking again with Gilbert Collins. He's the director of Global Health at Princeton University. And if you didn't have a chance yet to listen to last week's episode, make sure you go back and listen to part one of our conversation.

It's full of amazing advice wisdom from his experiences and his leadership roles, both as a director of the Peace Corps and now as the director of Global Health at Princeton. So make sure you listen to [00:01:00] episode one, and thanks for joining us for part two. I do wanna transition here and talk briefly about your job at Princeton.

So you've taken all that experience and leadership. All that. And now you're in Princeton working with Global Health. So when you, we started out, you kind of explained it, but let's go in depth a little bit more about that and what's your role there and what is Princeton doing in this area? 

Gilbert Collins: Sure. So in my current capacity, I'm the director of Global Health Programs at Princeton.

So what does that mean? So I work with students and faculty and other researchers who are interested in research on global health and global health is health, both in the US and around the world, such as international issues. It's also cross disciplines. So there are people, for example, in the social sciences, interested in health.

They're looking at health economics. They're looking at health policies, maybe insurance markets. They're looking at perhaps history of health or the anthropology of health. There are people who are in the natural sciences. Who [00:02:00] are looking into biochemistry or who are looking into biomedical issues, or who are examining ecological health or environmental health.

There are people who may be looking at like, things like ancient Greece and health, right, or health in the, in classical period. All different aspects. What I'm meaning to say is our work here at Princeton doesn't just support people in one area or another. Our program is not the pre-med student program at Princeton.

That's a different office. We are here for any student or faculty researcher who wants to get a more broad understanding of the underpinnings of health as they're applied in different. . And so one aspect of that is I run essentially a minor, we call it a Princeton, a certificate program in global health.

And so if an undergrad student here wants to do that there's a certain series of courses they would take. There is summer project they would do of their choosing, and they'd write a [00:03:00] thesis that touches on a health topic. Also for grad students, I also help direct that certificate program where again, they get some coursework in politics of health and in epidemiology and more we run events on campus.

We fund research for faculty, students and other researchers. . And we also have a pretty vibrant internship program where we organize with different partners in the US and around the world for Princeton students to take eight to 10 week internships over the summer. Fully funded by Princeton to do all kinds of different work.

Could be biomedical research in a lab. It could be working with kids with HIV/AIDS. It could be researched, say to Aboriginal folks in the outback of Australia. Wide range of things that people could do over the summer. We support that as well. 

Kyla Cofer: Wow. So, Sounds like you're doing a lot of coordinating again,

Gilbert Collins: Definitely. Yeah. We have a team that works for me here that focus [00:04:00] on various aspects of what I just said. So internally, we have staff working on that, but a lot also is liaising with other faculty here at Princeton who may know of opportunities. So we, Hey, hey faculty. Anybody know of a good internship that we could send students to?

Or could they work for you directly or could you lead an event? Could you speak at this event we wanna have on Covid 19 or on some other important topic. Or reaching out to other partners in other places. Again, like I said earlier, reaching out to say UNICEF or to the World Bank and say, Hey, we have great students who would love to intern with you.

Would that be okay with you? or to donors, to generous donors who may wanna support this kind of work and research as well, and tell them where they could pitch in that would really make a meaningful difference to people both in the and outside of Princeton. All those different areas are part of what I do in this role.

Kyla Cofer: So that sounds like a lot, it sounds like a lot to do in a week. How are you coordinating all of those things? Calmly . 

Gilbert Collins: So I think time helps. [00:05:00] Having a sense of the seasons and rhythms of university life can help you a lot in knowing what's coming. So different times of the year bring different emphasis.

Right now as we approach the summer, we're working on making sure we have students lined up for our internships, right? So they're selected, the partners are happy to have them, and they start getting their plane tickets and other things like that. And just, you know, vaccines and all that sort of, Other times of the year, you're recruiting students for the academic programs, you're orienting them, Hey, welcome to Princeton.

This is what global health is. Wanna study that lining up courses, you know, other times it might be more about setting up events. You know, like, let's, let's plan our fall speaker series, who we wanna invite and reach out to those people, okay, you're good for Thursday, you're good for next week, and et cetera.

So knowing what's coming which is an element of experience, but also an element of planning. Goes a long way toward helping you remain calm because there are a lot of things, but if you know what they are and can kind of plan your efforts and [00:06:00] your team's efforts to deal with those things, that can go a long way toward helping keep you calm and not feel overwhelmed.

Kyla Cofer: So, working ahead one or two steps while also working on what's in front of you, but realizing that you don't have to do that, you're not doing a whole year's worth of work today. 

Gilbert Collins: That's right. And importantly, also taking advantage of your team, right? The fact that you're not here by yourself, you have other people who are also supporting you.

and if you've done well to recruit talented people, you can delegate much of this and empower them to take care of a lot of these things too. So your time isn't just spent doing all these things. You might spend time making sure that the staff are handling them, but letting them run with it, letting them plan and implement a lot of these priorities that you have.

Kyla Cofer: It sounds like that goes back to that element of trust too, that you were saying you're trusting them to do the work. They're trusting you to lead the way.

Gilbert Collins: That's exactly right. I think that's a good way of. 

Kyla Cofer: If somebody was interested in one of these programs what are some of the things that you guys offer that maybe one of my listeners that has [00:07:00] never heard of that they might be interested in joining?

Like the global health courses or programs that you teach, but I think you also have another program that you guys do, like some other things that you're involved in. Right. 

Gilbert Collins: So I will, I will answer that question in two ways. The global health work that I do with Princeton students, staff, and faculty is open to par to people in the Princeton community.

So that is, say the university community, so for enrolled students. So if someone's interested in doing one of our internships or are taking our courses Do need to be enrolled at Princeton, so just apply to Princeton or, okay. Go to Princeton's website, Google Global Health at Princeton, and you'll find a lot about what that involves.

But for people who are not enrolled in Princeton, let me shift gears and actually tell you something completely different than what I've been talking about with Global Health at Princeton. So and I'm gonna actually rewind a lot all the way back to college again. For me. So when I was an undergrad at college still saying I [00:08:00] wanted to help people in some way, I didn't really know what I would do for post-college education, right?

I figured I might need to earn some kind of degree just for further qualification and just training in some area. And I thought maybe about law school. because that seems good. You wanna help people and do international work, you know, law. Yeah. Or maybe social work school, maybe Again, my mother is a social worker, but when I was a junior in college, a counselor, career counselor at my college introduced me to the idea of this program called the P P I A program.

Now, P P I A stands for Public Policy and International Affairs. and that program's a nonprofit. They run things called Junior Summer Institutes at, I think now it's six different American colleges, and Princeton was one of those colleges right now. The others I think include University of Michigan, university of [00:09:00] Minnesota, university of Cal, Berkeley Carnegie Mellon, those, yeah, that's what it is now.

Back then it was some other schools, But, sorry, university of Washington just signed on as well, so they're also an important partner there. So I applied for a summer program, again my junior, senior summer in college and went to a seven week long bootcamp about public policy. So the purpose of P P I A is to cultivate kind of the next generation of diverse public affairs and international affairs.

Professionals by investing in, like in their education, encouraging them to go to grad school, and also encouraging them ultimately to pursue careers in public policy. So although I was interested in policy, I really didn't know about a whole class of grad schools that were grad schools of public policy.

So I came to Princeton that summer. That was my first time ever on the Princeton campus as a junior somewhere else. And did this, learned about stats, learned about [00:10:00] economics, learned about policy analysis. And then also fell in love with the school here at Princeton. So ultimately I applied to and got into grad school at that same place I'd done the summer program at.

So that's what led me here so many, many years ago. So fast forward to when I came back to Princeton, I actually came to direct that exact same program here at the university. So I was still involved again, but now instead of a student, I was the leader of it and I was recruiting students from all over the country to come here to Princeton.

So this many years later, Princeton still runs the same program, the summer bootcamp program for diverse students interested in pursuing careers and education in public policy. So yeah, it's a wonderful program. Students go on to. Incredible careers in public service after doing that summer program and after going to grad school oftentimes in public policy.

So I'm really, really excited to continue supporting that. [00:11:00] And I'm actually on the, the board of directors for that nonprofit now as well. I no longer direct the summer program at Princeton, but I stay engaged with it through leadership on the board. For a couple years I was the board's treasurer, not that anymore but still stay engaged, providing direction to

the nonprofit on, on that outreach. That's definitely something you have any listeners who happen to be juniors or approaching a junior year in college and might be interested in learning more about that, they can do that at P P I A program.org. So ppiaprogram.org. 

Kyla Cofer: Awesome. We'll definitely put that link in the show notes.

And , here I am over here. I'm like, well, I have a kid. I never, I never knew about this program, but I'm gonna make sure he knows about it. And he's only six . 

Gilbert Collins: Yeah. Can't 

start him too early. 

Kyla Cofer: I'm start talking about it cause that sounds amazing. That sounds amazing. So I started this podcast because I wanted to learn and grow in my leadership [00:12:00] journey, and I have been so incredibly inspired by the guests and the conversations, and especially recently with this college tour, I've really learned so much.

So once the interview ends, I actually keep the conversation going because I have found that sometimes the richest part of the conversation is when we feel like the interview's over and we can just kind of have a relaxed, more casual conversation. Also, if you've noticed, if you've been following this podcast for some time, I used to ask every guest two questions.

What does Integrity mean to them and what does balance look like to them? Well, I haven't stopped asking those questions. We're just putting those over on our Patreon page. So go check it out at patreon.com/leadership school, and for $6 and 50 cents a month, you can support this podcast. It takes a lot to produce every single episode.

Honestly, I could use a little bit of support. So anything that you're able to contribute would really mean a lot to me and would able to help me to continue to bring these [00:13:00] high caliber guests in to have conversations on what does it look like to be an extraordinary leader, and how do we practically

do that. So those conversations are continuing over at patreon.com/leadership school where I'm asking guests some extra questions, some bonus questions, and you'll get some bonus content over there. So be sure to go check it out. Thanks so much for your support and thanks for so much for subscribing, listening and sharing this podcast.

It really does mean a lot, and I'm so honored to show up here in your podcast. Okay, so I have two questions for you as I wanna wrap up and then and we'll just move on. But the first is . I am looking behind you and your desk is so very clean and I noticed this last time we talked and I am just really impressed by it because my brain can't really do that.

And I remember working for an attorney and no matter how hard I tried to keep my desk clean, it was never ever gonna be clean. One of my previous guests mentioned to me that people in [00:14:00] higher level positions, if you go into their offices, their desks are always clean because they have a different priorities in how they manage their time and their spaces and all of that.

And so I'm curious, all of these things that you have going on, that you're directing and leading and managing, how are you keeping your desk so clean and, and I think that this is actually valuable because I think it's saying something about where you're putting your energy. 

Gilbert Collins: Sure. So what I would say is I think different people have different approaches to the question that you've asked.

For me, organization is kind of a reflection on my personal state of mind that the desk is not necessarily always as clean. If I have a whole lot of things going on, there can be things piling up here or there, but I don't personally feel at peace when that is the case. Right? It may be that I've worked until 7:30-8 at night

and I'm just not gonna stay here to clean this up. I'm just going to go home. It's been a long day. But [00:15:00] in general for my wellbeing, I prefer to, to have my space organized. I have files, you know, and importantly these days, so much as file electronically anyway, that we go through, probably less paper now than we used to.

But for me, yeah, it's organizing my, my workspace and where I spend many hours is an important. Personal mental wellness thing that I do not like walking into a mess or feeling like my, the visual mess is reflective of some deeper, you know, mess that's going around like, you know, internally work-wise or something like that.

That's my sense. Having said that I do know many people on our college campus that have a very different approach. People who are talented and who manage to keep up with things. But that have books stacked everywhere in piles of things all over the place, but are also responsive folks as well, who I guess occupy maybe a different space.

At least I hope they do. If I was them, I'd feel awful seeing this mess all the [00:16:00] time, thinking I need do so. So maybe internally they're like that, I don't know. Or maybe they just adapted or they never had that kind of approach in the first place. I will further say that I know people on the flip side, people with clean desks who are unresponsive or people again, with, with a mess and a half, that, that will get right back to you.

And that's stay on top of things. So 

Kyla Cofer: so the cleanliness of a desk and of a, of a, a workspace might not be an indicator of how high up you are or how well accomplished you are or how successful you are in your job. It, it really could just be the way that you function.

Gilbert Collins: I think that's possible. Yeah, I mean, professionally there could be something to be said for the way that one presents oneself.

So for example, if I have, you know, senior partners coming in my office, setting aside what I think about mess, I might not like them to come in and see a giant mess. Right? Because just in terms of representation, I think for me, I think that would look less professional. But that's just my opinion. I'm not saying that's the case for everybody but so yeah, that's [00:17:00] another factor.

Just for what it's worth, 

Kyla Cofer: I know it's just a off the beat question, but it's something I've always just kind of thought about because my brain wants it to be, Tidy, but I can't always get there. . Okay, so before we hang up here, there is one little piece that we have we would be neglectful not to mention about your championship status at Jeopardy.

and just telling our guests about you being on Jeopardy. This is not related at all to the leadership, but it's just such a fun thing and I know you're proud of that and I was so proud of you and it was so fun to watch you be a Jeopardy champion. So how many games did you win of Jeopardy again? 

Gilbert Collins: Yeah, so a few years ago I did get on Jeopardy great TV quiz show while Alex Trebek was still the host of the show at the.

and culmination of lifelong dreams I got on. And I guess your hope is to just win at least once, at least. That was my hope. Cause honestly, there's three people on the show and two of them are gonna lose. So the [00:18:00] honor's really just getting on the show period. But lo and behold, I did win once, so I was really excited about that.

So, yay. And then I went again and again and again and again. So I actually won five times altogether and one kind of a good chunk of money and was invited back to their Tournament of Champions which I think maybe aired in 2019 or so. And in there I won my first round match and got to the semi-finals of that.

So that was a lot of fun. Going to California and taping all of that and such. So that's also online. Some of that us online too in case you wanna look at that. But it was a really fun experience and went a lot better than I ever could have hoped. 

Kyla Cofer: It's just such a fun thing to know about you and it is just, it's really fun that you had that opportunity and were able to kind of chase after your life dreams.

You do a lot of chasing after goals and meeting them, and it's pretty fun to, to see and it's very inspiring. So, yeah. Thank you. 

Gilbert Collins: I would also say there's, there are lessons to be learned about leadership through that experience as well in that one thing you have to know, [00:19:00] Performance under pressure is kind of one thing that defines jeopardy.

Of course, you have to know the answers to their questions. If you don't, then you're not going to last real long there. But the fact is, you're in this, this TV studio and there are these bright lights all around you. There's an audience of maybe a hundred people looking at you, but more importantly, there are cameras around you, video cameras that represent maybe like eight, nine, 10 million people who will be watching you and who will be laughing at you if you stumble over something or you give some stupid viral response about something or whatever.

and you need to perform well despite that. You know, like setting all of that aside. So for me that was not a problem. It might be how I'm wired or I don't know, but to me, I didn't care if 10 million people are watching all these episodes. I didn't care if my family's in the audience. I didn't care about any of this

I'm just exceptionally focused on the moment on what is happening here, on what I'm being asked. Do I know the answer or. and just performing as well as I could in that moment. So see, yeah, there's interesting application thing to performance fresher and leadership, even from a silly game show like [00:20:00] Jeopardy.

Kyla Cofer: Well that, that is really interesting and it's something that I think has actually been prevalent through the whole time we've talked is your ability to do that. And yes, that you have had a lot of experiences that have led you down that path. I mean, you might not have been so successful at 19.

Because you wouldn't have had all those years of your USAID disaster experiences, your years of directorship and the Peace Corps and all of these things that have taught you when you're in pressure situations that being calm 

Gilbert Collins: actually get you further. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I agree. It, it would've been certainly very different doing that as a young person.

I don't know how I would've responded. It's a good. I'm happy I did it when I did cuz it was, you know, something that I could bring my kids to. They'll remember that forever. My kids even ended up on television because of that. And we got enough money to build an expansion on our house cuz the kids, their separate bedrooms, right before Covid lockdown started.

So that renovation of our house ended right when the kids were gonna be locked up for the next many months. So [00:21:00] the timing, if there's gonna be a pandemic timing worked out all right for that because of Jeopardy. 

Kyla Cofer: That's amazing what incredible story you have and really, I'm just honored to be your friend and and really appreciate you sharing all of that with me and our podcast.

So thank you so much, Gilbert. Yes, thank you 

Gilbert Collins: Kyla, for having me. It's been a pleasure. Yeah. 

Kyla Cofer: Awesome. Hey, thank you so much for listening. If you've liked what you heard and you want some more tools and resources to help you on your journey, go check out kyla cofer.com/free stuff.