Lessons from Kelly L. Wiltse Nicely, PhD, CRNA

Ulemu Luhanga: 00:02

Hello listeners, welcome to Educational Landscapes: Lessons from Leaders. On today's episode, we are going to learn from Kelly Wiltse Nicely. See, I knew I was going to trip up. Welcome to the show, Kelly.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 00:17

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Ulemu Luhanga: 00:19

So to get us going, what is your educational leadership title or titles?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 00:25

Sure. So I am the program director for the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, Nurse Anesthesia, DNP Program. That is a mouthful. I'm also a researcher on the tenure track at the School of Nursing. Outside of Emory, I serve as an educator director on the board of directors for the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs. They are the body that accredits Nurse Anesthesia Programs in both the United States and Puerto Rico.

Ulemu Luhanga: 00:56

Wow. Love it. I love that all the roles are very education-focused. And so I would love to hear, what do you do in these roles?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 01:06

So the Nurse Anesthesia Program at Emory is relatively new. We opened our doors in 2017 and we graduated our first group of students in 2020. So we are, like I said, relatively new. I actually came to Emory to build, launch, grow the Nurse Anesthesia Program. That's something I'm particularly proud of. Since our inception, we have had remarkable successes, 100% employment of our graduates within six months of graduation, our board pass rates for the board exams post-graduation far exceed the national average. And our graduates have been able to step into a lot of leadership roles already, even though they've only been practitioners for a few years. So we have multiple folks who have already accepted chief CRNA positions within their departments. We have multiple students who've accepted leadership roles in state or within their national professional organizational bodies. So that's something that, for a relatively new program, is pretty impressive.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 02:14

One thing we are particularly proud of, and I say we because I have an incredible team of folks that I get to work with every day, but one of the things that we are particularly proud of with our program is it was built with the idea of community. And so one of our main foci in building our clinical sites and our program is the idea of meeting our community's needs, both with the work that our students are doing, and then hopefully, after graduation, many of them will go work in these communities. But about 20% of our clinical partner sites are in rural areas of Georgia, and 50% of our clinical sites are in areas that are classified as either having being in a medically underserved area or having medically underserved populations. So that lets us meet our community's needs, as well as help train our students in unique ways.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 03:10

And then, probably, the last thing that's really related to the training of our nurse anesthesia students is I work closely with our faculty and students on their scholarly projects. So our program is a clinical doctorate program, and so they all have to complete a scholarly project over the course of three semesters that helps push our practice forward. Many of our students are doing projects that are geared towards increasing knowledge and expertise in practicing CRNAs. So things like peripheral nerve blockade placement or point of care ultrasound, skills that are relatively new in healthcare. So for example, if you're somebody who has graduated a while ago, such as myself, let's say it that way, I may not have been trained in point of care ultrasound back 20 years ago. And so this is something that our students are able to take into our clinical settings, and providers that didn't have that training, but their practice would really benefit from knowing it and having that knowledge and skill, they're now getting it from our students.

Ulemu Luhanga: 04:18

That is amazing. Congratulations to you, your team, and your students.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 04:25

Thank you.

Ulemu Luhanga: 04:27

Just to get a little more information, how long is the program?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 04:31

It's three years full-time. So the students begin in August and they graduate in August three years later. And they will do over 650 anesthetics and provide more than 2,000 hours of anesthesia care in that three years.

Ulemu Luhanga: 04:48

Mind blown.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 04:48

They work really hard.

Ulemu Luhanga: 04:48

Indeed.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 04:51

They are an exceptional group of people.

Ulemu Luhanga: 04:54

And they're doing that and a scholarly project. That's amazing. Amazing. So as I think about that, what skills do you use in order to be able to do these roles?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 05:10

I think the thing that has given me the most perspective to be able to do these things is how I grew up. So I grew up in a very, very small town in rural Michigan. We were a farming family. It was a farming community. Very few folks actually went on to college. That was not the norm. And so there were many of my family members that needed to access the healthcare system when I was a child, my parents, my grandmother, aunts, uncles. Because we were in such a rural area, we did not necessarily have access to a lot of things. So if they needed anything other than basic primary care, it was, a minimum, an hour away. But for many things, they actually had to drive three hours away to get that care, which meant they left our community. They didn't have their social support systems with them.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 06:05

But also, for example, if it was a parent, then the community had to surround that family and help that family in that time of need. So I grew up with a really strong sense of family, a really strong sense of community and understanding what it meant to be in an area where you didn't have all of those resources at your fingertips. There weren't multiple teaching hospitals an arm's length away. So that has stayed with me throughout my life, and it's something that I brought with me to Emory when I came. And in building this program, that was one of the things that we really sought to do, was to invest in our clinical partners, in these rural communities, and these underserved communities so that they would have the benefit of these students coming in who have phenomenal training, who are so excited to get to work with these individuals and really provide them great care and make sure they have great outcomes.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 06:58

But then by the same token, the students were learning a great deal from those people and from those communities, learning and talking with those folks about, what is it like in your community? What is it like that you have primary care or maybe you don't even have that and how do we get you what you need and help keep you safe and well? So that has been, I think, a driver in some of the ways that I've thought about creating this program. The other thing is I love to create. I love to be creative. I like to build things. So in getting to build and now expand on our program, that I get to be creative, I get to problem solve.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 07:42

I have learned so much in the last seven years, and I think that that's probably what keeps me so engaged in my job today, is I love to learn. I like having a growth mindset. I like being able to role model that growth mindset for faculty. I love helping the students learn to be comfortably uncomfortable. I love that you can make a mistake and learn from them, and that's going to give you some of the most valuable skills, more so even sometimes than your successes. So I think those are the things that I bring to the role and drive what I do.

Ulemu Luhanga: 08:20

Oh, that is amazing. And now you've piqued, of course, my interest as to what is your journey from rural community that has led you to this wonderful program you've been running for seven years? How did we get here?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 08:41

I'm going to say, by happenstance, in that there was a really great brochure that came in the mail when I was a junior in high school, when you start to get all of those college brochures. And I was like, wow, this is a really cool brochure. And it was from a nursing school in Philadelphia. I'm like, I'm going to be a nurse and I want to go there. And my parents thought I was a little bit crazy, but they dutifully... we got in the minivan and we drove from rural Michigan out to Philadelphia. My parents were pretty sure because I was headstrong. They were pretty sure once I got there I wouldn't want to apply anymore, that it would dissuade me, but the opposite happened, and I fell even more in love.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 09:23

And so I applied to the program, and miracle of miracles, I got in. So at 18, we loaded up the minivan once again, this time, with a whole lot more luggage. And we drove from rural Michigan to Philadelphia and I started my undergraduate career at the University of Pennsylvania. To say it was a culture shock would have been an understatement. My mom took a few college credits here and there at a local community college. And my dad's mother, my grandmother, went to teacher's college. She actually taught my dad in a one room school house in rural Michigan.

Ulemu Luhanga: 09:58

Wow.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 09:58

But my dad completed 12th grade and that was the end of his formal education. So my sister and I were really the first two in our family to have that traditional undergraduate college experience. So I didn't have a whole lot of people to lean back on to help me know how to navigate that process. I was so fortunate. I had incredible mentors at Penn, people who when I was overwhelmed and I didn't know what to do would give me that boost and those who would, when I said, "Nope, I'm not smart enough, I'm not capable enough to do that," would give me a little push forward and say, "Yes, you can and I know you can." And lo and behold, they must've seen something that I didn't see.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 10:41

So I finished my BSN at University of Pennsylvania and I went to work in the intensive care unit and I loved it, but I knew that I would burn out if I stayed too long. So I applied to graduate school and I went to the University of Pittsburgh for my master's degree. And while I was in my undergraduate and master's program, I was fortunate enough to get to have some work study positions with some really great researchers. And again, they mentored me and I thought, wow, this is pretty exciting. This is pretty cool stuff. And so while getting my master's with a specialty in anesthesia, I also did a minor in research. And again, I loved it. So I finished my master's degree, started my nurse anesthesia career and got comfortable with my clinical skillset.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 11:28

And then I applied to PhD programs. I was accepted and decided to pursue my PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. I had a great mentor, Linda Aiken, in the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research. And I finished my PhD there. Once I did that, I actually stepped right into a faculty role at Penn on the clinical track where I was doing both clinical practice teaching and research. Ultimately, I ended up serving as the program director for their Nurse Anesthesia Program. And in that role, that's actually where I met the dean now at the School of Nursing, Dr. Linda McCauley. And when she was thinking about starting a Nurse Anesthesia Program here in Atlanta, she reached out to me. She wooed me. She offered me all the things I love. I got to reinvigorate my research career. I got to create and build something new. I got to be invested in community and I thought, this is it. I've got to do it. And so I picked up my family and we came to Atlanta and I've never looked back.

Ulemu Luhanga: 12:36

Oh, that is amazing. And one of the things I must say I am now learning is the power of Linda to really connect with people previously and then bring them in, in later years, I've actually heard that in a couple of interviews I've done with folks in nursing. That's amazing.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 12:56

I consider myself so incredibly blessed to have gotten mentorship from her, guidance from her, and every day, her support lets me do things that I never would've thought possible. She's a phenom.

Ulemu Luhanga: 13:09

Indeed, indeed. It's just amazing to me, amazing how much she has touched so many people in the nursing world. I'm curious, your sister, you, who was first to have to experience that undergrad moving from home?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 13:29

My sister did. And actually, she went to a school that was 20 minutes... well, probably, 30 minutes from our house. So she did not want to go far. And she came home every weekend and had dinner and Mom did her laundry, and I was like, nope, I got to go.

Ulemu Luhanga: 13:45

You were like, let's see what else is out there.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 13:47

Yes.

Ulemu Luhanga: 13:48

I love that. Love that. Thank you. I'm curious, given the roles that you had prior to Emory and now, what do you wish you knew before stepping into these educational leadership roles?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 14:05

I wish I would have realized how much I was going to love it. So I remember very vividly being in an interview and saying, I absolutely never want to be a program director for a Nurse Anesthesia Program. There's many jobs I would be excited about, but that is one that I just never want. And the person I was interviewing with was like, "Well, that's okay because that's not what this is for." And I was like, "Okay, great." And I have eaten those words I can't tell you how many times since then because I love what I do. I genuinely love it. And I wish young me knew now what I do because I would've spent so much less time kicking and screaming, trying to avoid certain things that, ultimately, ended up being the thing that I love most. I'm so blessed to do what I do. I'm so blessed to work with people that I genuinely enjoy working with. They always talk about the joy of work. I have it. I just wish I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to avoid it.

Ulemu Luhanga: 15:10

I really love that because you've reminded me about how when I was in my PhD program, one of our faculty used to always say, "You had to go there to get here." So you had to kick and scream to then really appreciate it now.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 15:25

That's exactly it. And it's a miracle to think that we all get where we're supposed to get, even though we do our very best to get in our own way.

Ulemu Luhanga: 15:34

Indeed, indeed. I'm feeling that statement heavily. I was so sure I was not going to end off in higher ed because both my parents are in higher ed and I was like, nope, never, nope. Look at me now.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 15:49

Sometimes, it's the most vehement denials and I think some part of us knows and that's why we try so hard, but some part of you knew.

Ulemu Luhanga: 16:01

Exactly, exactly. Very true. Busy walking around campuses all my life. Duh. So I am curious, given the creativity of building programs, community engagement, what continuing professional development do you do in order to keep up with the needs of your roles?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 16:26

I would say I probably do this in both formal and informal ways. So the formal ways. I read lots of journal articles. I go to a lot of conferences, whether they're conferences about technologies or anesthesia or research, whatever they are, I'm attending those conferences. I'm networking. I'm finding out what the new latest and greatest things are. That's probably the more formal way. I would say the more informal way is talking to people, which sounds a little simplistic, but I really like getting to know people and seeing what they have done in their area of expertise, which may be completely different. It may be engineering, it may be completely outside of healthcare, it may be food service, whatever it is, and how they have streamlined processes, thought creatively, engaged with different folks because I feel like there's so many life lessons across so many different disciplines that we don't leverage, that we don't think critically about how do I bring this in?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 17:34

How can I take what they have learned and spend all this time developing and modify it to be something that really works well for us? So I really enjoy talking to people, hearing their stories, and thinking about, well, that's a really cool idea, how do I leverage that into something that would work for us? And then I would also say I am constantly cultivating mentors and I'm constantly revising how I mentor. I'm always looking for folks that think very differently than me, which naturally makes you uncomfortable. We always want to surround ourself with like-minded people. But I really always try to seek out mentors that are different than me. I don't necessarily always need a hug and a big pat on the back but I want somebody who's going to push me a little bit and who's going to challenge what I'm thinking as the status quo. And so I try to do that with my mentees as well. So see, those are probably some formal and then, probably, even more informal ways that I try to make sure that I stay both current and on the edge.

Ulemu Luhanga: 18:47

Love it, love it. And that knowledge translation from other spaces, I think, is so important, but sometimes is missed by people, how powerful it is to bring an idea from another specialty or area. So one of the things I love is when people mention conferences because people will be listening to this, do you have any you would recommend for folks to look at?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 19:12

Oh, gosh. I would say it really depends on what it is that you are seeking. So I love to go to my professional organization anesthesia conferences, especially those with my other educators. I learn a ton from the other anesthesia educators around the country. Pain conferences, I attended IASP a few times. They're a phenomenal conference. They are just incredibly intelligent folks from around the world. I have attended a number of diversity conferences, where I have learned a great deal that I didn't know, I didn't know, and that has been really helpful for me and learning that it's okay to say, I don't know, I don't understand. Can you teach me? Can you help me? If I'm using incorrect terminology, please, just correct me. I'm open. Those are some of the places I like to go.

Ulemu Luhanga: 20:05

Love it. And building off of that question, what advice would you give someone interested in doing the same type of roles that you've had?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 20:16

I am a firm believer that a rising tide will lift all boats. So I worry that in academia, sometimes, competition can hinder folks. So I always recommend finding the most accomplished people you can to join your team and then make it your mission to provide them with the resources and support to do the things that they love. If people love what they do, they're going to want to spend time doing it, they're going to want to spend time with their colleagues teaching them and helping them learn and grow. And then you'll find that the work that you're doing, you're able to do it better, faster, stronger. And in turn, it creates this self-fulfilling prophecy of greatness. So not being threatened to find people who know things that you don't know and who are smarter than you and more accomplished than you, I think you're going to grow and you're going to help them grow because you're going to be the driver that's going to find them the resources to do the things that they love.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 21:17

Here in our program, I've been really fortunate, we've got exceptional faculty, CRNA faculty. So we have Dr. Katie Cole. So she has a passion for simulation, and she came to us and said, "I'm really interested in getting involved. I love simulation, I love education." And so we were able to support her getting her certification and simulation education for healthcare. She then overhauled our entire simulation program for our nurse anesthesia trainees, and it is now one that is benchmarked across other programs. She teaches this wonderful debriefing. She's a powerhouse. And she was excited and she knows more about it than I could put in any part of my body, but yet she has reinvigorated and done so much for the program.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 22:08

Dr. Erica Moore, she's the assistant director for the program. So she is a national leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion. She's done fellowships in this space. She has scholarship work in this space. And our program would not be what it is without her helping to, A, teach me and to see things that I don't see and help educate me on things that I don't have that lens or perspective for. And to help grow and create an environment that is open and inclusory. So surrounding yourselves with those types of people every day is going to, I think, drive a program and make things that you're building better and better. But just know that, that rising tide, your boat's going to go up, but everyone else's boat is going to go up too, and you should want that for those folks. Don't make it a competitive environment. Make it an environment where everybody can be successful.

Ulemu Luhanga: 23:07

Oh, I really love that idea of the... because I am totally visualizing it as the boat is rising and the tide and everything. And so that, I feel like, is very linked to succession planning. So can you tell us a bit more about how you view succession planning?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 23:25

I think many places don't do succession planning well. I think it often occurs at a time when somebody has already decided to move on, and it's just assumed that the next person in line is both prepared and willing to step into that role. I think those are some pretty big assumptions because depending on where people are in their lives, they may not want to step into that role. I often think that sometimes, leaders are often too worried about losing their position, that if they teach their colleagues too much, then their position will be threatened because someone else is going to want to step in and steal it.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 24:06

Again, I have a very different perspective in that I want my legacy to be that what I have built is, not only successful, but sustainable, because if it's not sustainable, then it's not a good product. So in order for that to happen, whoever succeeds me in this role has to know everything that I do, and then they have to have the freedom to see the areas of opportunity that I can't see anymore because I am sitting there in the middle of the forest of trees. So giving them the freedom and the safe space to speak up and say, I think we could do this a little bit better, and here's an idea that I have, what do you think?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 24:47

I want them to know, not only that they can take over, but they actually want to take over. They want to do that. If I stepped out of my role tomorrow, I can tell you without a doubt that my team would be able to pick up and run this program flawlessly. It would not falter. I hope that they would miss me, at least, a little bit. But if I've done my job the right way, they are ready to take the reins and run with it, they would be excited about the challenge, and they would be ready to mentor the next group of people who would be ready to step in and fly when they decide to move on. But it needs to be done before that decision to go somewhere. I don't have any plans to go anywhere right now, but if I left tomorrow, my team is ready.

Ulemu Luhanga: 25:37

Oh, I love that. I use the phrase, lift as you climb, so it's like, all of us are growing together, which is a beautiful thing. Thank you.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 25:48

I love that.

Ulemu Luhanga: 25:50

So thinking about all the amazing things that you've done so far, what has been one of your greatest successes thus far?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 26:01

Again, it goes back to that idea of community and trying to create environments that I and my family and our community didn't have growing up. So I would say, my greatest impact this far has been in meeting the needs of our communities. So I have been able to teach in these communities and learn a great deal from them, and in turn, I've been able to help our students learn a great deal from the communities and give a great deal back to the community. One of the things about nurse anesthesia is that we are not a diverse field, unfortunately, and that is to our detriment. We severely lack in diversity both in our practitioner body, as well as in our educational body. So within the nurse anesthesia educational field, we are also severely lacking in diversity. So this is one of those places that I think community is important.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 27:00

So with the help of my colleagues, and I've mentioned Dr. Moore, she has been a guiding light and a true educator for me in this, we're striving to change both the look of our workforce and the look of our educational group that are teaching the next generation. So if you look at the Emory Nurse Anesthesia Faculty, half of our faculty are individuals of color, which is incredibly unique. And our student body diversity is about 50%. And honestly, the way we got here was fairly simple, when you hear it. We consistently strove to find individuals who were the best and brightest. And we were very intentional about putting out into our communities. We want the very best and the very brightest.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 27:46

We want folks who have grit, who have determination, who can be creative, and if you're one of those people, we're interested in you. Come see us. We're opening up our playing field for everybody. Everybody's equal. Everybody is welcome to come learn and grow. And we were able to attract a really incredible group of accomplished educators and an unbelievable group of incredibly intelligent and driven students. So not only are we able to exceed our benchmarks with graduation rates and board pass rates, but we are doing so with a truly diverse group of faculty staff and students who mirror the communities that they serve and can make sure that those outcomes for those communities are as strong as possible.

Ulemu Luhanga: 28:32

That is amazing to hear. Congratulations to you and your team on that.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 28:37

Thank you.

Ulemu Luhanga: 28:38

And as I listen, people can't see you but the glow you have as you talk about this, I just have to let people know, is a beautiful thing. And as you talked about community, are your students working only in Georgia communities or they get to work across the US?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 29:00

Most of our clinical partner sites are in Georgia. We do go to both Alabama and Tennessee as well for some clinical rotations there as well. And then most recently, we do have students who are now going up into the mountains of Kentucky and providing really needed care in a rural facility in Kentucky.

Ulemu Luhanga: 29:20

That is amazing. Thank you.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 29:23

Yes.

Ulemu Luhanga: 29:24

So recognizing, we talked about earlier that you are really a lifelong learner. So what would you say are your biggest growth opportunities right now?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 29:36

So growth opportunities for the program, I would say, as the leader of a program, I still think we have work to do in Georgia. I think there's a lot of areas in rural Georgia that have an insufficient number of providers to meet the needs of their communities. So we, meaning our team, our faculty, that includes the CRNA faculty and our administrators, have an idea about identifying individuals from those communities and thinking about how do we continually embed them in those communities during their training so that they're serving those communities during their school, but then also, they're ready to fly in those communities and lead in those communities immediately post-graduation.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 30:22

So we definitely have some plots and some plans there. So stay tuned for more news on that in the next couple of months or years. Personally, now that the program is up and it's flourishing, and I've got such an incredible team, I have been re-engaging in my research interest. And again, that was one of the things that drove me to Emory, was being able to re-engage in my research. And I'm currently working on a grant submission, so sleep is a foregone conclusion of loss, but fingers crossed, it will come to fruition.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 30:57

I'm particularly interested in thinking about how the opioids or narcotics that we give during surgery have an impact on patients post-operative opioid use, including long-term use, and that transition from acute surgical pain to chronic pain. So that's where my research area is. We've done a lot of work with thinking about how many narcotics we're prescribing after surgery, what kind of prescriptions we're giving folks when they get their wisdom teeth pulled and they go home. We used to give 30 Percocet for something like that, and now it's like, whoa, hold on. That's a whole lot of narcotics out in the community that are, probably, unnecessary. So we've done a really good job in that post-surgery side, but it's that black box of what happens in the operating room and what impact does it have after surgery really has been untapped. And so that's where my research interest lays. And I am hoping to, like I said, be successful with this grant or another grant and really bring that research area forward.

Ulemu Luhanga: 32:02

That is so important because we do hear about opioid addiction and how that affects communities, and so being able to work out prior to them going back into the communities is so important. Fingers crossed for you.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 32:17

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Ulemu Luhanga: 32:20

So as you reflect on what you've done so far and the people you work with, what would you say you love most about your work and what you do?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 32:32

The people I work with. I genuinely have a joy of work. I love the faculty team that I get to work with. And in fact, we are texting all the time, we're calling all the time, and it's not just work-related. Sometimes, we've seen a silly meme and we're sending it to each other. But we really have that relationship where we're all very close, both professionally and in our personal lives. We all know each other's families and our pets and all of the crazy things that happen in our lives. And I would say that's true with our students as well. We are a pretty small program. We only take 15 students a year, and so that allows all of our faculty to really get to know our students very well, and in turn, they get to know us really well. Having a graduate level program is nice because those students aren't 18 years old trying to find themselves. They need a lot of boundaries to help with that guidance.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 33:28

Our students are late 20s, early 30s, sometimes even a little bit older. They're established critical care nurses. They are able to run their own lives, and so we're able to create a partnership with them, where we're not friends, we've got to keep that boundary a little bit, but we are colleagues, we're nursing colleagues, and we can have relationships with them where we are a family unit, and that if they need help, they can call us. We can reach to them and say, "We've got this great opportunity. We want to have you guys engage with it, who's interested?" So truly, the best part of my job is the people. It's my co-faculty. It's the students. We've talked about, Dean McCauley. I love just sitting and talking with her. I learned so much just by the way that she thinks. The other associate deans that I'm fortunate enough to get to work with. My job is fun, and it's fun because of the people.

Ulemu Luhanga: 34:26

That is amazing and awesome because we always hear people talk about how important it is to have joy at work in practice, and you clearly have it. Once again, just glowing, just glowing. Love it.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 34:41

I get a little passionate sometimes.

Ulemu Luhanga: 34:45

I see, I see. And I love it. I love to see it, I love to see it. So we're coming to the last couple of questions I've got for you. So first of all, overall, as you reflect on your experiences to date, what would you say your current passions are around education, or broadly, what is your educational philosophy?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 35:06

So as a faculty member who leads other faculty and as an educator in the classroom, I really want to be both a leader as a mentor and a facilitator. I want people to love learning. I want them to love analyzing what they're seeing in front of them and really critically think about how to drive things forward or how to improve things or how to make those difficult decisions to stop doing something that's always been done, those sacred cows, if you will. So across both faculty and students, I really want them to have a growth mindset. I believe in setting really high standards and expectations, but also allow safe spaces for learning moments and learning opportunities. So everybody understands that, every day, the goal is to get a little bit better, and some days, you'll take baby steps, and some days, you'll take giant strides, but you're growing every single day and you're challenging yourself and your peers every single day.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 36:13

I really do try to live this way myself so that I role model it for other people. It's not always easy. I have more than my fair share of failures, probably. But I also think it's really important to let everybody see those failures and to... I don't want to say, advertise those failures. It's probably a little too bold, but to let them see those failures because they need to know that it's okay not to be perfect. That was a hard lesson for me to learn when I had a lot of imposter syndrome, that it's okay to not be perfect, and no one actually does expect you to be perfect except yourself.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 36:50

So it's okay to not be perfect, and that it's not the mistake that's the important part, it's about what you do after the mistake that matters. We all make mistakes. It's going to happen even for the best laid of plans, so not what mistake you make, but what you do after that mistake, how you rise from that mistake, how you make sure you don't make that same mistake again, how you help others to not make the same mistakes that you did, that's the important part. We all falter but viewing your misstep as an opportunity rather than a failure is a huge life lesson that I hope I, in some way, impart in the people that I get to work with and mentor.

Ulemu Luhanga: 37:32

I love that. Thank you. And it's so true, it's such a human nature thing. It's like, we don't want to fail but we learn, hopefully, from what mistakes or missteps we make. And so that is a learning moment, and it's an important one, rather than freeze and not going further.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 37:51

And letting people know it's okay to let them see you make a mistake. People are going to like you more and want to work with you more for that degree of transparency.

Ulemu Luhanga: 38:00

Yeah. Thank you. So I know I spent a lot of time, primarily, asking you about work-related stuff, but you are more than what you do at work. So what are some things you do outside of work to help you maintain joy in life and practice?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 38:19

I have a very full home life. I have an incredible husband who is wildly supportive. We lived up in the Northeast and he picked up himself, his practice, our two and a half children. I was seven and a half months pregnant when we moved here with our third child, and two dogs, and relocated across the country. So when I say he's amazingly supportive, I would say he's more supportive than I could ever have hoped. We also, like I said, have three kids, so I have an eight, a... nope, I made a mistake, a nine and eight and a six-year-old. Like I said, I keep busy.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 39:00

The kids are engaged in school, they're engaged in sports, so I am cheering on little league baseball games as the biggest mom fan. I help coach my daughter's volleyball team. I played once upon a time, and now I get to see them learn and grow in that. I also find that when I'm struggling with an idea and I can't quite figure out how to make it work, moving helps me. So I play tennis as well. I have a match tonight I'm super excited about. So I keep myself pretty busy.

Ulemu Luhanga: 39:39

Love that. Mentally, physically, all the way busy. Love it, love it, love it. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for taking this time to share with our listeners. And before I let you go, any last words of wisdom for aspiring educators or education leaders?

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 40:00

It's a little bit cliche, but find yourself in a place where you get to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You can do more than you realize and find those people that can see your potential, who will cheer you on, who will open doors for you. Those mentors are priceless, and they will help you realize all of the dreams that you want to realize. And also know that those dreams will change, and it's okay that they change. And go with what your passion is, go with what's going to make you happy because this life is too short and your work days are too long to not enjoy what you do.

Ulemu Luhanga: 40:46

Such powerful wise words to end on. Thank you so much for your time today, Kelly.

Kelly Wiltse Nicely: 40:51

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.