The day starts around 8 a.m. with a cup of coffee in a white, basic cup. New university president Jens Frederiksen is sitting in his office that overlooks the Maxcy Quad where there is little decoration besides picture frames of his family, framed Vanderbilt degrees, his notepad and his glasses on top of the desk.
Vanessa Bolanos, director of operations, opens the door to his office and tells him he’s due at a meeting for newly-hired employees in the Bergami Center for Science and Technology. With barely two months under Frederiksen’s belt, he was speaking to eight newly hired individuals.
“Have I been there before?” Frederiksen asks. “Half the time I don’t know where I am.”
At the meeting, he says, “I’m not from around here, shocker. I wasn’t from Nashville either, shocker,” as the audience laughs.
After listening to everyone introduce themselves, Frederiksen shares stories about his time at Vanderbilt University and Fisk University.
“I just fell in love with it,” he said. “That’s probably when I realized, ok, this education thing is for real.”
Frederiksen hadn’t planned a career in academia, but said he grew to love the connections he made with people and the impact he could make on their lives.
This was a revolving theme throughout the day was the idea of transforming lives. Frederiksen would take it from interview to meeting to dinner.
“There is an opportunity for schools that are really sort of true to the mission of higher education being transformative and really preparing people for amazing careers across the board,” he said. “And I think we need to fall squarely in that.”
After posing for a group picture with the newly-hired university employees, he walks through Maxcy Quad to his office holding his pink tie to his chest so it wouldn’t blow in the wind. He acknowledges anyone who crosses his path with a “Good Morning” or “Hi, how are you?”
Through the morning, coffee cups and water bottles are piling up on Frederiksen’s office desk.
Just before noon, he goes to his next appointment, an interview with Doug Whiting for the University of New Haven’s magazine.
Sitting across a table from each, both men held notepads. The reporter, Whiting, has his yellow journal ready to take notes, but Frederiksen, the interviewee, also has a notebook and pen ready to go.
The questions go to tennis. Frederiksen said much of his childhood was formed around the sport. He said his professional tennis career failed because he was not “conditioned to sort of go the extra mile,” so necessary to rise in the rankings.
From there, he decided to go to school in the U.S. because he could play tennis and go to school.
Frederiksen and his wife May both attended Vanderbilt. May was a professional golfer and left to go on tour during her undergraduate years. The two reconnected while she was finishing her degree and Frederiksen was in graduate school.
They eventually had two children together – Gunnar, a son and Lilly, a daughter.
“As a parent I think you have to have the willingness to put somebody else before yourself and sell the ability to do that and…It’s been an incredible experience,” Frederiksen said.
Of his time at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. with nearly 900 undergraduate students, Frederiksen said, “I like very personal interactions and that’s sometimes hard to recreate in big settings.”
He said students would come in and out of his office looking for guidance and support.
One of those students couldn’t stay at Fisk for another semester. Frederiksen met with the student and her family to discuss options.
Frederiksen said, “If you were my daughter, what I would do is get an associate degree at a community college and a job.” She recently contacted Frederiksen and said she is doing well and stayed on track.
Frederiksen said, “There is a right way of doing the hard thing and you got to make it personal.”
Bolanos knocks on the door to let Whiting and Frederiksen to wrap it up so Frederiksen can stay on his tight schedule. As he makes small talk about getting back out on the golf course, Frederiksen walks Whiting to the door.
After lunch, he meets with a mechanical engineering student and finds they share a barber in Milford and a love for tennis. When Frederiksen asks about the student’s future career, the student mentions different companies. Frederiksen suggests coming back in the fall to discuss how an upcoming internship has gone.
Shifting gears, Frederiksen prepares for the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony in Bucknall Theater. Patting his pants pockets, he checks with Bolanos if she is leaving because he didn’t have his office keys.
Bolanos assures him she will be in the office.
At the theater, people flooded him with handshakes and hellos as he made his way to the front.
As the ceremony concludes, Frederiksen walks back to his office facing a few more meetings and a dinner.
Soon enough, he will be able to relax and get into his pajamas, a sign that his workday is over. “If I’m not wearing pajama pants, it means I’m at work,” he said.