WGU Alumni Podcast
WGU’s alumni network now has more than 350,000 graduates living in all 50 states. The WGU alumni podcast highlights the incredible work that our alumni are doing in their local communities. We also share benefits, perks, resources and partner information to help our graduates stay engaged and get the most out of the alumni community.
WGU Alumni Podcast
How education and inclusivity champion empowers others (Cole Frandsen-Smith)
On this episode of the WGU Alumni Podcast, learn how Cole Frandsen-Smith, a 2023 WGU graduate in Human Resource Management, has become a strong champion for education, inclusivity, and the power of community.
Also, learn how Cole's life, and that of his family's, has been enriched by the example of his mother and how her referring Cole to WGU has had a ripple effect upon many others.
Welcome to the WGU Alumni Podcast. Here you'll learn more about our alumni network, the amazing things our graduates are accomplishing, and you'll find ways to make the most of being a part of this ever-expanding WGU community.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome back to the WGU Alumni Podcast. We're thrilled that you are tuning in yet again, everybody. It is Jeff Burton, joined by co-host Robert Sullivan.
Speaker 3:Hi Robert, always good to be here. Jeff Co-host a generous title. Thank you for having me to talk about our amazing alums.
Speaker 2:Well, robert, that's one of the things that I've worked with you over the last six months or so and I know that you were very passionate about the success of our alumni, the growth of the community and all of the good things, and so I love doing these with you because I know that you're very passionate and you love to highlight the stories. And we've got another great story, somebody that you know well, cole.
Speaker 3:Yeah, who we're going to interview today. That's right, and I don't want to play favorites, because every one of these stories is amazing. But Cole has to be one of my favorites and that's because I got to know him a little bit more personally. We got to work together for a short time and a great example of an alum and of what I hope for all our alums. Right Like I would love to still be working with Cole on a daily basis, but what I love more is to see Cole succeed in the field that he wants, doing the job that he wants.
Speaker 3:Doing the job that he wants and just seeing that growth. And that's what I love about all our alums is to see them get the credentials and the skills they need from WGU. But don't end there, but actually continue to progress, not just right after graduation, but a year, two years, five years, 10 years. Where do those skills take you? And Cole's a great example of that and not just by doing what WGU teaches well, and that's progressing in his career, but being an evangelist of that to so many people.
Speaker 3:I think that's exciting about Cole.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think it's interesting. You talk about evangelizing, and one of the things that's probably not unique to Cole's story although Cole's got a fantastic story in this regard is that a lot of our students find us through referrals, either through a colleague, through a family member, right, somebody that they have a relationship with, and they say, oh, I got a degree here. You've got to check out WGU and in Cole's instance that you're going to hear in this interview, he actually was referred by his mom.
Speaker 2:He came enrolled at WGU, became a student, worked here for I think it was three or four years and then has since referred to his husband and his father, and so it's a ripple effect type story. And we see, that, do we not over and, over and over again?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it makes sense because people come to WGU and have a good experience we see that over and over again in all of our surveys and our interaction with students, interaction with alumni and then they want to share that good experience with other people. They want to share that ability to have those skills, have that education that furthers them in their career. And, just like WGU, we want others to succeed. Our students and alumni want their friends and other people to succeed, so they share that message with them, just like Colton, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, probably enough from us, Robert. Let's throw this to Cole. What do you say?
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's hear more from Cole. He tells the story the best.
Speaker 2:Washington State transplant, cole Franson-Smith is passionate about healthcare ethics and creating work cultures where employees thrive and belong. He earned his bachelor's degree in human resource management from WGU in 2023. Cole and his husband, dustin, enjoy traveling, exploring the Pacific Northwest and advocating for the LGBT plus community in the rural areas that surround them. Hey Cole, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4:Hi Jeff, thank you so much for having me on it today.
Speaker 2:Well, it's our pleasure. We're thrilled to catch up with you and to have you highlight a little bit of the things that you're doing in your neck of the woods. Now for background for our listeners. Cole and I have known each other. For what, cole? It's been a couple of years, would you say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, three or four at this point it feels, I tell you, time flies when you're having fun. Right, definitely does. Yeah, I met Cole actually when he was a student at WGU and also a member of our Northwest region team and then later in alumni. So, cole, we've had the pleasure to work together, to become friends, and you've always been very, very kind and just a really good guy and just you do great work. So I'm glad to connect with you in any format, but specifically to have you on the podcast. So thanks for joining.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, Jeff. I could reciprocate all of that.
Speaker 2:Well, you're kind, thank you, thank you. Now. You live in the Pacific Northwest and, as you and many of our listeners will know if you've listened to the podcast, as a university that has students living in all 50 states, we always like to ask our first question, and that is what is your favorite thing about your hometown? So you live in Yelm, washington, which is close proximity to Seattle, correct?
Speaker 4:That's right. It's a little town. A lot of people don't know where it is. If you're familiar with Washington, we are close to Seattle, close to Tacoma, Olympia. It's a great little town, Awesome. So tell me, Cole, what is your favorite thing about Yelm? I will admit when we first moved here, but right now, I absolutely love the fact that we are in such close proximity to so many outdoor activities. We are right next to a huge forested area, very close to several state parks. It's just a few minutes for us to walk down to a river park that borders our neighborhood. That's been a great experience and it's definitely become my favorite part of living in Yelm.
Speaker 2:I love that and, for those that are listening, if you've never been to the Pacific Northwest, specifically the Seattle area, it is as beautiful, I think, as any part of the country. It's beautiful and it's full of great, great people. It's beautiful and it's full of great, great people. Every person I've met from the Seattle area is very passionate about life and about the environment and about causes that are important to them. Is that accurate to say, of Seattle?
Speaker 4:I think so. There's a lot of passion up here and people are very dedicated to the things that drive them, and it's really inspiring to be part of that culture in this area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Cole, you're no exception. We're going to get into that on the interview here today. I have found you know from years of doing this that every story is unique and I love your story and, in particular, I love how many people in your personal circle have bettered their lives through the power of education.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and I'm very excited to be on today to talk a little bit more about the impact of education within my circle and our role, especially as WGU alumni, in bringing about positive impact in the lives of those people that surround us.
Speaker 2:That's great. So first I want to start with how you came to learn about WGU in the first place.
Speaker 4:That's a great question and a very interesting story for me. I was a student at a traditional learning institution and for me at that time it was not a great experience and that's not necessarily even a commentary on the traditional nature of education. It just wasn't a great fit for me and the needs that I had and so I came from that negative experience unsure of what my future was going to look like. I'd always planned on a specific career path. I thought about my options pretty early on in life and I got to this point where all of that fell apart and I did not know what I was going to do.
Speaker 4:And I was in a passing conversation with my mom, who is a WGU alumni, and she very briefly mentioned WGU I'd say it was maybe a 30-second conversation and talked a little bit about her experience and the flexibility that it offered her as a teacher to complete a master's degree on her summer break. I remember she talked about completing a degree in seven months, which at the time all of us didn't know much about WGU. So we were thinking that this is insane and you know what kind of school is this. And she talked a little bit about that and so I did some digging, I looked into it, I applied and I ended up becoming a WGU student. It all happened pretty quickly, very organically. It was not what I had planned on, but it's the pathway that ended up taking me down the road that I'm on now.
Speaker 2:And remind me what year was that.
Speaker 4:That was in 2019 that I first started my journey with WGU Okay.
Speaker 2:So you started your journey as a student, and then did you become an employee after that.
Speaker 4:I did. It was very shortly after I started as a student that I began thinking a little bit more about career trajectory, and that's thanks in part, to WGU creating that inspiration, and in February of 2020, I started my career journey at WGU as an enrollment counselor.
Speaker 2:That's great. That's great. We have a similar story. I actually found WGU as well, looking at it from the perspective of a student, and I really just fell in love with the people and the mission and just everything that WGU stands for. It was fantastic for me to join and you worked here, for it would have been about four years, is that?
Speaker 4:correct, that's right. I worked at WGU just shy of four years. I think I was coming up on that anniversary a few months before I moved on. That's great, cole.
Speaker 2:Now tell me what you enjoyed most about the culture of WGU, both as an employee and also as a student.
Speaker 4:You know I'm going to start with the student experience because that's really what kicked off my journey and inspired me, as I mentioned, to seek out a career with WGU. And when I came to WGU from the student experience, I started my pathway with a lot of feeling of failure. I was feeling a lot of shame and guilt because my previous academic journey hadn't been successful and, at the time, thinking I really don't have a lot of options. This is the only pathway that's available to me. I will admit that I didn't start with the greatest mentality To me.
Speaker 4:I will admit that I didn't start with the greatest mentality, but what WGU did, from the experience of a student, is it transformed the way that I thought about my education and the way that I had set for myself, which at the time was to obtain a bachelor's degree, and that was really the culture that I needed to thrive as a student.
Speaker 4:And so I definitely appreciated that and now, as a graduate, still appreciate that it's definitely had a positive impact on the way that I try to view myself and give myself grace in other aspects of life. So I've definitely appreciated that about the culture and, as an employee, the unique opportunity of working in higher education, specifically for WGU, being an institution that's so focused on positive disruptions in the space that they operate in. It was such a great place to find opportunity to advocate for the things that I believe in, to search for ways that we can continue to progress and especially for communities and causes that I am part of and believe in, and I feel like that really jump-started an element of my career wherein I have found joy in advocating for LGBTQ plus people in the space of employment perspectives. There are really great things happening within the WGU culture that have created a lot of thought and looking to the future in my career and life.
Speaker 2:Cole, thank you for sharing all of that. That's great background and I understand you enjoyed it so much that you referred others to WGU, correct? Who else have you referred to WGU and why?
Speaker 4:others to WGU correct? Who else have you referred to WGU and why I did and we joke about this actually within my family that it's only a matter of time, right, that someone's going to get sucked into WGU. During my time as a student, I referred my husband to WGU, who is currently working on a bachelor's degree in elementary education, and my dad as well, who actually just graduated a few weeks ago with his bachelor's degree in business management. And looking at the why, my husband's educational journey was very in line with mine. He hadn't seen success in traditional academic environments and there were a lot of factors that played into that, and after that there was just a lack of opportunity. He was working very hard and very diligently to support himself and try to navigate life and there wasn't an opportunity between then and the time that he started at WGU to continue pursuing his education. And, having always had the dream of teaching and sharing, you know, joy and perspective through classroom education, he wanted to start making progress on that goal. So I ended up talking to him about WGU and how that could get him further along on that pathway, and so he is very happily enjoying that journey.
Speaker 4:My dad was a little bit of a different story. He is a small business owner in the Salt Lake City area in Utah and a degree wasn't necessary for his career trajectory. But he saw members of his family his wife, his children prioritizing education because it had been a priority and a very important conversation in our home as youth and young adults and decided that if he wanted to impress upon his family that education was important, that that's a journey that he also needed to complete. And, similarly to myself and my husband, my dad had never really succeeded or necessarily enjoyed traditional education models and so with a little bit of you know, I like to say healthy pressure from my mom and myself and the little nudge of a family tuition discount from an employee, we convinced my dad that it was possible and we did sprinkle in a little bit of healthy competition in there as well with my dad working on a business degree at the same time as me.
Speaker 2:That was pretty fun. Well, I love that and, like I say, it's so cool to hear you talk about everybody's kind of on a different path, everybody's got a different journey and yet all of the members of your family that you've talked about, from your mom to your husband, to your dad, to yourself, everybody has benefited and everybody has accomplished their goal in completing. So mom's done, you're done, your dad's done, and your husband is still a student, correct, but approaching the finish line soon, hopefully.
Speaker 4:He is. Yeah, he's approaching right now his final terms before the demonstration teaching period, which some may know as student teaching. I believe he's in his final two terms before that, so he's nearing the end, which is great to see. That's awesome. I love it.
Speaker 2:What a cool story, cool family story. We touched on culture a minute ago, but I want to go back here. I know culture is a very important thing to you, cole. Why is that the case?
Speaker 4:I think this could be an entire podcast episode in and of itself, right?
Speaker 4:I think this could be an entire podcast episode in and of itself, right? In my personal belief system, I think that people deserve to feel empowered to pursue their any stage of life, and a lot of that opportunity comes from the culture that we build, whether that's workplace culture, academic culture or the culture that we're creating in our own home those cultures, especially when they're so deeply focused on providing opportunities to people around us. It's imperative that we're doing that out of a desire to do the right thing, simply because it's the right thing to do, not because we gain anything from it. And if we do that and we continue to work on building those healthy cultures that build people up, that give people opportunities, that bring success to those that we can influence and we don't ask for anything in return, that's going to elevate our society and lift everybody to a greater version of life where we can really capitalize on the benefits that this world has, and I think it's going to bring people together in a way that other things just don't.
Speaker 2:That's great to hear you talk about that. I think I, as a colleague of yours, saw firsthand how important culture was to you and really benefited from just understanding colleagues and understanding why culture is so important, and so I love that. And it doesn't surprise me to hear that you continue to advance culture and the importance of, again, what I mentioned earlier about thriving and belonging for all employees. I think that is so, so important Again, I've learned that from you, my friend. I want to next ask you to share a little bit with me and our audience about the work that you're doing with your employer to really enhance and expand the culture there.
Speaker 4:You're going to hear me talk a lot about opportunity, and I'm going to fully in a positive way blame WGU for this, because WGU the word opportunity is so deeply ingrained in every element of WGU and so continuing to build on my desire to create opportunities.
Speaker 4:The work that I'm doing right now is particularly pertaining to the world of healthcare ethics, and my role is building learning resources and opportunities for employees to enhance their understanding of ethical behaviors in the workplace.
Speaker 4:And in that conversation, what I'm really looking at that's culture related is the access that people have, that employees have to the learning opportunities that are presented within our organization and through an equity lens, we're seeing that, especially in frontline departments employees that are on the phone, that don't have an opportunity to meet with their teams as regularly as maybe some of the back end workers do the access to those learning resources hasn't been a strong suit, and so we are currently launching a few equity initiatives to make sure that our resources are reflecting the needs of everybody within our organization.
Speaker 4:So that's been some really great and exciting progress to see. In continuing to enhance the culture, I've also this is actually just an update as of a few weeks ago stepped into a role as one of the chairs of our company's Pride Employee Resource Group, of our company's Pride Employee Resource Group, which is a continuance of the journey that I started at WGU advocating for LGBTQ plus people in the workplace, and also because I work in healthcare, now having the chance to advocate for LGBTQ plus care and coverage for the members that take advantage of the services that our company provides, and I will always dedicate myself to advocating in these spaces, to working to make the culture a great place to be. I have to give you know props to Cambia. I work for Cambia Health Solutions. They have done such a phenomenal job to build a great work culture and I'm excited to be part of continuing that and definitely take away much inspiration from my days at WGU in bringing ideas and thoughts to the Cambia space.
Speaker 2:I'm curious if there is a leader or two that comes to mind to you as someone that you truly admire.
Speaker 4:Yes, I will answer that. I'm definitely thinking about two people right now, and these two happen to be leaders that I work with at Cambia. The first is Rebecca Nida. Rebecca is the Director of Ethics and in my career journey, as I am trying to learn from leaders to prepare myself for a role in leadership in the future, rebecca embodies empowerment. She is so focused on providing her team with the resources that they need not only to succeed in the roles that they play, but also to succeed just as human beings, and it's very much an environment of empathy. There's a lot of connection that happens and she does a great job at making sure that people know that they're valued in both a personal and business sense.
Speaker 4:And the second leader is John Addy. John is the chief legal officer at Cambia Health Solutions, and I'm thinking about John specifically through the lens of LGBTQ plus allyship. John is not part of the community, but he is the executive sponsor of the Pride Employee Resource Group at Cambia and the allyship that John shows to leverage his position and the trust that people have in him to advocate on our behalf is absolutely incredible. He brings a high level of humanity to leadership positions, particularly executive leadership positions, which I think is missing in a lot of circles and it's been absolutely inspiring to watch him work, to hear him talk about various issues and to see him in the spaces of advocacy and in his daily role.
Speaker 2:That's great. It's so important in any organization and like you've highlighted, to establish good culture, to have good leaders and good people to follow and to look up to and to admire. So thank you for highlighting those two individuals who sound like remarkable people to work with and for they definitely are.
Speaker 4:And I have to mention too that Rebecca does happen to be a WGU alumni, so that gives me a little bias in that remarkable leader category.
Speaker 2:I mean, I liked hearing about her before, but I like her even more. That's fantastic. So shout out to her. That's awesome, glad she so shout out to her. That's awesome, glad she's part of our alumni community. I wanted to ask you, as we're kind of winding down, if you were to give advice to your peers, or to maybe those that are just discovering WGU and kind of starting on their journey, what types of words of encouragement would you provide to them?
Speaker 4:I really have one thought here, and it plays into something that I shared earlier in our interview today where, as a student coming into the WGU experience, I think there are a lot of people who have come from maybe academic environments where they weren't successful for various reasons, and it's really easy to come into this feeling like it's your last chance or a last ditch effort, and that might be the truth, but it shouldn't guide the way that you feel about yourself as you're working through your WGU program.
Speaker 4:If you approach anything in your life thinking poorly of yourself, that's not going to bring success. If you want to succeed, especially using the many resources that WGU has, wgu is all about making people understand I guess making people is the wrong way to say that, but helping people understand that they have value to add to this world, to their environment, to the people around them, to their environment, to the people around them, and so I would really encourage anybody who is looking at WGU or starting a program at WGU to start by applauding yourself for taking the step to go back to school. Don't let yourself think anything other than good things about the decision that you've made and how that reflects on the desire that you have and the dedication that you have to your own future.
Speaker 2:Well, cole, as we conclude the interview today, I'd love to give you the final word on anything that you want to share, so take the mic and go for it.
Speaker 4:This is the first. There, I think, are two things that I would summarize from today that I would like to leave as the final word. The first is the ripple impact that you can have, as a WGU alumni, in telling somebody about WGU. When I had the conversation with my mom about being a WGU student, it was short, maybe 30 seconds. Student. It was short, maybe 30 seconds. It was a realistic, down-to-earth conversation. It wasn't taking an immense amount of time out of our day and it was just in passing. And what that's done is created years of opportunities, of goals met, not just for me, but for my husband, for my dad and for many others that I hope to come as we continue to talk about the opportunities that WGU provides. So please, as a WGU alumni, if you're listening to this podcast, don't underestimate the impact that you can have by even just mentioning WGU to someone for a short amount of time. It can really create a rippled impact that is far more important to the person listening than it might be even to you. So tell somebody about WGU. Be a grantor of opportunity to the people around you.
Speaker 4:And the second thing I didn't touch on this a lot, but I did talk a little bit about coming from a traditional institution. I think a lot of WGU students have that experience. I think that my journey was a little bit unique in that I did make the transition from a traditional institution to WGU at an early point in my educational career. I came, I was 22 years old and at that age was young in the demographic of WGU students. I didn't have a career, I wasn't leaning on existing competencies as heavily as others do in their WGU experiences and so coming into that I felt like really the advantages of WGU were a little bit different for me.
Speaker 4:But what I want to impress upon people that are listening to this is that WGU is for everybody and if you don't yet have a career, there's still a huge bank of valuable information that WGU is offering through its programs. And for me, the opportunity to jumpstart my career in education at the same time proved immensely helpful. And I'm now sitting at 27 years old and not saying that there's any markers of success that everybody needs to live up to or follow, but I've met a lot of the goals that I've made in my life to be financially stable, to be able to engage in the hobbies that I have traveling and such, and those would not have been possible without the opportunity as a more traditional age college student to start my career at the same time as my education. So those are really the two key things that I would like to leave with everybody. Tell someone about WGU and don't be afraid to tell somebody that maybe doesn't fit the traditional WGU mold.
Speaker 2:Well said, thank you, thank you. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, Jeff. It's been a great pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the WGU Alumni podcast. To learn more about the WGU alumni community, visit wguedu backslash alumni. Thank you to our alumni, now 300,000 strong and growing WGU a new kind of you.